Over two weekends spread throughout the year in Cambridge, words and ideas are discussed in depth. The authors, their views, the audience, questions and, most importantly, the ideas vary hugely. Yet, whenever I have visited the festival, the uniting factor has been the open-minded nature of discussion (along with the friendly volunteers, of course). In the spring, I had been to see the political commentator Steve Richards, a fine orator and speculator on events past and present. There was no option but to return this winter.
Browsing the programme of events, I was intrigued to see a talk about ‘How Democracy Ends’ with David Runciman, professor of politics at the University of Cambridge. Based on his book of the same title, he was to explore that topic with Helen Lewis, associate editor of the New Statesman (one of my favourite magazines in the sixth form library). It took place in the Palmerston Room located within St John’s College, plenty of space for seating with effective lighting and sound. The technical factors were in place for an insightful hour. The main line of argument throughout Runciman’s book was that democracy could be threatened by a coup, catastrophe (environmental or nuclear) and/or a technological takeover, with the growing influence of artificial intelligence a potent force in today’s society. The book was a fine analysis of many of the issues facing the world. Yet the discussion was just as accessible to those who hadn’t done background reading, instead waiting to hear about the book before deciding whether to purchase. The conversation was highly engaging, focusing on contemporary matters that even an average follower of politics would keep up with. There were clearly abstract elements – democracy itself is not a tangible item and, as Runciman mentioned, takes many forms. The recent Brexit shenanigans were of course raised. Specifically, the difficulties of using direct democracy within a representative democracy were highlighted. At least, during and between elections, there are accountable political parties, which is far harder to achieve with referendum campaigns that disband following the result. Each side, due to the binary nature of referenda, can feel elements of the process are undemocratic. For example, Runciman and Lewis argued Brexiteers could view a second referendum as undemocratic just as remainers could view never having another referendum as undemocratic. However, this didn’t mean direct democracy was totally slated. Runciman saw a role for it, promoting citizen’s councils as one form. This is an issue raised in the public domain more often, myself seeing the RSA’s Matthew Taylor and Labour’s Stella Creasy make the case for more direct involvement of individuals. These are issues worth debating: if I had been able to ask a question, I would have liked some deeper exploration as to how the forms of direct democracy could practically work. There was a coherent analysis of why people appear to be democratically voting for people who have express anti-democratic sentiment. Thoughtfully, the argument was made that individuals voting for populism could be expressing both their own anger with democracy, but also their confidence democracy could survive such individuals; rather, there was a desire just to give the ‘elite’ a kick up the backside. Lewis raised the problems with first-past-the-post as a binary electoral system. However, populism has been expressed in both proportional and majoritarian systems. The reasoning behind such anger seems far broader to me than the technicalities of an electoral system. Technology has transformed the whole world. Runciman gave the suggestion the most important event of the 21st century so far could be the iPhone’s invention in 2007. Despite a slightly older audience, judging by my glances, Runciman and Lewis clearly explained the many problems technology can bring to democracy. There was a case that Mark Zuckerberg, inventor of Facebook, could be a far greater threat to democracy than Donald Trump, due to his unaccountable freedom. There are no checks and balances for the worldwide tech company, no finite amount of time for which he can have influence. Linking to political affairs, this creates dozens of questions. Should there be regulation on tech companies? How does this regulation take place? Is government legislation required to stop tech companies overtly influencing elections? Why shouldn’t online information decide how people vote? How do we decide whether voting decisions are made rationally? Aren’t people clever enough to see the difference between BBC News and a WhatsApp message? Can one nation alone effectively regulate a stateless company? What if the regulation leads to censorship of government criticism? Shouldn’t we be allowed to get our news from where we like? These questions could have taken up the whole day (a whole book!) and beyond, but alas, there were other talks taking place after Runciman. Although many of today’s political events and discourse are terrifying, humour was prevalent throughout the talk. When referring to the modernity of democracy, Runciman stated America couldn’t fully be regarded as a democracy until the Civil Rights Movement. Helen Lewis replies she thought Runciman was talking about America today! The perils of democracy were effectively linked to old people (cue nervous laughter in the audience), mature generations far more likely to cast a vote against immigration, an unsustainable stance in aging democracies depend on youth. Fundamentally, there was a recognition that democracy could only be successful with the consent of losers. It is paramount. Runciman felt relief that Clinton and Obama conceded victory in 2016 to Trump. Above all, he felt fearful of future sitting Presidents refusing to accept the verdict of democratic elections. Despite Trump making undemocratic statements (not accepting the result of the 2016 election if he had lost, threatening to lock Hillary Clinton up), the argument was made those on the progressive side must be aware their time will come again. ‘But what if they don’t think their time will come again?’ pondered Lewis. A thoughtful, worrying remark in an insightful talk that suggested the democracy’s inevitability is anything but certain.
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