Nigel Farage, ex-leader of the British UKIP party, speaks at Trump's campaign rally in Jackson, Miss. August, 2016.Democracy is built on the values of citizenship and the equal freedom of each and every individual. The rights and duties of each citizen entail recognition of the equal standing of every member of the political community in the democratic process. Recognition of the other is built into the fabric of democratic societies even though the clash of interests, intense political debates and febrile media shapes everyday life. Democratic politics accommodates criticism, rejection and the routine removal of parties from power; it persists in the face of intense daily conflict because there is a broad commitment to the idea of fair rules that apply to each and all and that the political process is better off with these rules than without. Accommodation of difference, in one form or another, is the bedrock of democracy. Accommodation of difference, in one form or another, is the bedrock of democracy.
Of course, this process is compromised in liberal democracies, especially those dominated by the private funding of elections, interest group politics and lobbying, media beholden to sensationalism, click-bait and lopsided narratives, and the structurally privileged position of capital. Nonetheless, what distinguishes liberal democracies from fascism and authoritarianism is the necessity for compromise and acceptance of accommodation as the sine qua non of politics. Accommodation can be, and most often is, only very thin. This minimum settlement upon which a society rests rarely includes consensus on even a small range of issues, except the minimum rules of the game. Indeed, more often this settlement is the stage on which political contestation and ideological struggle play themselves out. This is nothing new. What appears different about many contemporary challenges facing liberal democracies is that this foundation, the bedrock of accommodation, appears not only to be thin, but cracking.
Shoot first
There is always a risk in times of heightened economic and political tensions that the bedrock of accommodation is challenged and, in extreme cases, weakened. Symptoms of this can include the flare up of violence and the escalation of exclusionary rhetoric. Democracies, just like other forms of states, are not strangers to such developments. Yet there is evidence of a recent intensification of violence of diverse kinds; from terrorism in Paris, Brussels and Nice to attacks against migrants and the incitement of violence at political rallies. Terrorism is by definition the negation of the differences between judge, jury and executioner. The rule of law is collapsed into the murderous will of the terrorist or terrorist organisation. This remains true even though, of course, much of this violence stems from the delusional post-9/11 wars and failed interventions. These were wars of choice: ill-conceived armed conflicts which created a lawless postwar landscape marked by the rise of brutal sectarianism and heinous crimes against humanity. If you enter a war using the principle of cowboy politics – shoot first, ask questions later – it can hardly be a surprise that war triggers instability, lawlessness and the rise of new militant groups.
