The Grand Old Duke of Athens

Alex Tsipras has caved in to the demands of Eurozone creditors. He rightly claims that he has no mandate to leave the Eurozone. However he also has no mandate to accept the creditors’ demands. In the referendum that he called, Tsipras convinced the Greek people to vote decisively against accepting an austerity package very similar to the one he is now recommending. The Greek parliament’s approval of the package last night is an empty formality that does nothing to conceal the final surrender of Greece’s sovereignty and with it any remaining pretence of self-government. The parliamentary majority that Tsispras commanded was made up of the utterly compromised Syriza and the opposition parties whose arguments the Greek people decisively rejected in the referendum campaign less than a week before.

The contradiction in Syriza’s strategy and its mandate has been fully exposed. From its election as a government to the referendum, Syriza convinced the Greek people to vote for something that was not possible: staying in the Euro without the austerity that was the condition of staying in the Euro. This strategy has now come unstuck, as it was bound to. Faced with a stark choice of leading their country out of the Eurozone or giving it up to the control of Eurozone leaders, Syriza has opted for the latter. At the time of writing, it is still possible that the Eurozone will decide to kick Greece out, notwithstanding Syriza’s capitulation. But whatever the outcome, democrats need urgently to assimilate the lesson of this political debacle.

Tsipras and Varoufakis claimed that they could use the Greek people’s support in elections and the referendum to increase their bargaining power in an intergovernmental forum. They discovered that there was no truth in this claim. They fatally misunderstood the nature of the Eurozone and the EU. These are not institutions in which different sovereign nations reach a compromise on their interests, as they erroneously believed going into the negotiations. They are institutions in which national governments agree to subordinate their national will and interest to a set of technical rules dictated by market imperatives. As Syriza discovered, this institutionalized self-limitation of national sovereignty by European governmental elites is implacably hostile to the idea that policy should be accountable to electoral majorities. The essence of the Eurozone and the EU is anti-democratic.

Instead of being straight about this with his supporters, Tsipras, like the Duke of York in the English nursery rhyme, marched the Greek people up to the top of the hill only to march them back down again. This futile manoeuvre failed to cover up his retreat, and it is likely to have a profoundly subversive effect on democratic politics in Greece and beyond. After months of populism Syriza have flipped and now do the work of the technocrats. Voters have been forcefully reminded that neither their votes nor their views count for much in contemporary Europe. Many will react to Syriza’s capitulation with resigned acquiescence, while others will simply turn away from representative politics in disgust. The worst of it is that many people, and not only in Greece, will take away the lesson that democratic political action is impotent in the face of market power.

To have any chance of reversing the effects of this disaster, democrats need to be realistic about the anti-democratic nature of European integration and recapture the idea of popular sovereignty from the populist right.

Peter Ramsay

Italy: populism versus technocracy?

Article originally published here with Le Monde Diplomatique

Written by The Current Moment co-founder, Chris Bickerton, and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

Italian politics has reached an impasse. In last month’s elections, the vote split three ways. A roughly equal proportion of votes (almost 30%) went to the centre-left coalition led by Pier Luigi Bersani and to Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition. Ahead by a fraction of the votes for deputies, the centre left won a majority of the seats in the lower chamber. But with the regional basis for the senatorial elections, no corresponding majority was produced in the upper chamber. The third block, which secured roughly 25% of the vote in both chambers, is Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S). Since the other two blocks are coalitions, M5S actually stands as the single largest political party in the parliament. Mario Monti, who headed the Civic Choice party and whose decision it was to have early elections, secured just over 10% of the vote, leaving him far behind in fourth place.

How will this impasse be overcome? The media are full of speculation. Some predict new elections, others some sort of political bargain between the main players. Grillo is so far refusing to strike deals with any side, making new elections likely. But beyond the political quid pro quos, we can draw broader political lessons from Italy’s election, which also illustrate more general structural trends in European politics.

Several commentators have pointed out that the traditional left-right axis appears to be ceding ground to a different polarity, structured around the opposition between populism and technocracy. The successes of Grillo and Berlusconi were denounced by the leader of the German social democrats, Peer Steinbruck, as the victory of two “clowns” – an assessment taken up by the German media and by The Economist. Yet, opposed to the “clowns” are figures like Bersani and Monti, considered more serious and reliable. More than any concrete difference over policy, at issue is the competence, seriousness and expertise of the political actors: Mario Monti is cast as Italy’s technocrat-in-chief, Grillo as his populist nemesis. Even Bersani himself played the card of the responsible centre-left leader. In an effort to distinguish himself from Berlusconi’s campaign, which blamed Italy’s ills on Monti’s EU-backed austerity agenda, he firmly committed himself to respecting Europe’s fiscal rules.

While this opposition between populism and technocracy is emerging as a fundamental dividing line in Italian politics, the electoral campaign illustrated something further: it suggested that populism and technocracy entertain a far more complex relationship with each other, which involves some unexpected points of contact and elements of complementarity. Many of the key players and party coalitions actually seem to display several of the distinctive features of both.

Reading the Italian election results through this lens may help us to make better sense of them. It also warns us that there is something amiss in the common opposition between European technocrats and national populists.[1] These political categories are part and parcel of the changing nature of national politics and mapping them onto a clash between atavistic nationalists and dry Brussels bureaucrats only reproduces the Eurosceptic discourse.

Let us begin with the figure most widely seen as the victor, Beppe Grillo. It is clear there are several characteristically populist elements in his political style and in his message – the attack against the established political order and elites, the appeal to the wisdom of the ‘ordinary man’ and the central role of Grillo himself as a charismatic authority figure. Yet few commentators have noticed the more technocratic side of his movement. A recurring element of Grillo’s rhetoric is the claim that the Five Star Movement is neither left- nor right-wing but, rather, interested in proposing “effective solutions” to “concrete problems”, thus going beyond “ideological disputes”. And it is in this spirit that Grillo has claimed that even though his movement will not enter into a coalition with any other political party, they are open to giving their support to specific policy proposals, to be evaluated on a case by case basis “on their own merits”. Far from the ideological discourse we are used to associating with traditional populist movements, Grillo’s flaunted pragmatism suggests that if he is to be considered a populist at all, we may have to admit the existence of a new specifically ‘technocratic’ populism. The Five Star Movement’s programme reinforces this impression. It is a long list of concrete measures, backed up with evidence from local experiences: there is no justification of the underlying values or assumptions of the movement, and no political vision. Challenging the empty professionalism of career politicians, Grillo claims that his parliamentarians, selected from all walks of life, are the real experts.

Mario Monti, the great loser in the election, presents the inverse picture. The respect he initially commanded, domestically and internationally, stemmed from his credentials as a competent technician. The moment he decided to forego this a-political stance and enter the electoral contest, he revealed something about the way technocrats understand the notion of politics. For him, becoming a politician meant trying to dumb down his message in an effort to appeal more directly to what he thought were people’s real concerns. This led to several awkward moments in his campaign, where he appeared to be desperately trying to use some of the same theatrical tricks as a Grillo or Berlusconi, without any of the flair. The image of the erstwhile sober European commissioner holding a puppy on TV and trying to endear himself to viewers by saying “I can feel its heart” was perhaps one of the defining moments in his campaign. Just as Grillo appears to be the harbinger of a new kind of ‘technocratic populism’, has Monti created the opposite image, as some kind of ‘populist technocrat’?

Bersani’s failure is different, but falls within the same basic framework. The leader of the centre-left coalition had the opportunity to break out of the technocracy-vs-populism model and present a properly political programme focused on the pan-European debate about austerity versus growth. For the Italian Democrat Party, this would have meant challenging some of the basic assumptions of the austerity framework and contributing, by way of substance, to the question of growth in Italy, and in Europe. But Bersani’s party failed to do this: its overwhelming concern was to reassure doubters of its seriousness and reliability as an enforcer of austerity. During the campaign, the Democrats’ economic spokesman Stefano Fassina said his party was against fiscal stimulus and preferred an EU-level deal in which a softening of austerity measures was the sweetener, received in exchange for handing over extensive powers over national budgets to the EU. The counterpart was his denunciation of both Berlusconi and Grillo as politically and economically “irresponsible”. So the real choice in the election, according to Fassina, was between the populists and Europeanists, a position that avoided criticizing the operating assumptions behind austerity policies. Bersani frequently said that he was not against austerity and had sided with Merkel in her criticisms of Berlusconi in late 2011.

Berlusconi’s own performance deserves some comment. Initially written off as a sure loser, he managed to rally a sizeable part of his previous electorate, preventing a clear victory of the centre left. But this (relative) success did not just come from his populist appeal. Contrary to most foreign media reports, Berlusconi did not transform himself into a German-bashing anti-austerity advocate; his attacks on Merkel were a very small part of his overall campaign. The key to his appeal has long been his capacity to combine a specific brand of populism with a more familiar technocratic discourse. His public persona, his identification with the Italian people, the emptiness of his party and the dependence on his charisma all point to a populist figure. Yet his constant references to himself as a businessman rather than a politician, his managerial and corporate approach to politics, and his emphasis on numbers and ‘practical’ solutions are closer to a technocratic discourse. This combination highlights the similarities between Berlusconi and other prominent political figures in Europe, such as Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy.[2]

This all suggests that populism and technocracy are not two poles of a new political spectrum, replacing the erstwhile contest between left and right. Nor does this division map onto a confrontation between nation-states and supranational bureaucracies. Populism and technocracy amount to complementary political styles, not to different political programmes. In fact, their strength comes from the fact that national political life is no longer organized as a contest between competing world-views. It is because there was little to separate the political programmes of the centre left, centre right and the M5S movement that the opposition between populism and technocracy captured the imagination of the media and analysts. Monti tried his hand – very awkwardly – as a populist whilst Grillo’s adherence to evidence-based policies and refusal to present an integrated, ideological vision of change makes him as much technocrat as populist. Berlusconi has combined these two styles for years. And Bersani – fleeing any real engagement with the debate about austerity and growth in Europe – hid behind comfortable reassurances about the safety of a Democratic Party victory.

Why should populism and technocracy emerge as the dominant political styles of our post-political age? The answer lies in their common affinity over political representation: they share an open hostility to parties and to parliaments. The technocratic vision is based on a very clear critique of the partisanship of elected assemblies and the inherent bias of party cadres. Monti’s strength was his distance from party politics. As soon as this disappeared, his aura evaporated. Grillo’s movement is equally hostile to parties and parliaments. Its operational logic is that of sensible local initiatives raised magically to the level of national policy. Its campaign was not about issues or ends; it was about the veniality of the political class itself. Populism and technocracy are the political styles that best correspond with widespread public cynicism and an elitist disregard for majoritarian democracy. They are symptoms of the demise of politics, not expressions of its renewal.

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[1] See for instance Mark Leonard’s much publicized essay, Four Scenarios for the Reinvention of Europe, published in November 2011.

[2] On the similarities in political style between Berlusconi and Sarkozy, see Pierre Musso’s 2008 book, Le Sarkoberlusconisme (Paris: Aube). On Tony Blair, see Peter Mair’s 2006 essay, ‘Ruling the Void? The Hollowing of Western Democracy’, New Left Review, 42, pp25-51..

Italy: the return of politics?

Originally published on the 14th December in the Monde Diplomatique

Last Friday, the secretary of Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing People of Liberty party launched a vitriolic attack against the technocratic incumbent, Mario Monti. Stating clearly that Monti no longer enjoyed the support of his party, Angelino Alfano’s goal was to prepare the ground for Berlusconi’s return to Italian politics. Monti responded by calling everyone’s bluff. He promptly resigned, brought elections expected in the spring of next year forward to February, and made it clear that the rising borrowing costs and tumbling market confidence that followed were all Berlusconi’s fault.

Monti’s move reveals the shallow political foundations of today’s interim resolution of the Eurozone crisis. Temporary stability was bought in Italy via the suspension of partisan politics. In the 1970s and 1980s, economic and political crisis saw the ushering in of military rule in Greece and Turkey. Today, technocratic rather than military solutions are preferred. This was seen at the national level in Italy and Greece with governments led by Monti and Papademos. In Spain, Greece and Ireland, it was managed via bail-out agreements brokered between national and European officials. In the Portuguese case, its bail-out was carefully timed so that it would be finalized and signed off by a caretaker government. The incoming government elected in June 2012, led by Pedro Passos Coelho, was then able to declare that its hands were tied and agreements made by its predecessor should be honoured. The Eurozone crisis has been contained only via the suspension of politics, a course which Monti’s resignation would appear to reverse.

Monti may well now run for office. But on what ticket? If he stands as a candidate in the elections early next year, Monti will no doubt present himself as the candidate who is beyond politics. Already egged on by centrist Catholic parties, and feared by the main centre left and centre right parties, Monti’s whole political persona is that of a non-partisan figure who implements what is sensible and what interest-driven political parties cannot bring themselves to do. Monti’s personal austerity matches his political message. If he ran, he would be a serious threat to those mainstream parties, the Party of Liberty especially, who in the public mind encapsulate the corruption of the political process itself. Monti’s ticket would be a technocratic one.

Against whom would he run? Italian politics is dominated by the centre right and centre left parties. Berlusconi’s return is indicative not only of his relentless desire for public attention but also of the absence of alternatives to him within the party. On the centre left, the new leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, is generally seen as a pragmatic ex-Communist, willing to endorse much of Monti’s programme so far. It is possible, however, that both these parties suffer from public disaffection with organized politics. Many doubt the ability of Bersani to reign in trade unions and have few illusions about the direction Berlusconi would take if re-elected. The alternative to these mainstream parties is Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement: a popular political movement that mobilizes the disenchantment widely felt with the political establishment. A well-known comedian in Italy, Grillo’s movement is explicitly anti-establishment and many of those involved in it deny that they are members of a political party at all.

In next year’s elections, Italian politics may find itself squeezed between the technocratic programme and figure of Mario Monti and the populist alternative of Beppe Grillo. Already, some support for the Five Star Movement has disappeared as Monti has soaked up the anti-establishment sentiment of Grillo’s followers. Squeezed in the middle, the mainstream parties are increasingly tempted by either the technocratic or populist alternatives. Berlusconi has already suggested that he plans a virulently populist campaign, focusing on anti-German sentiment in Italy. Bersani may seek to out-manoeuvre Monti by adopting his own version of technocratic austerity.

Italy is in this way a microcosm of wider trends present within European societies. The shrinking of the political mainstream and the rise of technocratic and populist alternatives appear to be one of the main leitmotifs of how the economic crisis is transforming social and political life in Europe. Europe’s political systems are slowly being transformed into populist technocracies. Italy will be worth watching as a barometer of these important trends.

Europe’s populist technocracies

A new post by Current Moment co-editor, Chris J. Bickerton, is published by the European Council on Foreign Relations. As part of a “Reinvention of Europe” project, Bickerton writes about the rise of populism and technocracy in contemporary European politics.