Gulan: for democracy to be sustainable, a right balance has to be maintained between stability and freedom. In other words, one of the most important challenges that face democracy is preserving the stability and providing essential freedom. So what will happen when democracy has difficulties in preventing chaos and producing stability?

Urbinati: Let us start from square one. Democracy requires a state as it is a form of government based on a constitutional organization and limitation of political functions, thus a state. It presumes a basic security in the application and implementation of the laws and as a consequence a system of bureaucracy and ministries -- the skeleton of the state in relation to which democracy is like the blood and flesh, because it pertains to the procedures for the election and authorization of political representatives. In this process, all the adult citizens, male and female, participate in appointing political lawmakers and proving them legitimacy. Hence, democracy presumes a system of rights that must not be subverted, and which guarantees that the implementation and enforcement of the law occurs according to laws and under the scrutiny of an autonomous justice system. Rights and division of powers make sure that no majority will govern as an absolute ruler and no state power operates according to arbitrary decision. In a word, democracy is a complex way of forming opinions and governments; it would require that that life security (or its opposite, violence) is not a permanent quotidian problem. Democracy wants and contributes in creating at the same time a pacification in society; it allows that different people holding different interests and views compete peacefully for changing government and rule in turn. Democracy resides on a “noble compromise” (this is its constitution) between political forces which promise to fight with words and ballots, thus within an electoral arena. Democracy is a promise of competition containment because a promise to compete for political power (making laws that all obey, both the opposition and the majority) only by politically means, without the use of force and violence. As we can imagine, it is very difficult for democracy to deal with a situation of radical instability in the maintenance of the law and the obedience to the law by the citizens (unlawful behavior should be scattered and not organized). These conditions of legal peace are not given, and thus democracy should be ready to face issues of violence, disruption or not peaceful disagreement. Yet regardless its ability to do so, in a situation of radical instability democracy is at risk, because it is forced to use the state power in a cursive way or even by resorting to exceptional suspension of habeas corpus, and this can jeopardize equal liberty, upon which democracy is based.

Gulan: there is quote “democracies do not get into war with each other”. How do interpret this statement?

Urbinati: This idea is relatively recent. I was coined in the 1980s by Michael Doyle, who is a political scientist at Colombia University. Doyle elaborated it from Immanuel Kant’s idea of “perpetual peace”, which was written in 1795. But these two ideas are different. According to Kant, through gradual interactions and interdependent, sometimes also after many wars or conflicting interactions, states would start looking for peaceful relations, yet not because somebody would impose them on all states, but because states with their own civil societies based on rights would soon or later realize that it is more convenient to entertain relations of commercial interactions instead of war interactions. Yet this process in Kant’s mind would require time; it would be a long process that, moreover, starts from within the states, when states, because of the pressure of commercial interactions and the rights to movement and property that their subjects require and demand, develop toward constitutional order. In sum, states become constitutionalized and thus accept to limit their decision-making power to make possible the evolution of individual rights and liberty. This internal transformation contributes in changing relations between states, from war to treaties. Of course for this in order to succeed at the global level, states – domestically and internationally – should evolve toward a constitutionalization of their behavior; thus preferring agreements to wars, honest treaties to tricky truces, public behavior instead of secrecy. As we can see acting by law rather than violence is a process that cannot persist if the international relations are peaceful. This means that nobody can impose a system of government from outside: we become democratic from voluntary decision and domestic struggle, although sometime after a war (like in Europe after WW2). Once the domestic transformation toward constitutional government starts, it is possible for the international community to start building itself in forms of a kind of informal constitutionalization, which is for instance the case of the UN. From Kant’s idea, Michael Doyle developed the straightforward and very strong maxim according to which if all states became democracy war would end because democracies don’t fight among each other. This is of course partly true, and partly not true. The assumption is difficult to be made in such a straightforward way because democracies live within a globe that is inhabited by forms of governments which are no democratic, and thus they tend to develop strong military forces for their protection and thus less civil power or not as it would be ideally needed for a “peace” that is durable and stable. Certainly, it is true that democracies tend to relate in a peaceful way, among them above all; also because government relies on people’s consent and it is hard to achieve consent on waging wars of conquest, while it is possible in the case of wars of defense. Until democratic states are surrounded by tyrannical or despotic or autocratic regimes it is harder for them to operate in a complete democratic legitimacy way, because emergency is, as said above, a natural threat to the rule of law and rights. Moreover consent needs publicity and war requires instead secrecy – so democracy and war was in radical antithesis. In the end we may say that there is a grain if true in Doyle’s maxim although is not yet a maxim of universal validity.


Gulan: recently we have had some global problems in terms of immigration and incline huge number of refugees heading towards Europe, just like anti-globalism movement and other trends that oppose the European Union; there has been a rise of nationalism and right wing political parties that are anti-immigrants and generally against democratic norms. So how do you see these new developments and to what extent do they constitute threats to democracy?

Urbinati: I think this is another important issue, very hard and difficult. The European Union was born as a project of open space for free movement of citizens and goods among European states and citizens. This was the crucial right in the Treaty of Rome of 1975. Until then, the European states’ borders were closed because states were enemies. The Treaty of Rome of 1975 was very important thus because it declared the right to free movement although, although of course not from people coming from outside but only for the citizens of the European states that signed this agreement. Yet this was an important beginning because it introduced in the political culture of European the idea of free circulation within large geopolitical area; it was an enlargement of the idea that borders shouldn’t be any more concealed, but potentially open instead. The European Union was born on this idea because many people needed to circulate freely in order to find jobs or a better life or a different life; and thus the first premise for circulation was economic need of job and work and a better life. Today this idea is central to many immigrants who try to leave their own countries for many reasons: because their own countries are under wars, civil wars, famines, and because they don’t have jobs, so for a need of survival (sometimes physical not economic); immigrants for economic reasons and refugees for reason of life have all the reasons to look for escape and potential for a better life where this is possible. As for economic starvation (which is not recognized by the UN as a reason for refugee) it is clear that when and if goods don’t go to their countries, people have to move where goods are. So in this sense, you cannot stop people looking for a better life. It is impossible to have truly closed borders. There are thus good reasons why many people are flying from their own countries – people would not leave if not in need. They look for what do not have in their countries: a safe and dignified life. In my view the difficulty in today’s Europe resides in the fact that refugees are many and many, they move en mass; this is not simply a case of immigration of some individuals, of small groups with their own family. It is thus perceived as a threat. Moreover, refugees arriving from the Middle East, from Syria for instance or from Africa sometime are smuggled by criminal organizations that build their dirty interests on people’s skin. This is an addition to complication. Finally, the refugee movement en mass come in a time of economic distress for European countries. Europe is under a transition towards a society that is less affluent and less egalitarian. In those countries that entered EU recently, economic distress adds to the adjustment to the new situation, to democracy and rights. Some time, Eastern European countries seem to be more vulnerable than other Western countries to crisis and also less stable in their pluralistic and constitutional democracy. Whatever the reasons, we see that the countries that are on the borders of Europe as the first docks to Europe are those that feel they are invaded. This is very dangerous sentiment because as we know through Europe’s history, the strength of democracy goes together with the strength of wellbeing – in the past, as soon as the large well-being of population narrowed dramatically political liberty was also narrowed. So, this is a dangerous time for Europe due to distress in economy plus the flows of immigration. This is not an argument to justify nationalism. To the contrary: I would like simply to try to understand the complexity of events Europe is facing. The combination of difficulties and the growth of xenophobic sentiments in addition to economic crisis, and now also terrorism, makes the situation dangerous from the point of view of the destiny of the EU because closing borders it would fatally mean nationalism, chauvinism, and xenophobia, which are terrible or problematic for peace and democracy alike.

Gulan: in the well-developed democracies, radicals or extremists are exploiting the principles of democracy and violating the rule of law and using the rule of law for undermining democracy; they are exploiting freedom of speech for their own purposes and social stability is more at risk, how do you see this?

Urbinati: this is not a new phenomenon, it is as old as democracy since the opinion is in need of an open space for public expression, and sometime competitors in the political game are enemies of democratic constitution. The open space for pluralist ideas in the public is hard to be contained without jeopardizing the entire system. Now sometimes it may happen that the political arena of competition is used by extremist groups which are not democratic in their intention, with the risk that if they had the majority in their own country, they would perhaps be ready to change the constitution and to transform democracy into an authoritarian system. Some theorists, like Carl Schmitt, thought that in order to avoid this unpleasant potential, it would be better to anticipate and thus to have in the constitution some limitations on extremism. This is also the case with the article 21 in the existing German constitution, which excludes the participation in the electoral competition of extremist parties, from the right to the left. This is called “militant democracy” – or democracy that protects itself. This is a model of containment, preemptive containment that some democracies have chosen, yet not all of them. For instance not Italy whose constitution assumes that in competing for seats in Parliament and for a majority, all political parties, even the most unpleasant ones (yet in Italy fascist parties are excluded since the start as the constitution was born as anti-fascist). There is a reason for not following in the track of militant democracy, the idea that open competition for votes forces competitors to smooth their more radical positions in order to gain votes; thus they are by electoral competition driven to more mainstream kind of positions. This argument claims also that it would be more dangerous to force political groups into clandestine activity or underground because this would contribute to make them more not less radical. So there are different views on this issue. Personally I think democracy is a risky game, and we cannot in advance be sure that a movement that starts as very unpleasant in its views will remain so through the process of political competition. Democracy is also a process of learning by conflicting, competing as political movements through ideologies, ideas, and writing papers, words, images, etc.: we learn how to compete by competing and to become more tolerant to practice tolerance. For this reason it preposterous to say at the start or in advance that a movement will remain always the same or inimical to democracy. The scholars I rely upon think that people learn by doing, thus an open public sphere is the best school of containment of democracy’s enemies. There are other scholars, coming from a different tradition, who think that we cannot risk so much and it is better to anticipate the bad rather than facing it when it comes; thus better to have a law in the constitution preventing a radical party to participate in the elections, but we cannot trust its civility which can be hypocritical. But how can we know that this change cannot happen? How can we assume that ideas remain immobile and unchanged? Finally to keep movements outside the public game of politics it may mean to stimulate them to radicalize their positions. An underground movement cannot be checked and thus is more dangerous; it would be better to have it in public than under cover.

Gulan: another important aspect of democracy is freedom of expression and free media, I mean in democratic societies you should have a kind of free media and we can see who constitute impediment or challenges to democracy like Islamists and populists, they are using the same approach for their political propaganda, they are utilizing propaganda or they are using media provocatively, therefore instead of being a factor for promoting democracy, media will turn to a factor for weakening and undermining democracy, so what will be the implications of this change in media role and function because media are divided into many parts, right now we have social networks which are also contributing to these kinds of challenges to democracy?

Urbinati: the question is about freedom of expression in a time, like our time, in which there are not simply printed newspapers, books and cable telephone or television but Internet and iPhone and several other ways of communication, vocal and more difficult to control if we may say so. I personally think that one of the goods of democracies is that we are not scared of different ideas, but we are good fighter for ideas, and only through ideas, so why should we be scared of ideas before we know about them? And moreover, if we need to know about them, it would be good they express themselves in the public. The paradox of liberty is that it is important precisely in order to criticize those who are dangerous: liberty is fundamental. I don’t have any discount on that, we cannot simply control the media because the one who control the media is the one that knows what is right and what is wrong, which in my view only God can know. Humans need liberty because are imperfect and they need to learn. So nobody should have the power to decide in advance what are the good ideas; and if you give this power to somebody, this somebody would be tempted to abuse of his power and become a dictator. So we have to learn to live with pluralism. This is my idea. There are situations of crisis like now in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, even the United States in which in order to fight against terrorism or to prevent the terrorists from organizing they claim they need to control the media. I think that in some cases the inspection of the media for this reason only it may carry some reasons; the question is that those who can inspect are not under our control and thus we cannot say whether they will inspect only what is needed for security reasons. But it is a hard problem, I have to admit. It is complicated, but we should try to rely upon the rule of law or autonomous justice, magistrates who are able to survey those who track over the internet communication, so as to limit the span of their inspection. But this is hard, and actually a very shaky train and complicated in theory and practice. In general opinion should be open and public, and in some grave situations a controlled risk perhaps is justifiable.


Gulan: usually as from the Arab spring in the Middle East, we see that the lack of control over social network is widespread in a very short period of time was a factor foe the states not to control the chaotic situations. So in democracies it has always been said that it is difficult for chaos to develop but when it develops, it is much more difficult to control it in a democratic situation by protecting also the individual rights. So if chaos occurs in a mature democracy, what are the chances of consolidating democracy in those countries that are in total chaos?

Urbinati: the countries that are in total chaos are very weak democracies, but democracy doesn’t start in one day and suddenly. It has to be conquered by the people who want it. Democracy cannot be exported but needs to be created from within, and in creating it there is the risk of clash between opposite views, particularly at the beginning because people are not used to being tolerant. It is very hard. I come from Italy where to stabilize democracy it took two hundred years; it is hard for a parties or people with strong view to accept other people with opposite ideas, to reach a situation of trust. Yet we need to trust the others even if they are different, and moreover we need to trust that when they get the majority they will step down if the loose elections. And while the majority makes laws we have to we obey it although we don’t approve it. We have to be able to trust; and to reach this trust in a fixed time is absurd. The rules of the game are easy to understand but hard to practice and to accept them is a huge conquest. Yet there is no other way to do it. You have to want it or you don’t want it, and if you want it, you have to pass through the ordeal of intolerance at first, and then more tolerance and so on so for. There is no other way but doing and trying and moreover each country in its own way. You have to go through it by yourself like the growing up of individuals -- at the beginning it is very hard and difficult to walk on your legs, but slowly you learn and so later on you become not only capable of walking with your legs but to leave home and to choose your life autonomously. This is democracy – it is a long difficult process to conquest self-government. Now if you want it, this is the way to do it; there is no other way of doing it and when you have it, you have to defend it but there are ways and ways to defend it and the best way is to defend it by democratic means. Democracy defends itself through democratic means. This seems to be hard but this needs to be our polar star, our reference point and every time we have to curtail this rule and use some exceptional strategies, the latter must be justified and contained. They need to be justified from the point of view of the good: which is the open sphere. Thus we cannot accept without justification the idea of limiting or freedom. This is truly the problem. I think that all citizens, all human beings want to live freely and to isolate terrorists: it is not by bombing that we destroy terrorism, but by making the very people enemies of terrorism. This was the experience we had in Italy against Red Brigades terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s. The struggle against terrorism is a hegemonic power. If you are the very people who really understand personally in life how important is to live as a free and decent person, then you become the best ally to democracy because you know what to do. So if you want to destroy the enemies of democracy, you have really to give the chance to the Muslim people to isolate them, to become protagonist in this fight. Thus it is a hegemonic issue, cultural and politics rather than military.

Gulan: around the time of September 11 and after, terrorism did not have a front and place so that the free world would have been able to defeat them, but after the rise of ISIS, now there have been a change in the history of terrorism, so the problem does not go back to being strong, it is a gap and lack of state monopoly of power over their territory, and if a state cannot provide rule of law and protect its territories and preventing the chaos from occurring, can we say that this failed state creates threats to other democracies?

Urbinati: I agree with you, which means that if you want to go to recent history, we you have to recognize that it was a disaster to have a state destroyed – I mean Iraq. To identify Saddam Hussein with the state, dictatorship with the state was a huge mistake. The state is an important achievement and in Iraq it was existing reality. Then it was destroyed, and the consequence is weakness in controlling a territory and thus preventing the formation of terroristic groups. The same happened recently with Libya. So without a state you transform a territory into a kind of open desert in which everybody can cross and operate. As we said, the state is something needed in democracy. You need a state to have democracy. The state is important, crucial, fundamental premise and you have to have it. Of course, when the state is weak and not capable of controlling a territory, the risk exists that this territory becomes a haven for destabilizing forces. We all know that, there is nothing new in that. From the great Thomas Hobbes in seventeenth century, we know exactly what we are risking, but what is new is that today destabilizing forced rely upon means of communication that are much more superior than in the past. I am not an expert of international intelligence or army issues, but as an ordinary citizen I think we cannot easily destroy terrorists by a war, because bombing kills many innocent people and this creates the condition for more resentment and more reactions. So this is not the best strategy; the best strategy would be to make the very people who suffer because of terrorism to fight it. I mean it should be seen as an internally issue, nobody can do more and better than the people who suffer it.

Gulan: some say that there is a danger that liberalism might become an ideology in a way that cannot be reviewed. So do you agree this, and if this is true, don’t you agree that it will lead to a renewal of religious wars or may be the idea of clash of civilizations?

Urbinati: liberalism is a complex experience. It is made of different ideas and streams. You can have radical neoliberal imposing on liberalism views that are narrow such as the dogma of liberty as freedom of enterprise and economic liberty which poses limits on state intervention; but you can also have liberals who believe that equal rights is the first good, without which human beings cannot develop freely and be respected. So liberalism is rich and not a simple doctrine. Those who make it into a doctrinal simplistic dogma like a religion make a bad service to liberalism. I don’t believe in a clash of civilizations because this theory induces us to move the problem outside. First of all, I don’t know what does it mean “western civilization; the “west” is a plural world; there are several kinds of west. If you go to South Italy and go to Finland, you may see that there are many different Europes and wests; so how can you see there is only one west? It is very bad idea to transform this question into easy polarization between two enemies because internally none of the two is simple, as the Muslim is not made of one kind and the west is not made of one kind. So I don’t think this is a good model.
All countries started somewhere in order to become democratic. I am an Italian and I know there were fascism and two wars before a democratic transformation, which was the result of a long story or if you like a long starting, with many suffering moments. But I would say that it is an exalting moment of construction that involves many people; it is a process by which means people conquer their own self-government. So it is a fantastic opportunity for creating a community of free and self-governing people. It is an enterprise for ordinary people because human beings are not Gods like. We are humble human beings, with a lot of defects and limits, and we need cooperation in order to solve many problems, so we need a democracy because we need to cooperate with others, we cannot make it by ourselves, otherwise we would be each of us self-sufficient, with no need of cooperation but capable of living in a condition of isolation. Yet this is not our condition. So we have to transform our situation of weakness, of need of other people, into a resource, into the source of wealth and good; this is what democracy is about: transforming weak individuals into cooperative individuals for a better life.