My friend, Winton Bates, with whom I’ve had many wonderful exchanges, has published a very thought-provoking essay on his Freedom and Flourishing blog, which asks the question: “Can the concept of political entrepreneurship help us to understand authoritarianism?” As Winton puts it:
I discuss the relevance of the concept of political entrepreneurship to an understanding of political outcomes that have substantially affected personal and economic freedom in different countries. The essay has a particular focus on authoritarianism. My understanding of that concept is based on the view of Hans Eysenck that people who have an authoritarian personality are attracted to the possibility of oppressing others. People who have authoritarian values see such oppression as justified. Authoritarian governments oppress people by restricting their personal and economic freedom to a greater extent than other governments.
The essay focuses on political outcomes which seem incongruent with underlying cultural values in a range of countries. It suggests that political entrepreneurship has influenced the ideologies currently reflected in personal and economic freedom in those countries. It also considers the current role of political entrepreneurship in harnessing cultural and economic grievances to pursue a range of different ends in the liberal democracies.
Winton goes on to argue “that cultural values do not fully explain authoritarianism”; indeed, “the ideologies of some governments are at variance with cultural values. He then goes on to consider whether a socially conservative cultural backlash to the “illiberal synthesis” of progressivism played an explanatory role in the recent rounds of global political change. I agree with his argument “that the longer-term slowdown in economic growth in the liberal democracies might be more important in generating support for populist policies than are grievances that can be related directly to the impact of import competition or immigration.”
Winton then considers the concept of “political entrepreneurship”, in which a “political entrepreneur within a major political party challenges established leadership factions by offering a product that is more appealing to supporters of the party.” In many respects, this is a kind of public choice twist on the Austrian-school concept of entrepreneurship. For Austrian economics, entrepreneurs are alert to, anticipate and act upon, perceived opportunities, taking risks and organizing resources, learning through a process of trial and error, how best to meet unmet needs. Winton explains that political entrepreneurs “advance their political ambitions by focusing on niches in the marketplace of ideas that established parties do not satisfy, and on winning support by emphasizing the problem-solving capacities of their ideas. For example, the entrepreneurial strategy of far-right parties is their ‘nationalist and nativist core ideology’, leading to policies such as immigration restrictions that are claimed to solve a range of problems.”
Of course, Winton points out that such political entrepreneurs come from a variety of ideological perspectives, honing their skills “to persuade large numbers of people to accept false narratives,” which, in his view, poses “an increasing threat to liberty in the liberal democracies.” He concludes that the “role of political entrepreneurs is most apparent in those countries where underlying cultural values are less supportive of economic and personal freedom” and that that role “has been more constrained in those liberal democracies where the institutions of representative government have been respected for many decades.”
Alas, when those institutions begin to wither, there is a real danger. Winton emphasizes:
Recent political developments are raising the question of whether cultural change in some liberal democracies has emboldened some political entrepreneurs to challenge conventions regarding government respect for judicial rulings on the legality of their activities. Governments that do not perceive themselves to be bound by judicial interpretation of laws and constitutions are unlikely to have much regard for individual liberty. Any government which claims that its actions are beyond legal challenge because they reflect the general will of the people is showing obvious signs of authoritarianism.
I commented briefly on Winton’s post yesterday, and he attached this addendum to it. I wrote:
I just read the essay and enjoyed it; I’ll have to give a bit more thought to it. You make some very good, persuasive points, though there are some claims that I need to process a bit more. I think the whole concept of political entrepreneurship has some weight here. I wonder how, for example, it might mesh not only with public choice thinking, but also with Hayek’s insights about how the ‘worst get on top’ when political power becomes the only power worth having. If that’s the case, then political entrepreneurship in a populist age morphs into a kind of political con game that attacks the very roots of liberal democracy—something you acknowledge in your conclusions.
One of the issues that concerns me is that while there was a backlash against the “identity synthesis” of illiberal progressives, I don’t think that was the key factor that influenced the outcome of the election. Incumbent parties lost all around the world, whether they were perceived as ‘right’- or ‘left’-leaning. In the US, of course, Trump won over Harris. In the UK, the Conservative Party was defeated. The Liberal Democrats lost in Japan, while in France, a coalition of left-wing and centrist parties gained ground. And so forth. I think that inflation, stagnant wages, housing affordability, etc. led most incumbents to defeat because whoever is in power is the party that takes the blame for the conditions on the ground.
That said, I also think that the “identity synthesis” on the illiberal left has only been replaced by a different kind of “identity synthesis” on the illiberal right, given the right’s embrace of nationalism and, in many cases, a virulent form of nativism, riding on profound anti-immigrant fervor. Not to mention the illiberal right’s obsession with scapegoating the smallest of minorities—like transgender-identifying people, who make up about 0.6% of the population. This is as much of an illiberal right-wing play on identity politics as anything we’ve seen on the left.
All that said, I highly recommend Winton’s essay to your attention! Check it out here.
Notablog 