Dollarocracy (50 page)

Democracies with which the United States would want to compare itself allow and encourage political parties and candidates to take advantage of free airtime in order to communicate their messages. But they do not stop there. One of the key reasons that pluralism flourishes in countries that are rated by
The Economist
Intelligence Unit and Freedom House as the healthiest democracies on the planet is that they provide massive subsidies for public broadcasting and independent media that take as a top responsibility the serious and detailed coverage of election campaigns. Countries that are ranked as more democratic than the United States subsidize media at rates as high as 50 to 1 (in the cases of some small countries, 75 to 1) over what is seen in the United States. And the results are striking.
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Around the world, but especially in Europe, nations have developed and maintained democracy-sustaining public broadcasting systems (of the sort Lyndon Johnson and Bill Moyers imagined in the 1960s) and programs of subsidies for print and digital media.
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These systems and subsidies recognize and embrace the charge from the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression and other global observers that states aspiring toward democracy must “create an environment in which a pluralistic media sector can flourish.” And that an essential obligation of that media sector must be “to ensure that the electorate are informed about election matters, including the role of elections in a democracy, how to exercise one's right to vote, the key electoral issues, and the policy positions of the various parties and candidates contesting the election.”
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That's a global standard that has been accepted in the modern age by countries that are serious about democracy. But it is not exactly a new idea. Thomas Jefferson observed at the opening of his second presidential term, “Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.”
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Americans like to reference Jefferson on these issues, as President Obama did in a 2010 commencement address at Virginia's Hampton University. Quoting Thomas Jefferson's observation that “if a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be,” Obama told the graduates, “What Jefferson recognized, like the rest of that gifted founding generation, was that in the long run, their improbable experiment—called America—wouldn't work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out and left democracy to those who didn't have the best interests of all the people at heart.” So Americans “got it,” and Americans “get it.”
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But Americans don't do it. The United States makes a miniscule commitment to public and community broadcasting when compared with other countries, and much of that commitment funds cultural and children's programming rather than election coverage. And America has not begun to implement democracy-sustaining subsidies that might maintain the newsrooms of the old media age in a new media age. The simple truth is that political journalism is a public good, and the market is not supporting it in sufficient quality or quantity. As
Chapter 8
demonstrates, there is no reason to believe the market will in the foreseeable future. Providing independent, competitive news media has to be a high priority going forward; it is an indispensable part of any reform program.

Election campaigns in Japan last twelve days. That's right: twelve days. Parties may name their candidates and organize in preparation for an anticipated election—although doing so is always risky, as elections are not held according to strict schedules. Rather, elections are called by the sitting government. Until the call comes, candidates cannot advertise, solicit votes, or otherwise promote themselves. When the call comes, they are still limited to what Western media outlets invariably describe as “old-fashioned campaigning.”
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As the 2009 Japanese campaign kicked off,
Time
magazine's correspondent wrote, “With 12 days to go until national elections, candidates rode in vans, armed with banners, leaflets and loudspeakers for soapbox speeches at train stations and street corners across the nation. But as their names were blared out on the first day of political open season, their campaigns on Twitter and Facebook were silent. One thing that Japanese politicians aren't armed with is the Internet.” In fact, they're also strictly limited in their use of broadcast media.
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That does not mean there are no political discussions on TV, radio, Web sites, Facebook pages, or Twitter. But those discussions are driven by independent observers charged with examining the stated positions of the candidates and citizens. And the candidates are given more opportunities—not fewer—to address those issues in televised, print, and digital debates and panel discussions. There's no lack of spin, but it can be challenged and examined. It does not simply flow in a slurry of attack ads and what can only be referred to as propaganda.

Short campaigns are common in democracies around the world, including Britain (on average, twenty-two days), Ireland (twenty-three days), Australia (twenty-seven days), and Denmark (twenty-eight days).
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Credible arguments have been made that longer campaigns allow for more “voter learning,” especially with regard to economic issues.
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But “longer” is a matter of a few more weeks, not a permanent election cycle. For the most part, however, countries with shorter election seasons have higher voter turnout and much
less costly campaigns. And we would argue that the “permanent” character of American campaigning leads increasingly to voter burnout, as voters are marinated in negative advertising for months on end.

Direct observation and statistical measures of political engagement suggest that short, well-defined campaigns put elections in perspective and generate an excitement level that can play a role in focusing debates and boosting turnout.
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That's especially true in countries with strong public media, substantial public financing of campaigns, and controls on the cost of campaigns.
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The most successful democracies are characterized by a commitment to constant assessment, review, and reform of existing electoral and media systems. There is an acceptance that what worked in the past may not work in the present and almost certainly will not work in a future redefined by new political demands and new media technologies.

In Europe it is common for countries to formally invite “Election Assessment Missions” from the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to assess how campaigns are conducted.
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These missions produce detailed reports that include recommendations for how to update and reform electoral procedures and media structures and funding in order to end abuses and to avoid pathologies defining electoral processes. Those recommendations do not always go “on the shelf.” European and African states frequently refine and adopt proposals for how to increase the transparency, fairness, and functionality of elections—and of the media that cover them.

It speaks volumes about the way in which Dollarocracy assaults democratic principles that the notion of political parties coming together in earnest agreement to create fair elections with high voter turnout is now considered to be the stuff of pipe dreams. Today Americans are inured to what seem like endless, shameless attempts to suppress voting and rig elections. That must stop, and a culture that tolerates this attitude must change.

How bogus is this situation? President Jimmy Carter has won international acclaim for the work of the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which has monitored ninety-three elections in thirty-seven nations since 1989, “all of them held
under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions,” as Carter puts it. Yet Carter, as we have noted, acknowledged some years ago that the Carter Center would be unable to monitor U.S. elections because “some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing,” requirements so minimal that they have been met in nations routinely singled out by the United States as extremely dubious in their commitment to fair elections.
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One of the Carter Center's core requirements for nations to establish that they are committed to fair elections and the rule of law is to have nonpartisan national election commissions that are constantly refining processes and approaches to voting, counting votes, and managing elections. Countries around the world have developed such commissions, and they have ably, often courageously, administered free and fair elections. Many countries have gone even further, recognizing the need to assure that citizens are provided with the fair mix of information and ideas that allows for the casting of informed votes. Countries such as Britain and Germany have formal media watchdog structures in place to examine how elections are covered—and to take complaints from citizens, candidates, and parties that believe they have been wronged. These watchdogs do not seek to censor or constrain debate. They seek to assure that there is broad and free-ranging debate and that no voices are silenced or shouted down.

Commissions that oversee elections do not merely tinker around the edges of existing electoral systems. Where they see problems for the democratic process, where they recognize openings to make elections freer and fairer, they intervene. Often this leads to fundamental change. It will come as no surprise that some of the steadiest patterns of reform and adjustment are seen in countries that were formerly controlled by oppressive military (Brazil) or civilian (South Africa) regimes. But well-established democracies also reform themselves, often with dramatic results.

In 1994, for instance, Japan completely restructured its system for electing members of its equivalent of the U.S. House of Representatives, developing a hybrid system that allows for the election of 300 members from individual districts and another 180 members via a proportional representation system. This hybrid thereby allows for the election of local representatives who are closely identified with their districts and for votes that reflect broader ideological and partisan goals. At the same time, direct contributions by corporations
and unions to parliamentary candidates were banned, and an existing system of public funding of political parties was strengthened—with parties receiving a specific amount of money for each vote won in an election.
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Since the change, Japan, which had experienced virtual one-party rule by the centrist Liberal Democratic Party's machine-style politics, has seen dramatically competitive elections, with development of new parties and frequent regional and now national shifts in power from traditional leaders and parties to reformers.
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In New Zealand in the 1990s, there was widespread frustration with the political system, which was based on individual members of Parliament elected from individual districts—along lines similar to how the U.S. Congress is elected. The frustration stemmed from the fact that governments were frequently formed by a party that won a parliamentary majority but not a majority of votes nationwide. And there was particular dismay over the un-derrepresentation of the Maori, New Zealand's indigenous Polynesian minority. After 85 percent of New Zealanders backed a 1994 referendum calling for development of a new election system, a second referendum endorsed a hybrid system where voters cast two ballots: one for a national party list and one for a local representative in the home district. Since the change, New Zealand has seen a flourishing of multiparty democracy (seven parties won parliamentary seats in 2011), stable coalition governments, and increased representation of indigenous Polynesian minority groups, women, Asians, and Pacific Islanders.
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There will always be those who want to imagine that what the United States or Great Britain or ancient Greece did provides the only model of democracy. But this is a dangerous game. Democracy is not a possession of one nation; it is a goal that all nations should aspire to. America in its history has provided models, shaped strategies, and achieved democratic advances that the rest of the world has followed. America again finds itself in need of “bold, persistent experimentation.”
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Poor choices were made in the past, but they need not define the future. The dissatisfaction that Americans feel with regard to dysfunctional democracy is real, but it need not be constant. Now is a time for trying new methods and for recognizing that there are ideas, there are options—some discarded, unwisely, in recent history, some readily on display in the family of nations—that can remake America.

There is more than sufficient demand for reform. And there are more than sufficient reforms under consideration. But to our view and that of many of the hundreds of elected officials, academics, journalists, and activists we interviewed while preparing this book, there is an insufficiency of focus. There needs to be a unifying theme that will galvanize the movement and enhance its power. From this enhanced power—and
only
from such enhanced power—can foundational democratic reforms emerge. This is the last great challenge in shaping the current moment for reform into a necessary transformational politics.