Andrew Beer, Dean, Research & Innovation at UniSA Business School , Australia
Chair of the Regional Studies Association
Regions
in the ‘Post Truth’ Era – Protest, Protectionism
and the Lost Social Contract
Recently, the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation (ABC) reported that confidence in the nation’s democracy was at a
record low as voters have become both disenfranchised and disillusioned with
the major political parties. This news
item drew upon the most recent findings of an Australian National University
(ANU) study into public trust and confidence in the political process and
concluded that more voters than ever in the history of the study – which dates
back to 1969 –don’t trust their political leaders and believe they are too
interested in promoting their own wellbeing and interests. There is, of course, significant evidence to
support this perception, and on the day I draft this blog Australia’s Health
Minister is being called to account for purchasing an apartment on the Gold
Coast while on a tax-payer funded business trip.
Of course, this isn’t a story unique to
Australia. The vote in the UK to exit
the European Union and the election of President Trump in the United States has
commonly been attributed to a public backlash against conventional policies and
politics. Many commentators have
labelled this development as a return to ‘populism’ – as if the need for
popular support for politicians and policy in a democracy is somehow both
shocking and wrong.
In Australia alternative political parties
and independent Parliamentarians have been growing in number and influence
since the mid 1990s, and while much of the focus has been on the emergence of
parties with a broadly ‘right’ agenda – the Pauline Hanson One Nation Party,
the Liberal Democrats, Family First, the Motorist’s Party and the Fishers and
Shooters Party[1] – others
make claim to the political ‘centre’ – the Nick Xenophon Party – or the left –
the Australian Greens.
Globally commentators have argued that we
live in an era characterised as being ‘the end of conviction politics’, with
traditional political cleavages – such as the differences between capital and
labour – displaced by an apparent consensus amongst the major political parties
on economic and social policy. The
opening up of global markets, the embrace of market mechanisms for determining
social and economic outcomes, and the apparently free movement of individuals
and households across previously inviolate national borders results in a
political landscape where the major political parties struggle to differentiate
themselves. As an Australian political
scientist commented many years ago, the choice between the Australian Labor
Party and the Liberal Coalition parties often comes down to a choice between
Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The
development of career politicians and an all-too-evident political class
further reinforces this perception. It
is little wonder that success comes to ‘maverick’ politicians who vow to ‘drain
the swamp’.
For an academic and researcher it is
distressing to discover that the term ‘post truth’ was dubbed by some media
outlets as the word of 2016. Those of us
who have worked for many years focussed on establishing an evidence base on
what does, and does not, work in terms of policy, and in creating logical bases
for the establishment of major initiatives have been shocked to learn that none
of that matters. What counts is ‘the vibe’, the perception that individuals
have about their world and their place within it, and no analysis showing that
immigration adds to a nation’s wealth or creates additional jobs will shift
their opposition to new arrivals within their country.
Political commentary is interesting in
itself, but how does it relate to regions and regional studies? Critically,
regions lie at the centre of these political moments. Anyone who has viewed a map of voting
patterns for the US presidential election would be aware that while the east
and west coast states largely voted Democrat, the nation’s heartland – centred
on, but not limited to, the mid West was overwhelmingly captured by Trump. In the UK, London voted strongly to remain
engaged with the EU, while rural and predominantly northern England was pro
Brexit. The Scots, of course, remain
committed Euro-philes. In Australia,
right wing politicians from populist parties are largely drawn from the
nation’s non-metropolitan regions, especially those areas adversely affected by
economic globalisation.
And here is the core of the challenge –
global economic growth over the past two decades has been driven by both
technological change and the globalisation of the economy. There have been
winners from this process – with China lifting more than 200 million citizens
out of abject poverty since 1990 – but also losers, often located in the
traditional manufacturing and agricultural centres of the developed world. It is the voters from these regions who are
reminding us all that popularity is an essential component of political success
in democracies. Many urban centres have
benefited from globalisation, but the ‘Triumph of the Cities’ may turn out to
be a pyrrhic victory, with new political realities set to challenge their
upward trajectory.
Television interviews with voters on the
street often capture the sense that individuals struggle to express their views
and needs, but know that what is currently on offer does not serve them
well. In their minds, anything different
from the status quo would be
better. Many have held onto the belief
that there is a ‘social contract’ between themselves and their government that
will protect their quality of life and insulate them – to a degree – from unwanted
change. In all likelihood they have
never heard of the term social contract, but they know it in their bones.
So what are we likely to see in the era of
‘post truth’ politics and how will it exert an impact on regions across the
globe? First, and perhaps most
importantly, we are almost certainly going to witness a disjuncture in global
growth trends. President Trump has been
elected on a protectionist platform, and is already using the most powerful
force known to humanity – his Twitter account – to bludgeon multi national
corporations to not invest in the developing world and instead ‘reshore’ jobs in
the US. As one set of trade barriers is
raised, others will follow and in all likelihood growth patterns will revert to
those of the 1970s and 1980s. At the
global scale less developed countries will be badly affected as the growth
pathway for exiting poverty will be closed off.
Second, we may see a return to government policy settings from previous
decades. Regional planning – which has
languished over the past three decades – may be called upon as global market forces
lose some part of their influence and as national and territorial governments
seek to maximise ‘public interest’ outcomes.
Third, the financialisation of the global economy may well slow if
checks on the flow of goods and labour are matched by the reintroduction of
more stringent financial controls. This
would have a significant impact on many cities whose economies are dependent on
financial services.
We can only conclude that we live in
interesting times. The globalisation of
the economy has generated social and economic shocks in many regions which have
found expression in the world of formal politics. These processes have been gathering pace over
some time, but in 2016 we saw the full impact of their significance for the
global economy unveiled for the first time.
In the medium term we will need to carefully watch how conventional
political forces respond and reshape themselves in the light of these new
challenges.
[1] These names haven’t been invented for the purpose of this blog –
all of these parties currently have one or more members sitting in an
Australian Parliament. The Pauline
Hanson One Nation Party currently boasts four Senators (subject to internal
disputes as well as a High Court decision around the eligibility for election
of a bankrupt with criminal convictions recorded against his name).