How Strong Unions Build Strong Democracies

[Originally published on May 14, 2022 in the National Catholic Reporter. Read the full article here.]

A Review of A COLLECTIVE BARGAIN: UNIONS, ORGANIZING, AND THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY by Jane McAlevey

It is no secret that the U.S. labor movement has been dwindling for decades. Simultaneously, and not coincidentally, economic inequality has widened significantly and, more recently, U.S. democracy has begun deconsolidating. Among democratic scholars, there's been a plethora of writing on the origins and solutions to the latter but less on the interconnections between all three matters.

It is not a coincidence that the more social democratic systems in much of Europe have greater union density or, in the case of France, more legal power than in the United States. Greater power for unions means greater influence for working-class interests that include stronger universal social welfare. In A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing and the Fight for Democracy, union organizer Jane McAlevey does not explicitly make this connection, but argues that unions, and the tactics they employ to win, are necessary for the Democratic Party to win the titular fight for democracy.

Democratize the Federal Bureaucracy

[Originally published October 8, 2020 in Current Affairs. Read the full article here.]

It’s November 5, 2024. You have grudgingly accepted that you have to vote for the Harris/Buttigieg presidential ticket to stop Tucker Carlson’s fascist plan to build a moat with sharks on the Southern Border. You’ve even sort of convinced yourself that you are voting for the Democrats, and not just against the GOP, because they’ve promised (really this time!) to sign the public option into law. You’re struggling with student loans, low pay, and credit card debt, and you’re not exactly thrilled at the prospect of a Harris presidency. On the other hand, you don’t feel entirely hopeless, because look at some of the other great people on the ballot! There’s Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, running for Secretary of Labor! And Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, running for Secretary of Education! And Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, running for the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau!

Our way of selecting political appointees must change if we want bureaucracy to function stably and in the public interest. When it comes to exercising accountability over an administration’s political appointees, our current methods are fundamentally weak. The president who makes the nominations is chosen in a deeply flawed electoral system where a multitude of different issues unrelated to the bureaucracy (e.g. economic performance and judicial nominees) are in play, and where none of the viable candidates may actually share the majority of the public’s views on the specific topics that fall under various agencies’ areas of responsibility. Ranked choice voting or majority runoff elections would not solve the problem either: the president is one officeholder, and it is practically impossible for that one officeholder to represent the majority opinion on every issue. In other words, electoral reforms to our existing presidential elections, however desirable for other reasons, will not solve this specific problem.

Contemporary Geopolitical Changes and Democratic Transitions

[Originally published at Democracy & Society on October 15, 2018. Read the full article here.]

At a time when democracy is in recession and facing new challenges, it is worth looking back on essential literature written when democratic change was similarly challenged by authoritarian powers. Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, by Guillermo O’Donnell and Phillippe Schmitter, was a paradigmatic publication that set parameters and expectations for democratic transitions in U.S. policy and for democratic opposition groups in many parts of the world. Looking with a contemporary critical lens, it’s clear the sands of time have eroded the model’s validity. However, with some adaptation, the model provides some direction for new international landscape.

O’Donnell and Schmitter’s model for transition to political democracy involves the processes of liberalization and democratization. These processes begin through agreements (pacts) struck by members of the ruling bloc and the opposition. For this to happen, “soft-liners” must arise in the ruling bloc, those who recognize the need for future legitimation through elections and seek reforms. As Adam Przeworski argues in an accompanying essay, this is due to a risk-averse mindset whereas “hard-liners”, who oppose reform, are risk immune. Hard-liners are either ideologically committed to the regime or benefit too much from the current regime. The soft-liners, on the other hand, recognize that the need for some degree of electoral legitimation to replace legitimacy based on coercion or social peace and economic development. Without some transition, they face the risk of violent revolution or civil war.

O’Donnell and Schmitter make at least two crucial assumptions. First, that the alternative to democracy is unsustainable in the long run or at least there exists the conditions that will convince the soft-liners that this is the case. This may have been true at the time O’Donnell and Schmitter were writing. In 1986, the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapse and the US and broader democratic international community was moving away from supporting authoritarian regimes out of necessity of the strategy of Soviet containment. As a result, democracy was more necessary for international foreign aid and the ideological hegemony of democracy could accelerate opposition mobilization. Finally, access to foreign aid bolstered domestic legitimacy by funding development and state policies. In short, long-term regime and personal survival would require democratic reform. Today, however, new avenues have arisen for the risk averse to rely on for security, legitimacy, and foreign aid.

The Highs and Lows of the Midterms for Democracy

[Originally published in Democracy & Society on November 16, 2018. Read the full article here.]

The Democratic party performed about as well as expected in the midterm elections, perhaps restoring confidence to the electoral prediction industry. Though the success of the Democratic party in the House of Representatives can be taken as a sign that Americans are rejecting some of the more authoritarian aspects of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, the conduct of candidates’ during the campaign and after the election should leave (small-d) democrats pessimistic. The Democratic party’s new majority in the House will place a check on President Donald Trump’s power, but the 2018 midterms served to highlight the profound problems of American democracy.

The way we define what the requirements for “democracy” determines what problems we believe exist. The popular definition of democracy is a government ruled by the “will of the people.” Yet, the will of the people may include denying the protection of certain rights fundamental to political and civic participation. Thus, a more complete definition of democracy is a political regime (set of rules) which guarantees regular, competitive, free and fair elections, representative government, and the protection of essential rights and liberties including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to form associations and the right to vote.

Based on this definition, the election has seen several undemocratic actions and subversion of the rule of law. In Georgia, Secretary of State and Gubernatorial Candidate Brian Kemp refused to recuse himself from the process of certifying election results, including his own, despite the obvious conflict of interests present. Since then, through the implementation of the state’s “exact match” voter ID legislation, Kemp’s department has delayed the registrations of at least 53,000 voters, almost 70% of whom are black. Kemp’s campaign also claimed that the Georgian Democratic Party had “hacked” the voter system after both campaigns were informed of significant information security vulnerabilities in the voter registration and voter information websites. The information security vulnerabilities could potentially cancel voter registrations. Kemp’s campaign then repeated the claim of Press Secretary Candice Broce, without evidence, that “[the Secretary of State] can also confirm that no personal data was breached and our system remains secure.”

Civility, Conflict, and Democracy

[Originally published at Democracy & Society on January 31, 2019. Read the full article here.]

Recently, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib faced a barrage of criticism from pundits and the media for her plans to “impeach the motherf*****” referring to President Trump. Also recently, continuing his campaign tactic of name-calling as President, Mr. Trump called a Democratic member of Congress “little Adam Schitt.” And before both of these incidents, there was already a lively discussion on the importance of civility in U.S. politics and democracy.

To determine whether civility matters in democracy, it’s important to work from what democracy is or ought to be. Political scientist and democracy theorist Adam Przeworski defined democracy as contingent, institutionalized uncertainty. As a regime-type, democracy requires the participants in political, social, and economic conflicts to pursue their interests through the nonviolent means of elections and other deliberative bodies (union-business arbitration, the media). All societies have conflicts, but different regimes have different means of channeling those conflicts into or away from state power.

Authoritarian regimes exist because certain sides of salient conflicts in society have recognized that they can dominate the other side through force or popular legitimacy. Democratic regimes emerge when the balance of power within conflicts in society have sufficiently shifted, often due to international pressure, to require compromise by the previously dominant side or face open rebellion and civil war. Subsequent regime transitions, either democratic or partially democratic, acknowledge this shift in power. The advantage of democratic transitions for those already dominating conflicts is that they can avoid a total realignment of the conflict through a civil war and often maintain a relative advantage through the new institutional structure for a long time. Democracy is not, then, a way to resolve conflicts, but rather a way for conflicts to be resolved without violence over time through nonviolent political means. As Carl von Clausewitz once said, “War is politics by other means,” but in a democracy politics is war by other means.

Why Trump’s “National Emergency” Threatens Democracy

[Originally published at Democracy & Society on February 17, 2019. Read the full article here.]

On Friday, President Trump declared a national emergency to address the “national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.” Presidents have declared national emergencies over 50 times since the National Emergencies Act was signed into law in 1976, and Trump has already implemented three, but a national emergency has never been used to override the Congressional power of the purse.

As James Madison wrote in Federalist 58, the power of the purse was to be vested in Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, because they were the most direct representatives of the people and, in the British Commonwealth, such a power was used to “reduc[e], as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government.” Madison goes on to say the power of the purse is “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.” Congressional power over the purse is meant to ensure that no tyrant can overrule the people’s will as represented by Congress. Trump’s use of a national emergency to redirect funds to the construction of a border wall because Congress was not willing to appropriate funds for it is, therefore, a direct challenge to one of the most fundamental American democratic institutions, the separation of powers.

Consequences of the Israeli Election for Israel and Palestine

[Originally published in Democracy & Society on October 7, 2019. Read the full article here.]

On September 17th, Israelis went to the polls for the second time this year, deciding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to form a government after the elections in April was a dealbreaker. Despite Benny Gantz’ centrist Blue and White party receiving a plurality of seats, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister and leader of the Likud party, has received the mandate to form a new government. 

Given that neither bloc has enough seats to form a government on its own, it’s not clear what the 35th Israeli government will look like. If Netanyahu fails, Gantz will get an opportunity, but if he fails, then a third election will be necessary. Here are three plausible possibilities for how this all might shake out.