Abstract
In Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day, Professor Sheri Berman’s tour de force of political scholarship juxtaposes two different ways of governance—democracy and dictatorship—that have combined to shape the contours of Europe’s current tumultuous politics. In this nuanced and authoritative historical exploration, Berman provides a clear and lucid ‘big picture’ explanation of Europe’s 500 years of governance history that is challenging the current settled political establishments throughout the continent.
This book is based on comparing political regimes in Europe, especially Western Europe. Sheri Berman, a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, has an enduring interest in European history and politics. Her present book has evolved from her many years of lecturing on this theme to her students and a wider audience. Prior to this book, she has published two books on Europe, namely The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century and The Social Democratic Moment: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe. The present book, we can safely say, completes the trilogy.
The premise of this book is: Why Europe? Europe is the place where modern democracy was born and, in addition, Europe has also been the home of dictatorships of all kinds—monarchial, military, populist, hybrid, competitive, fascist and National Socialist. Hence, Berman is rightly concerned about debates raging academic and political circles on democratic governance challenges faced by contemporary European nations. She claims: ‘The rapid spread of democracy at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century combined with its current problems has placed questions concerning the origins, evolution, and fate of democracy at the forefront of contemporary debate’ (p. 2). Through this book, she wants to add a fresh perspective to the debate.
It is amply clear that Berman leans towards democracy and is very anxious to disown any form of dictatorial governance. However, there are great concerns with the definitions of democracy that are better suited for empirically analysing and comparing political regimes. Berman, in her book, accepts the ‘electoral’ definition of democracy given by Joseph Schumpeter, which states ‘the democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’ (p. 4). Based on this definition, she draws a crucial distinction on why democracy is always a better governance system than any form of dictatorship, stating: ‘Democracies differ from dictatorships, not only in the way in which they choose their leaders, but also in the way they treat their citizens and their citizens treat each other’ (p. 6). Hence, at the beginning of her book, she clearly defines the two theoretical terms that will constantly pop up throughout the book.
To present her exhaustive historical narrative, Berman divides her book into 18 chapters. It begins with Questions about Political Development and concludes with Lessons Learned. Sandwiched between these two chapters are the other 16 chapters that explore cases pertaining to French, English, German, Italian, Spanish and East–Central European countries. She takes a sweeping historical journey of nearly 500 years on how governance violently tossed between democracy and dictatorship and how, in spite of constantly failing, democracy has endured and stabilised, especially in Western Europe. As we struggle to make sense of the present political regimes of Europe, Berman comes to our rescue, saying: ‘Indeed, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe will show that the best way to understand modern European political history is as a struggle to eliminate the vestiges of the old regime and build a consensus about the type of regime that should replace it’ (p. 9). She has fairly succeeded in her endeavour.
In tandem with her discussion of comparative political regimes, Berman provides an expansive overview of transformations in Europe in the last 500 years and how they have unfailingly influenced the governing patterns. From the outset, she connects like a web the various strands that have come to symbolise most of European countries’ bittersweet political history. Presenting an in-depth historical analysis of a wide range of historical cases ranging from English exceptionalism, the French Revolution, Italian and German unification, the tragedy and horrors of the two world wars and the fascist and Nazi regimes of Italy and Germany, respectively, to the rise and decline of communism in East–Central Europe and the rising from the ashes of Western Europe after World War II, Berman makes her arguments on democracy and dictatorship both scholarly as well as politically convincing. She humbly admits that because every European country had to face the challenges of state-, nation- and democracy-building in its various manifestations, some succeeded, while most floundered. The interplay between democracy and dictatorship is because of the role played by class and communal conflicts in determining political outcomes. I think this mixed legacy is the main threat that democracy faces in post-modern Europe.
One of the highlights of this book is the cases of East–Central Europe. Berman has devoted Chapters 15 and 17 for the study of the countries lying between Germany and Russia and between the Baltic and Aegean Seas. This area comprises 20 countries that experienced Soviet-style dictatorship during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods which are making a slow and painful transition to democracy. On one hand, the collapse of the Soviet Union has forced these countries to transform into democracies without an institutional framework in place, and on the other hand, the lure to join the European Union is creating internal turmoil that is creating fissures and causing stress to these nascent democracies. Berman’s detailed analyses of these countries are an eye-opener and can work as excellent cases to study countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America which are struggling to make the transition from dictatorship (socialism/communism/totalitarianism) to democracy after the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of Communist–Capitalist China.
Berman, throughout her academic career, has written extensively on democracy, authoritarianism, populism, fascism, the history of the Left and European politics. In Chapter 14, Rebuilding Western Europe, she dissects threadbare the dynamics of democracy in the post-War era. She succinctly explains: ‘The success of Western Europe based on liberal democracy emerged after the Second World War. This consensus undergirded the construction of international, regional, and domestic structures and relationships that finally generated peace, prosperity and political stability’ (p. 10). Hence, she makes it amply clear in her arguments that building liberal democracies requires, among other things, strong states, cohesive national identities and political cultures in which citizens and politicians buy into what she terms as ‘the rules of the game’. This Western European success will require generations to replicate in East–Central Europe under the umbrella of the European Union.
She beautifully summarises her massive tome in the conclusion (Chapter 18), discussing the implications of the European experience for contemporary debates about democratisation and consolidation. Berman was right in expecting that this book in particular, lays out crucial lessons European history provides about the development of democracy and dictatorship and reiterates the contributions a historical perspective on political development can provide to those struggling to understand the challenges facing democracy in Europe and many other parts of the world (p. 10).
In the present scenario of Brexit and the rise of populism in countries like Italy and Hungary, this book enables us to understand and interpret the political regimes that lie scattered around the world within 193 nation-states. Berman’s meticulous historical exploration is an important contribution not only for International Relations (IR) students but also for research think-tanks and can go a long way in enabling scholars and students alike to understand in all its intricacies the differences between democratic and dictatorship political regimes and how the end of history is not yet on the horizon.