Yascha Mounk on the State of Western Democracy

YASCHA MOUNK, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: I think the first very important lesson from the election in Spain is simply that no country is safe from the rise of populism, and no country is safe from the rise of far-right populism. I grew up in Germany. And when I was traveling in the country in the fall of 2016, I spoke to a number of senior politicians who said, “Even for the Alternative for Germany is doing very well in polls right now, I can’t imagine that they will ever be in the Bundestag, because our history has made us immune from those far-right parties.” And the Spanish elites thought very much the same thing, because of the recent history of fascist rule in the country, because of the pride and having tradition to democracy, it just wasn’t imaginable an urbanely far-right country — far-right party would gain a real foothold in the political system.

Well, unfortunately, the AfD did gain a large number of seats in the German Bundestag a couple of years ago. And now, Vox has gained a large number of seats in the Cortes Generales in Madrid. So, I think the first important lesson is simply that this kind of far-right populism can break through anywhere. No country is immune from it.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: But put it in perspective because, you know, we started by saying it fell slightly short of some of the predictions with the exit polls. It hasn’t done as well, but is it still a threat, do you think, and what are its main politics, its main plank?

MOUNK: Well, its main plank is to make Spain great again, which is a phrase, obviously, borrowed from the American president, Donald Trump, but perhaps refer even within sinister residents in a country where General Franco did rule less than 50 years ago. It is anti-immigrant. For immigration, it’s less of an issue in Spain because the country has had a little less immigration than many other European countries. It is quite hard-core on gender issues. It is very upset about some of the social transformations and greater gender rights, greater LGBTQ rights, but for country has embraced in the last few years, and it is interestingly quite neoliberal on the economy. So, unlike some other populist parties across Europe that essentially want to form of wealth estate chauvinism where you expand the wealth estate but only for the true “real citizens” of the country. Vox actually wants a pretty hard-core neoliberal set of economic policies.

Is it dangerous? Well, I think first of all, it is dangerous that a nostalgia for the past, including a soft paddling at best of the fascist past now has an institutionalized voice in Spain. The mainstream centre- right party, the Partido Popular, had always embraced some of those voters without ever letting them run the show. The fact they have to now compete with Vox is likely to lead to an even greater move toward populist modes, towards populist politics among the centre-right in Spain. As we’ve already seen in countries, like Austria for example, and that’s quite concerning for the years to come.