ArgumentThe Totalitarian Temptation Resisted
In Hungary, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Russia, the Philippines, and other countries, strongman leaders are taking advantage of a distracted international community to reinforce authoritarian agendas. Josef Joffe writes that, in contrast, national emergencies in the West do not breed despots, nor the grasping security state. Joffe argues that those who predict that the coronavirus epidemic will facilitate an authoritarian takeover, ignore four critical points – all of which contribute to making Western democracies resilient in the face of challenges such as an epidemic and other crises.
In Hungary, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Russia, the Philippines, and other countries, strongman leaders are taking advantage of a distracted international community to reinforce authoritarian agendas (see the discussions in the Atlantic Council’s “Why strongmen love the coronavirus,” 17 April 2020). Josef Joffe writes in the American Interest that, in contrast, national emergencies in the West do not breed despots, nor the grasping security state.
Joffe argues that those who predict that the coronavirus epidemic will facilitate an authoritarian takeover, ignore four critical points:
· First, the liberal state gives far more than it grabs. In sharp contrast with the 1930s, when mass misery fueled the rise of tyrants, the Western welfare state delivers trillions in cash and liquidity to ease the pain and safeguard the economy’s future….
· Second, the so-called security state does not wear jackboots. It is armed not with bayonets, but with the consent of the governed, which is another word for “legitimacy.”….
· Third, manifest trust does not deliver a blank check, and the elected know it. The check is a loan, imprinted with a warning: “Your emergency powers, as in war, come with a sunset clause. We, the people, are the sovereign. Our prior rights are as unalienable as is the rule of law. We are not selling our birthright for a vaccine.”….
· Finally, the freedom of the press. In a real top-down system like China or Hungary, the muzzled media run on the leash of the state. They cannot expose malfeasance or manipulation, nor hold the mighty accountable. In the West, they do.
