Last updated: Nov. 14, 2022
To analyze the present situation of our democracies, we need to dive deep into the shared roots of western civilization. The last days of Greek democracy, one of the greatest political experiments in the ancient world, resulted in a period of agony. During this chaotic period lived an intellectual called Polybius: a distinguished military leader, politician, and one of the first historians to reveal the secrets of Greek history to future generations.
During the conflict between Macedonia and Rome in 168 BC, the Roman army crushed Macedonian king Perseus in the battle of Pydna on the northeast coast of Greece, and the conquerors enslaved Greek politicians suspected of disloyalty to Rome to send a message to the Greeks. After Polybius' enslavement and deportation back to Italy, privileged families bought him to educate their children.
Throughout this bitter part of his life, the defeated military leader managed to learn from his insights into the political dynamics of the rising empire, observing firsthand the innovation in Roman institutions as he was admitted into the most distinguished houses. He reflected on the mistakes of the Greeks. Here, the Hellenistic author reached several conclusions. First, one of the biggest flaws of the Greek institutional layout was the recurring application of pure forms of government: democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. Secondly, he found another flaw in the obsession of the intellectual elite with the number of rulers that political systems should have. In the course of his life, he attested to unending debates on whether there should be one ruler as a monarch, a few aristocrats, or an open democracy.
Polybius discovered a process of degeneration associated with the pure forms of government the Greeks constantly applied. He named this cycle of decadence ‘anacyclosis': a circular pattern where initially virtuous monarchs became brutal tyrants, and who would later fall, giving birth to an aristocracy of moral leadership. Subsequently, new generations of aristocrats seemed more interested in a life of privilege rather than public affairs, which would turn the best of elites into a sick oligarchy. As social prerogatives became unbearable, the regime would finally become a plural democracy: the rule of the people by the people. However, unscrupulous leaders of the masses would mold it into a tribal form of populism called ‘ochlocracy.’ Etymologically it is composed of ‘ochlos’ (crowd) and ‘kratos’ (power). The concept means the power for the crowd, that is, a government that relies on the masses. As a diminished form of democracy, ochlocracy implied an empowered crowd exerting its power against minorities. By the end, chaos and democratic instability caused the cycle to start all over again, with strong monarchies bringing back order.
In his work The Histories, Polybius established that the improvements of the Roman institutions laid on the overlapping elements of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. The combination balanced the power of pure forms by neutralizing their flaws and building a stable, robust, and durable regime.
The political prosperity Polybius once saw in the Roman archetype of democracy refers to what we call today ‘democratic republics’: the model chosen by the West. However, contemporary challengers seem to be hacking at the balance of republics. The virtuous cycle appears to be ending.
The Postmodern Polybian Tragedy
Republics are representative forms of government where a small, elected number of rulers administer public affairs in the name of the people. A republic differs from a pure democracy because of the aristocratic element implied in representation, while in contrast, full democracy involves the entire citizenry in the decision-making process.
By the end of 1990, with the rise of globalization, there emerged a process of political fragmentation. Political nationalism, tribalism, and populism reappeared in the form of strong leadership, from Latin America to Europe and the United States
Along with those changes came the birth of newly powerful non-state actors who helped reinforce the defects of democracy. From terrorism and narco-trafficking to big multinational corporations, their existence challenged the representatives of the people, who in many cases struggled with them on an unequal level and saw their legitimacy being called into question.
One example of this phenomenon happened this year when the European Union endeavored against the multinational tech giant, Meta (formerly known as the company that unites Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.). After weak attempts from Brussels to impose social media regulations, Meta suggested that if those regulations were implemented, Facebook and Instagram could become unavailable to European citizens. German public officials answered the company's warnings by affirming, “We will be fine without Facebook,” a reaction which forced Meta to take back its words and assure them it would not leave Europe. This kind of soft extortion, where companies endeavor to restrain laws that do not hold their interests, is not new.
According to Statista, Facebook reached almost 303 million users in the Old World. This gives young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley a unique power to lobby western nations. Their goodwill of not shutting off the most popular apps in the market gives them the possibility of eroding the political capital of any democratic administration whenever they dare to confront their interests.
On January 6, 2021, after former U.S. President Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of supporters stormed the Capitol. By preventing a session of Congress that formalized the victory of Joe Biden, rioters sought to keep Trump in power.
This attack was conceived through social media after Trump rallied his supporters by calling them to “stop the count” the day before sessions. Supremacist groups such as The Proud Boys and QAnon summoned their supporters to arm themselves and march to storm Congress. Facebook also played a role in fomenting the Capitol attack. Despite the explicit promotion of violence, none of the great minds in Silicon Valley did anything to prevent the insurrection.
Large tech companies made a demonstration of their power over politics when Twitter banned Trump’s account after the riot proved to violently threaten elected officials.
During the early 2000s, social media companies acted by giving voice to people, an act that resembled the first assemblies in the city of Athens, where the purity of human nature exhibited all its perfection and imperfections. Yet, due to the destructive cycle of purely democratic digital platforms, a public space of freedom was gradually reshaped into an open field for political manipulation of all kinds.
A conflict so complex cannot relate on any level to freedom of speech. Despite there being discussions on censorship in academic circles, the debate is not solved yet in the West. The problem lies in who guards users’ data and who takes the authority to enforce regulations on the content to which we are exposed,.dispute that lies between democratic states or private companies.
All these problems stem from within the western democratic system. In some cases where politicians intend to defend themselves, their voters accuse them of attacking their freedom through anti-establishment campaigns enforced via social media. The logic of social network behavior rewards political bigotry and hate promoting an environment where fully horizontal “democratic” masses of users run against the elites. Despite their many flaws, they are an essential piece of the republican framework. These gladiators fight a battle in an arena far away from the voting polls. Because of these internal strains, the system is deteriorating and stimulating a sense of anxiousness and unease in society. especially in younger generations, who feel that they cannot find genuine causes for the problems they suffer.
Democratic and Autocratic Forms of Control
The European Union intended to regain control of the matter in April 2022, when the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), to enforce digital sovereignty, launched the public pilot phase of two social media platforms: EU Voice and EU Video. The apps allow citizens to avoid unwanted practices like radicalization, fake news, misinformation, exposure to body shaming, and further harmful activities. Moreover, as the networks rely on the authorities of the EU, Europeans can democratically influence the policies of social media privacy and content protection through state institutions.
In both autocratic and democratic Asian countries, there is greater restriction on social media, with the state holding a strong stance on the matter. In some cases, like that of South Korea, the level of restraint on the internet comes close to censorship, with massive regulation over pornography and pro-North Korean posts. In 2002, the government of South Korea passed the Telecommunications Business Act, creating with it the Internet Communications Ethics Committee (ICEC). The latter monitors the web and makes recommendations for content to be removed. Despite not being a desirable solution for the issues of the West, the case illustrates how they can enforce regulations over the internet if democratic states allow it. No one can seriously accuse the South Korean government of totalitarianism.
On the autocratic side, the Chinese Communist Party decided to exercise protectionist closed market policies for its big tech giants: Tencent, Alibaba, and China Mobile. Even though private businessmen own many of these companies, the state showed its strength in enforcing regulations. In August 2021, the government announced new rules to limit gaming time under the age of 18. This marked a massive regulatory intervention designed to tackle addiction. Graham Webster, a research scholar at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, affirmed this decision, stating, “The rest of the world should pay attention…In some areas, China’s government moved more quickly than other major markets in developing and putting into effect regulations.”
Where do we stand?
The power to influence societies that elect their rulers is key to modern ochlocracy and populism. But when it lies outside democratic institutions, they become empty shells used to fulfill external interests. However, the West should not be afraid of enforcing democratic and digital sovereignty over the technological sphere. Laws against body shaming, grooming, and content protection should be voted on by the representatives of the people in the legislature. They should also be imposed by states that desperately require the technical capacities to establish regulation on the internet.
Republics conjugate shared values enforced by common laws, not submissive institutions to be bullied around. Giving republican democracies a chance to impact the internet will help to restore faith in their institutions. Citizens will see the effect of voting and participating in public debate because the decisions of their representatives will comply with the complexity of our postmodern life.
Tobías Belgrano holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from the Catholic University of Argentina (2017) along with a Master’s degree in Government Affairs from Buenos Aires University (2020).
