Larry Diamond is a scholar in the field of democracy studies. A Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, U.S., he has published extensively. In a new book, to be published next year, he inquires into the global crisis of democracy. In this interview, Professor Diamond speaks of modernising the rules-based order, strong leaders, and why India must reconsider its electoral system.
On rising threats to democracy and the rules-based international order, Mr. Diamond cites Samuel P. Huntington's 'The Third Wave', which talked of waves of democracy expanding. "The two previous waves of democratic expansion ended tragically with reverse waves of democratic implosions and what seemed like the march of authoritarianism — in the 1920s and ’30s. That led to horrible crimes against humanity and the Second World War, and then the wave of post-colonial democracies in the late 1950s, ’60s, and the early ’70s, all the military coups in Latin America, and so on. So, we are trying to avoid the third reverse wave of democratic breakdown", Mr. Diamond said.
"I think democracy is secure in India, but it is not in a number of other countries", Mr. Diamond said adding, that many of the leaders who are using these tools and mobilising a lot of anxieties are perceived to be, or aspire to be, strong men who do not have strong majorities. "U.S. President Donald Trump lost the popular vote. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan keeps winning elections with less than 50% of the popular vote. The system is rigged in [their] favour and the population is divided. Of course, I will let Indians decide how to classify their Prime Minister. I think Narendra Modi’s followers regard him as a strong leader. Whether he falls into the category of the strongman ruler is a different story", he said.
