Polycrisis as party crisis?

"The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." Antonio Gramsci

This week, I have a lot to be thankful for: firstly, after three months, this very nichy blog has surpassed 1,000 subscribers. My heartfelt thanks to you, dear reader!?

Also, 4 years ago this week, my first book “Political Entrepreneurship” was published–I am glad to say it inspired the founding of a few new organisations, people to call themselves Political Entrepreneurs, and to my great delight continues to be useful for emerging political parties around the world.?

And thirdly, I attended two great events this week: the Political Party Peer Network Meeting in Copenhagen, organised by DIPD - Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy under the leadership of Lisbeth Pilegaard , and with a great lineup; and on Zoom the launch of the new International IDEA Global State of Democracy report .

Both provided sobering information on the state of politics and democracy. Here are a few takeaways (special thanks to Professor Staffan I. Lindberg from the V-Dem Institute ):?

• Democracy is back to 1989 levels - a record of 33 countries are “autocratising”.
• Three out of four Europeans do not trust political parties.
• Autocrats are getting smarter, there are more and more “electoral autocracies” with elections that are not free and fair.
• Once democracies autocratise, 80% of them break down.
• Polarisation reaches toxic levels in 40 countries (“polarisation is the next pandemic”). This is being used strategically by extremist and anti-pluralist parties, who paint political opponents as enemies, and threaten to destroy democracy from within.
• All of this raises the risk of future wars.

Phew.?

The term polycrisis has recently been coined to describe our global state. There are so many crises unfolding in parallel that the interaction effects between them cause the whole to be even worse than its parts. The crisis of political parties is certainly both a cause and an effect of the polycrisis. A vicious cycle.?

What to do?

Richard Youngs from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace warned, I think correctly, of the cynicism trap in the light of so much bad news. An all too negative mindset might create a feedback loop that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Democracy is always under threat, and we are living in an era of unprecedented pro-democratic effort. But what constitutes good democratic leadership is changing.

In line with this, both the DIPD meeting and the IDEA report highlighted the necessity for political innovation. The IDEA report alone mentions parties 28 times. To win back the trust of the citizens, and rise up to the challenges posed by the polycrisis, parties need to reinvent themselves. 21st century democracies need better led, more diverse and more inclusive parties that are better at harnessing civic engagement.?

As high-quality, thought-provoking and insightful both the meeting and the report were, what they unfortunately did not provide are the nuts and bolts of change–concrete tools on how to actually transform politics and political parties. Political science as well does not have much data on transforming parties in a positive direction, and going the other way of autocratising by depolarising and detoxifying; Brazil might become an interesting case study on this.

As this blog series and the book that will build on it show, there are ways and means to transform political parties. There is a toolbox that political intrapreneurs have used before, which can be used again. ?

So to end on a positive note, I want to quote a panelist at the DIPD meeting, Rumbidzai Kandawasvika-Nhundu, Senior Advisor at IDEA: “Keep your eyes on the horizon–even though the sky is grey.”

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