Prelims

Crises. ‘Poly-Crises’. ‘Permacrises’…

The terms at the head of this section are self-explanatory: we live in a time of many and constant crises. Already there has been a succession of crises in the 21st century. Like most of the sources I drew upon in the first edition of Crises and Popular Dissent (2021), I approach the concept of crisis largely in terms of actions, processes or events that cause or precipitate serious, often unanticipated, shock and/or disruption to people, institutions or systems or various combinations of them. Most crises carry the threat that things could get worse – with potential chaos or collapse and an uncertain ‘beyond’ looming. The list of phenomena widely regarded as crises since the start of the new millennium is long and varied. In approximate chronological order, this is my selection from the perspective of 2024.

9/11 – the Al Qaeda attack on the United States of 11 September 2001; 7/7 – the Al Qaeda attack on the London transport system of 7 July 2005; the Financial and Economic crisis of 2007–2008; the recurrent cost-of-living crisis; Brexit (2016) – Britain leaves the European Union; Donald Trump's election as President of the United States in 2016 and second term bid in 2024 (and the rise of other authoritarian leaders); a Global Crisis of Population Movement (Migration) and the refugee crisis of 2016; the Global Pandemic of COVID-19 (2020); the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022; the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel's invasion of Gaza and the humanitarian crisis they provoked.

Two crises crossed the whole period and will go well beyond it. They are, the disruptive impact of recent and new technologies, and the epochal planetary climate crisis – overshadowing all.

There is an academic debate about whether crises are ‘real’ or ‘socially constructed’. As Sylvia Walby succinctly puts it: ‘They are both’ (2015, p. 15). In fuller terms, crises are made by people or are natural events of various periods of time, experienced and understood as disruptive and/or painful. There is a subjective element to crises in that what is experienced as a crisis by some may not be by others – for instance, the cost-of-living crisis is likely to be considered as such by the poor but less so, if at all, by owners of supermarkets. The above list contains long-term, on-going crises, and crisis episodes, unexpected shocks or moments. However, this distinction is partly blurred in that long-term crises may produce acute episodes within their lifespan and conversely such episodes may precipitate or punctuate long-term crises. Thus, 9/11 was an acute episode of crisis in the United States that reflected a chronic state of crisis between that country and Al Qaeda and by extension between ‘the West’ and radical Islam. The succession of crises referred to above have led to the popularisation of the term ‘permacrisis’ that also implies that crises are now an inevitable and inherent part of modernity. Ulrich Beck's concept of ‘risk society’ partly explains this depressing perception (1972). Thus, negative, or partly negative developments of late modernity affect or potentially affect the whole of humanity or much of it, due primarily to globalisation and the digital revolution. Three main on-going crises with negative or potentially negative consequences are climate change, mass migration often related to poverty and the threat of nuclear destruction. The first two are aspects of globalisation, directly experienced by millions and witnessed by millions more, from various degrees of proximity. Similarly, the consequences of nuclear war are also potentially universal to the human and other species. Sylvia Walby argues that the existential dangers associated with global risk mean that it is an even greater and more urgent matter than class inequality – a traditional focus of liberal and socialist progressives (2015). Of course, achieving thriving and environmentally sustainable economies and controlling climate change could, and as many, including myself believe, should be directed to reducing inequality.

As well as threatening or producing breakdown or disaster, crises can bring opportunities to learn lessons and plan anew. Unsurprisingly, after analysing their chosen crisis or crises, most authors writing in this area, whether through urgency or optimism, turn to solutions. Ian Bremmer's choice of title for his book The Power of Crisis (2022) points firmly in the direction of using the three crises he analyses – the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate ‘emergency’ and ‘disruptive’ technologies – as an incentive to ‘change the world’. ‘History’, he states, ‘says we need a crisis… we've got several’ (p. 11). Slightly unnervingly, he cites the two world wars as examples of events that in their horror inspired aspirations to create a better world. Bremmer acknowledges that the League of Nations founded after the First World War achieved relatively little. He is more positive about the efforts to reconstruct the international political, economic and justice systems partly through the newly established United Nations after the Second World War but, as the Israel-Hamas war suggests, the system is inadequate. Hopefully it will not take a nuclear war, or sudden climate implosion to inspire a third attempt to create a safer more humane world. Surely now the threats have become too large to be allowed to run their course. In fact, Bremmer believes that ‘the human race can't survive a new world war’ and even that a ‘US–China Cold War will make effective global cooperation impossible’ (because of the damage to economic and commercial interdependency) (p. 11). As Bremmer recognises the damage and suffering are such that we must try again:

That’s why we must use the crises already breaking around us… to create a new international system that’s built for today’s, and tomorrow’s, purpose. (pp. 11–12)

As implied by the title of his book, Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (2021), Fareed Zakaria also takes a positive learning approach. Be ready next time for a similar outbreak is his message. As an anti-big statist inclined, pro liberal capitalist, his emphasis is to achieve preparedness through peaceful cooperation and exchange, rather than anything resembling a global government. However, he states emphatically ‘that markets are not enough’ (p. 57). He observes that in the United States there has been a revaluation of the role of the state by left and right. Trump caught this shifting current of opinion, ‘espousing protectionism, subsidies, immigration control, and cultural nationalism’ (p. 58). Sylvia Walby analyses the financial crisis beginning in 2008, followed by economic recession, and recommends more regulation and greater employment of wasted women's talent and labour as areas for improvement. Zakaria endorses a quite radical package of reforms – ‘(r)egulations, properly tailored; tax policies to help workers more and capital less…; major investments in science and technology; education and training ….’ (p. 74). The list goes on. Zakaria is reluctant to call this socialism … mentioning the ‘green new deal’ as a genuine and timely shift in direction from traditional left policies. Still, he praises social democratic Denmark – but paradoxically partly because it pursues a relatively open market policy as well directing substantial state/tax-payers money towards public investment. Adding Zakaria's domestic reforms to Bremmer's ideas for a form of world government equipped to reduce global risk and inequality, and the shape of a perhaps safer and fairer world system begins to appear. To complete the vision of realistic utopia, this book argues throughout for greater local and community participation and power within the context of more effective democratic global governance.

Chapter by Chapter

Chapter 1 introduces the core themes of this book and defines key supporting concepts, concluding with reference to my own values and sociopolitical perspective and a vote of confidence in the potential of activist youth as a main carrier of progressive change. Chapter 2 provides an overview of populism, vital because the outbreak of populist sentiment and movements substantially contributed to the political and cultural direction of the early new millennium, disrupting post-Cold War liberal hegemony. Two contrasting views of populism are compared: Cas Mudde's sharply critical account of populism and Chantal Mouffe's support for left and opposition to right populism. In the latter part of the chapter, I develop my perspective that ‘cultural populism’ is ‘semi-autonomous’ from political populism. Chapter 3 critically examines the core values of liberalism, commenting on its weaknesses and enduring qualities, with reference to its historical development. The roots of liberal society lie in the European Enlightenment emerging in the early 17th century and gaining momentum in the late 18th and early 19th centuries of industrial and sociopolitical revolution. Yet, contradictions within liberalism have contributed to its difficulties, including a tendency of liberal politicians to embroil their countries in overseas wars and latterly lacking either the will or imagination to innovate radically in ideas and policy. This edition adds a section on the maneuverings of China and Russia in the global south in pursuit of their own commercial and political goals, including undermining Western influence and supplanting liberalism.

Chapter 4 analyses why Britain voted for Brexit in 2016 and America for Trump in 2016 but not in 2020. The underlying trends explaining these dramatic and, for many, unexpected events go back several decades: neoliberalism, globalisation and the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment intertwined with right-wing populism. In the first 20 years of the millennium there was a deluge of books mainly written by liberals about the threats to liberal democracy. Deep, and insufficiently considered, divisions between neoliberals and progressive liberals are discussed, as are perhaps equally damaging disagreements among progressive liberals themselves that weakened opposition to Brexit and Trump. The social equality agenda is basic and necessary, but it must accommodate the changes brought about by the social movements with their roots in the 1960s that seek a wide margin of identity and lifestyle freedom, the second part of the slogan, ‘bread and roses’.

Chapters 5, 6 and 7 examine the above themes in relation to the United States, Europe and Britain, as well as factors specifically relevant to each. They are the geopolitical ‘spine’ of the book. Liberalism is further discussed in terms of two related ideologies or narratives, progressive liberalism and neoliberalism. The latter is seen by the former as a Trojan horse within liberalism, an ideology of extreme competition and capital accumulation in tension with the more humanist and socially interventionist tradition of progressive liberalism, including the regulation (but not routine state management) of markets. These two ideologies by no means cover the whole of liberalism which as a way of thinking and acting penetrated almost every aspect of Western culture and gradually much of the rest of the world. Indeed, the process of global modernisation is, for better and worse, largely a liberal one although it has provoked a variety of reactions around the world, many seeking to define their own ideologies and identities, liberal or otherwise. Conservatism, in the sense of support for traditional values and institutions, not always comfortably fitting with its modern identification with capitalism, and socialism's foundation in collective values and strong state, continue to challenge liberal hegemony both in the West and elsewhere. However, both these ideologies now also largely embrace the freedoms won mainly by the social movements mentioned above, sometimes referred to as social liberalism although this term does not convey the tough political struggles involved in achieving them. An important part of the sections on liberalism is an analysis of social democracy as an ideology and political practice that combines elements of progressive liberalism and socialism; both traditions can claim a sustained commitment to democratic and social progress that could provide a renewed basis for collaboration. However, while belief in human rights extends beyond liberalism, including many socialists and some conservatively minded people, it has a particularly prominent place within the liberal tradition.

Chapters 7 and 8 are closely integrated and build a case for a new phase of reform in British democracy. Chapter 7 briefly reviews the history and more fully the current state of populism in Britain and how it might influence the perspectives and policies of Britain's main political parties. It also presents my differences as well as common ground with Chantal Mouffe's analysis of left populism and my preference for the term progressivism as the descriptor of a proposed movement for radical democracy and social equality. Chapter 7 also reviews the state of British politics post-Brexit and with reference to populism and progressivism looks at possible directions of development. Chapter 8 drawing mainly on examples from Britain argues for a revival of progressivism through an infusion of radical democratic policy which would introduce participatory democracy into the country's main institutional systems. A major move to radical reform requires that progressive liberals, left populists and social democrats build on their shared beliefs, make common progressive cause and, equally importantly, channel the idealism and energy of younger activists. The label given to this collaborative approach to values, organisation and policy, matters less than that it does in fact happen and that its practical implications for liberty and equality are clearly spelled out. The name ‘Progressive Alliance’ or one similar could be adopted to draw together and signal to the public the direction of its reforming intent. Without such a robust initiative, the turn to the authoritarian right in parts of Europe and internationally, may last long enough to mould society in its own hierarchical and controlling image. In the United States, it is now clear that the defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election is no guarantee of a period of dynamic progressive reform, but Joe Biden's presidency with its slew of social and educational reforms, infrastructural investment and his administration's relatively competent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic gave modest hope to progressives. The desire for a more genuinely democratic, fairer and safer world has not been quenched, the countermovement to reactionary times may come soon enough….

Chapter 9 considers sociopolitical issues relating to environmental damage, climate change and human and planetary health and well-being. These are the most crucial issues discussed in this book – in a period when several other matters of major import have occurred. COVID-19 and its social effects are analysed in the wider context of humans' relationship to nature. Looking ahead, more pre-planned resource mobilisation to achieve collective goals, including to reduce poverty and improve the general standard of health and planetary well-being should figure prominently in a progressive project. The cost of being prepared could pay for itself by reducing the severity of the next crisis as well as strengthening a sense of fairness and community. There will need to be a substantial degree of international cooperation in this, given the global nature of the problems facing humanity. We, as a species, must do better and must do differently. Chapter 10 overviews and reflects on some of the issues concerning the relationship of democracy to authoritarianism raised throughout this book, including the worrying problem of why people are attracted to authoritarianism at all.

Organisationally, the book moves through three introductory conceptual and theoretical chapters, a spine of four geopolitical chapters, the next two chapters focus on solutions and policy and the final one is an author's ‘free hit’ asking mainly awkward questions about democracy – but also finding and giving some answers. References are at the back of the book. Internet references are mainly given there to avoid cluttering the text. In text, the key to references is the name of the relevant author(s) or institution.

I would like to thank several people who have supported me in this project. The in-house back-up came mainly from Katy Mathers and Lydia Cutmore and technical support from Elise Carmichael, Mohamed Imrankhan and his team. Many thanks to all. My partner Dorrie Chetty again provided practical and emotional support even as she had her own teaching and writing commitments. Special thanks to her! My good friend Jim Pey again did what he did last time by providing stimulating critique and discussion as well as some very useful material. My thanks, too, to Gavin Hinks for reading and commenting knowledgeably on several chapters. Family and friends have watched with tolerance and a touch of wonder as I performed the great (semi) disappearing act that a sizeable writing project requires. I hope they find the results of my efforts readable and interesting. In future, a much bigger chunk of ‘my’ time will be at their call – should they want or need it in their busy lives.