Cascading regime change
Sanjana Hattotuwa-March 3, 2018, 7:24 pm
Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times last week galvanised a number of conversations I have recently had with journalists and others based in the US around the state of democracy, in their country, post-Trump.
My Democrat American interlocutors are despondent, but also realise the many Americas that reside within the United States is not a phenomenon understood by most including those in power, and resulted in those who felt under-served and marginalised revolting against a visible political firmament associated with and perceived to be favourable towards those of colour. A predominantly white America – poor, hopeless, jobless – who felt their socio-economic conditions, not getting any better and scarcely talked about, trumped (no pun intended) at the Presidential vote confidence in and campaigns anchored towhat was first projected as a post-racial America, which even towards the end of Obama’s two terms in office was a risible fallacy. A majority, it turns out, struck back at the triumphant audacity of hope for a minority, just eight years before. The conversation invariably sought to draw parallels between Sri Lanka today, three years after or into the Sirisena Presidency, and the US. The interest was in how by anchoring policies towards the historically marginalised, a larger majority, worried about their ownplace and future could be undervalued, to the detriment of political reform over the longer-term.
There are no easy parallels of course, but Krugman’s column featured a political term and theory: cascading regime change. Many in the US suggested to me that faced with an incumbent President and political architecture in Capitol Hill few felt strong enough to tackle head on, socio-political interest and activism centred around causes championed by smaller, more local communities. This extends to movements that obliquely taken on socio-political issues polity does not meaningfully address, or politicians are guilty of perpetuating. Overwhelming. The unprecedented support for and courageous revelations as part of the #metoo movement, Oprah’s rousing Your Time’s Up speechat the Golden Globes as well as more recently, the We call BS movement after the speech by Emma Gonzalez in memory of those who died in the mass shooting in Florida are all examples of this, in the US.
#metoo is now a global phenomenon, and faced with depressing political leaders and repressive governments, communities are voting with irrepressible hashtags, retweets, status messages, parades, gatherings and writings on wall, online, media and street. Cascading regime change explains this phenomenon, where interest in mainstream politics is seemingly overshadowed by participation in alternative political, social movements anchored to single issues, championed by influential people not in mainstream politics, or galvanised by the mass-telling or recounting of personal stories, wherein erstwhile victims become powerful agents of change. Krugman sees this as a positive trend in the US today, with so many movements taking on what the White House today stands opposed to, or is an outrageous supporter of. The term and theory can be applied elsewhere.
In Sri Lanka, we do not have a comparable interest in civic movements because civics isn’t really part of our social fabric. The local government election in February, and elections in general, are the primary means through which Sri Lankans exercise their approval or lack thereof of government policies. But even here, there is a discernible change around issues are kept alive and sometimes even brought to the fore. Despite many in polity seeking to undervalue or drown inconvenient truths – ranging from corruption in the present government to accountability for crimes committed by the previous regime – social media keeps the issues alive. These wild and varied conversations are sometimes fuelled, openly or secretly, by those in power or who seek to regain political authority. These self-serving narratives aside, more organic, persistent conversations bemoan the lack of progress, identify suspects, name culprits, shame politicians, peg values to deals, reveal the details of corruption, ridicule half-hearted efforts to address graft and question the bona fides of government to really take-on various crimes committed, after 2015 and before. Before the local government poll, the discontent with government was palpable even from a cursory glance at social media’s froth. Deeper within and beyond those vocal on social media, the discontent was being further fermented by socio-political forces anchored to the government’s inability to reach out to, engage and address the fears of the South. We then had a cascade of discontent – those in the South felt alienated by a government that couldn’t communicate its policies and held in contempt those who elected it. Those in the North felt let down by the trust placed in government to address their existential concerns. Promises were reneged, the South was ignored, and in this verdant vacuum, expedient politics took root. All entirely unsurprising, and forewarned even.
Krugman makes the point that cascading regime change isn’t always a force for the good, or a marker of progress. January 2015 marked an occasion where the theory captured how, despite all the State machinery abused and at their disposal coupled with hundreds of millions at the very least spent on campaigning, the Rajapaksa regime lost in a way no one could have predicted. It is likely to happen again. The local government election galvanised a population who were passive till then, and through the exercise of their franchise, expressed their frustration with the inability of government to deliver much of what they had promised. The vote mirrors vibrant, open and critical social media discourse around issues like garbage collection, the cost of living, the price of essential goods, the cost of public transportation, the dilapidated condition of public services, the award of tenders, the purchase of luxury SUVs for politicians and other issues not directly anchored to a specific policy of or individual in government but reflective of its record and public acceptance as a whole. In fact, the term and phrase ‘regime change’ is not alien to Sri Lanka. Its application has almost always been to raise fears around the legitimate operation of electoral democracy or, after an illiberal government has been voted out of power, to demonise the socio-political forces that championed change, often as agents of Western governments or their intelligence services. Krugman’s thesis is more nuanced and can help explain, from here on till 2020, why this government may well continue its haemorrhaging of votes.
A public, disenchanted with politics as it stands, who voted their disapproval in February, have been confronted not by humble, meaningful course correction, but a confounded farrago of egotism, parochialism and imbecility by those holding the highest political offices in the country. It is likely that the angry chatter on social media will grow, engineered in part by those who want disenchantment with the current political dispensation to grow, and in larger part by those just fed up with politics as it is. The known evil and disappointment, the majority’s electoral equation may well be, is better than the voting in of heady promise only to be frustrated more.
And this is something those in government would do well to be cognisant of. The litmus test of policies is no longer just at the ballot. It is through the strategic, sustained harvesting of public opinion over social media, and also through active probing of public sentiment through a range of polling and investigative tools. Simply put, a government attentive to public sentiment can also shape it proactively and to its benefit. Whether this government can or will is another question, and one I personally have only ever answered in the negative.
