America's mid-term elections provide the latest example of an expanding phenomenon -- democratic governments that face no effective challenge by an opposition. More precisely, this phenomenon entails the growing number of democratically elected political leaders who do not confront alternative leaders able to gather the disaffected into a viable opposition.
The phenomenon is by no means confined to what once was the political right. Britain is nowadays experiencing what can almost be called the self-destruction of the opposition Conservative Party. For the third time in seven years the Tories are devouring their own leader, without any viable alternative leader for the party anywhere in sight.
In Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's narrow victory is made secure by the intense soul-searching now underway among the defeated Christian Democrat opposition, as well as the moral collapse of the Christian Democratic Union's junior partner, the Free Democrats.
Even more starkly unbalanced political landscapes can be found in France and Italy, where neither President Jacques Chirac nor Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi need fear their challengers; indeed neither has a challenger to speak of.
Moreover, this situation is not confined to Europe. The self-destruction of the Congress Party has left India's government unworried by any political threat from outside its own ranks. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin bestrides his country's elected Duma like Gulliver over the Lilliputians.
How and why has this happened? How, in particular, can this situation be explained in view of the fact that today's unchallenged heads of government are (at least for the most part) not towering leaders whose charisma shields them from opposition?
One reason is the ongoing personalization of politics that is taking place everywhere in the world. Whether someone is charismatic or not, voters want a figurehead, and preferably one with celebrity value. This "celebrity" may be based on personality, as with Blair and Berlusconi, or on circumstance, as with US President George W. Bush and Schroeder and Putin, but it is part and parcel of the new politics of media appeal.
Behind this, however, lies a deeper change to democracy. The end of ideology has been invoked so often that one hesitates to repeat the phrase. Still, it is a fact that in all cases of governments without effective opposition it is not easy to formulate an electorally viable alternative policy to challenge the leaders.
Putin is perhaps the most extreme in this regard, but Blair and Berlusconi are not far behind in possessing this "pol-icy immunity." They could form coalitions with anyone, not least with each other, whatever their traditional political affiliations may be. It is difficult to trip them up by offering alternative policies in any field.
However, this condition may not last. In at least two respects, alternative policy options are beginning to emerge, and these may one day dominate public debate.
Domestically, there is an obvious difference between advocates of a "European model" of social and moral capitalism and others who adhere to the neoliberal "Washington consensus" that Europeans associate with the US economic model.
Internationally, the clash between unilateralists and multilateralists is not confined to the US. Some see it, in present circumstances, as a clash between peace by negotiation and active, even pre-emptive intervention.
Then there are the great unspoken issues. Law and order is on the agenda of most governments, but many voters feel that it still does not have proper prominence. Immigration is regarded as a deep threat by many people, so that demagogues are increasingly able to marshal resentment and grassroots support.
In the EU, European integration is taken for granted by most political parties in the older member states of the union, but a sizeable portion of these electorates have doubts about it, and in the EU's candidate countries, the doubts run even stronger.
Thus, despite today's political quiet, major cleavage between apparently unchallenged leaders and shifting popular moods may be gaining strength below the surface.
This disquiet is expressed in several ways. One is through voter apathy. Most of the leaders mentioned earlier command a strong loyalty from only a small minority of their total electorates, so their legitimacy is dubious. Another takes the form of "opposition by media." This has become an issue in a number of countries and it has led some governments -- as Putin's did recently -- to try to curb freedom of expression.
Then there is the tell-tale emergence and disappearance of protest parties like the Dutch groups gathered by the murdered Pim Fortuyn. The tale they tell is one of the failure of democratic institutions as they now stand. This tale is further underlined by the growing role of "the street," of demonstrations of public irritation focusing on particular issues but really directed against unchallenged governments.
The result is a worrying combination of creeping authoritarianism among those who rule with a growing unrest of the ruled. As is so often the case, there is no patent medicine against this syndrome. However, the crying need for an effective institutional, usually parliamentary, opposition is evident. Governments without opposition pose a threat to democracy itself. To defend our liberty we need domestic democracy at least as much as a readiness to attack whatever "forces of evil" may exist elsewhere in the world.
Ralf Dahrendorf, the author of numerous books, is a member of the British House of Lords, a former rector of the London School of Economics and a former warden of St. Anthony's College, Oxford.
Copyright: Project Syndicate and Institute for Human Sciences
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