Power and/or principles (Liberals, regime types, and assessing other people's systems)
2024 is a big year for elections. Some political parties compromise to win power. Others stick to their principles at the expense of power. Here is a little story...
In the early 2000s Malawi received a senior delegation from the Liberal International (LI) led by David Steel1, former and final leader of Britain’s Liberal Party.
Malawi’s ruling party, the United Democratic Front (UDF) described itself as a Liberal party, and had become a member of LI.
However, it was accused of behaving in ways that were not worthy of the Liberal brand. The LI delegation would advise on whether disciplinary action, or even expulsion from LI, was needed.
At the end of their visit I was invited to a dinner with the LI delegation and it was a very convivial2 evening - David Steel was a fairly big name in the political scrummaging of my youth, and was distinguished and seemed very decent.
He and his team were genuinely interested in Malawi, development, and challenges, as well as the politics.
I’m not a Liberal3 but find them interesting, not least because of their heady rise and then fall in British Politics, the long term Liberal ‘strongholds’ in very specific parts of the UK (such as the far tip of Scotland), but their long failure to make a national impact, except when they enter coalition (which was most recently a disaster for them).
I asked David Steel about the Liberal International and was surprised (impressed!) to hear that there were more than 60 member parties worldwide. Real food for thought.
I then asked (innocently) how many Liberal parties were ruling parties at that moment. This was the wrong question.
“Only one”.
Oof. Malawi.
Post script - assessing other people’s democracies
I was reminded of David Steel visit to Malawi, not only by UK election mania (the Lib Dems are the main opposition to the long ruling Conservative party in my area and they are canvassing hard) but also this new study by Bush and Platas which examines the classification of countries/democracies by regime type.
It raises concerns about systematic bias in such assessment, with variation between scoring by those experts living within a system and those experts assessing it from outside.
A disproportionately large number of expert assessors are in the global north. I can’t beat the paper’s Abstract for clarity, so am pasting this below - but the paper and various twitter threads are really worth reading if you think (critique, write, speak) about other people’s political systems.
Personally, I favour a specific description of a country context (political settlement, elite bargain, etc) and stop there, rather than trying to then place this in a system of comparative classification or rating. But I understand why others do this.
Back to Malawi - the list of issues that the Liberal International came to examine included President Muluzi’s move to amend the constitution and stand for a third term (Malawi’s Constitution had a US-style two term limit). On behalf of the international community I/we would advocate that the two term limit should be respected.
Malawian friends, colleagues, and government counterparts would take understandable pleasure in (innocently) asking me whether we have term limits for Prime Ministers in the UK.
Oof. We don’t.
I have had similar ‘do as we say, not as we do’ moments with regard to international enablers of corruption (City of London etc); child rights and the minimum age for serving in the armed forces; and minimum age at marriage (albeit with parental consent). It is hard to be perfect…
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In 1981 David Steel led the UK’s Liberal Party into an alliance with the newly founded Social Democratic Party (SDP) led by David Owen. Over time, David Steel was characterised by Spitting Image, the satirical puppet show, as being small and in David Steel’s pocket, and it has been argued that this damaged both him and the Liberal Party.
I’ve always wondered what it feels like to use this word. Now I know.
My Dad’s mother’s family come from the same part of North Wales and the same religious and cultural community as David Lloyd George, the last Liberal Prime Minister. In fact, the cultural and geographical connection is close enough that his first wife - Margaret Owen, later - Dame Margaret Lloyd George - was my Nain (grandmother)’s cousin.