There is no doubt that the coronavirus is a global emergency, nor that governments will use it to expand their powers. And once the threat has passed, some of them are unlikely to give up those new powers.
It is crucial that opposition parties broadly agree with measures to deal with what appears to be an exceptional public health crisis. But the line between government and opposition cannot be blurred in the name of "national unity". Criticism from opposition leaders should not be dismissed as illegitimate "gut fights". And the mechanisms that allow the opposition to hold governments to account for their measures must be strengthened, not weakened.
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Emergencies have two effects: in democratic states, they concentrate power in the Executive. Leaders who demand new powers can usually count on the support of citizens. Even US President Donald Trump, whose performance has been disastrous from the start, is benefiting from a dynamic of national unity in the face of the crisis.
The other effect is more obviously pernicious: in countries already threatened with what some political scientists call "autocratization" (the reverse of democratization), leaders are making use of the Covid-19 crisis to get rid of the remaining obstacles to the continuity of his regime.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is in the process of becoming president for life. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weakening the Knesset and the courts. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a pioneer of "autocratization" in the European Union, can now rule by decree and wants to suspend elections and referendums, in addition to giving the government the authority to imprison journalists.
Many authoritarian politicians resort to pseudocrisis; in a real one, they can take what appear to be perfectly justified measures to lash out at their opponents. Counter-terrorism laws enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States were routinely used to suppress legitimate forms of political dissent.
What particularly characterizes the coronavirus pandemic is that it deactivates one of the most obvious ways of protesting against governments. When Putin announced changes to the constitution, he was able to ban the protests on the grounds that they could facilitate the spread of the virus. When Orbán eliminates the elections, he will be able to say that social distancing is not compatible with a procedure that makes all citizens go to the same place on the same day. Completely reasonable precaution allows autocrats to take action without anyone questioning it.
It is important that an institution such as the European Commission closely monitors emergency measures in EU states
What can be done? In functioning democracies, parliaments and courts have to keep working. But if business and academia can function online, there is no reason for these institutions to drive "democracy at a distance."
Parliaments - whose power in any case has been diminishing for the benefit of the executive in recent decades - should accept selective government by decree only for a strictly limited time and only for circumstances in which the conventional legal regime entails significant disadvantages for the management of the crises. While the rule of law, in contrast to government by decree, could be difficult when a vaccine must be developed rapidly and resources deployed quickly, there is absolutely no reason to suspend it (contrary to what leading theorists have argued. states of emergency, such as the German jurist Carl Schmitt).
The most important issue is that the opposition should support the government, but also offer alternatives and, above all, hold it strictly accountable for its measures. The institutionalization of the role of an opposition is often forgotten as crucial to the proper functioning of democracies.
The mechanisms for doing so vary. They can be a procedure that allows opposition leaders to immediately respond to ministers' speeches, dramatize differences and show an alternative; low thresholds for creating consultation committees; days of opposition, when the losers of an election set the parliamentary agenda; even naming opposition figures to chair important committees (where much of the real work in parliaments is done). The Government is authorized to do things its own way, but the opposition must be able to express its opinion at all stages.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has proposed a plausible solution to the country's confinement measures and the temporary suspension of Parliament. Rather than creating a grand coalition or covering legitimate disagreements with the rhetoric of unconditional "national unity", he has suggested a select committee chaired by the opposition leader, which can hold the government accountable for its actions.
To prevent emergency measures from becoming permanent - especially if public attention shifts to another topic - American jurist Bruce Ackerman has proposed an ingenious "super-majority ladder" mechanism: laws and decrees can be periodically renewed, but only with increasingly large majorities. With this, the political debate would focus on the question of whether it is possible to return from the new to the previous normality. In particular, it would focus on protecting basic rights (think of the attempts by the Trump Administration and the government of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to claim powers to put citizens in detention during the pandemic).
And the autocrats? Opposition leaders and civil society should use all the space they have left to resist. Whatever they do, they will be slandered by governments that, even before the current crisis, tended to accuse anyone who opposed them of treason.
More importantly though, although international attention is currently rather low towards anything other than Covid-19, it remains crucial to speak out against the planet's Putin, Kaczynski and Orbán. Unfortunately, its citizens will soon see how their kleptocracies have affected public health. In these circumstances, it is extremely important for an institution such as the European Commission to closely monitor emergency measures in the EU States.
Jan-Werner Müller is Professor of Political Science at Princeton University and author of the forthcoming book Democracy Rules .
© Project Syndicate, 2020
www.project-syndicate.org
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