2017年11月12日

アメリカのトップ20の政治学者たちは我々の民主主義を議論するために集まった。彼等は心配している。「現在の傾向があと20年、30年も続くと民主主義は破滅するだろう。」

20 of America's top political scientists gathered to discuss our democracy. They're scared.
“If current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast.”
Updated by Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Oct 13, 2017, 9:00am EDT VOX

アメリカのトップ20の政治学者たちは我々の民主主義を議論するために集まった。彼等は心配している。「現在の傾向があと20年、30年も続くと民主主義は破滅するだろう。」

political scientist:《a 〜》政治学者
I'm scared of dying.≒I'm scared that I might die.:私は死ぬんじゃないかと心配です



Is American democracy in decline? Should we be worried?

On October 6, some of America’s top political scientists gathered at Yale University to answer these questions. And nearly everyone agreed: American democracy is eroding on multiple fronts — socially, culturally, and economically.

The scholars pointed to breakdowns in social cohesion (meaning citizens are more fragmented than ever), the rise of tribalism, the erosion of democratic norms such as a commitment to rule of law, and a loss of faith in the electoral and economic systems as clear signs of democratic erosion. 

social cohesion:社会的一体性、社会的結合
have [put one's] faith in friends:友人を信用する

No one believed the end is nigh, or that it’s too late to solve America’s many problems. Scholars said that America’s institutions are where democracy has proven most resilient. So far at least, our system of checks and balances is working — the courts are checking the executive branch, the press remains free and vibrant, and Congress is (mostly) fulfilling its role as an equal branch. 

nigh:近い(near).

But there was a sense that the alarm bells are ringing.

Yascha Mounk, a lecturer in government at Harvard University, summed it up well: “If current trends continue for another 20 or 30 years, democracy will be toast.” 

“Democracies don’t fall apart — they’re taken apart”
Nancy Bermeo, a politics professor at Princeton and Harvard, began her talk with a jarring reminder: Democracies don’t merely collapse, as that “implies a process devoid of will.” Democracies die because of deliberate decisions made by human beings. 

take apart:〔機器などを〕分解する、ばらばらにする
jarring:耳障りな, 神経に障る
reminder:a timely [useful] reminder 折のよい[役立つ]助言
devoid:を欠いている
deliberate:be deliberate in speech 物言いが慎重である

Usually, it’s because the people in power take democratic institutions for granted. They become disconnected from the citizenry. They develop interests separate and apart from the voters. They push policies that benefit themselves and harm the broader population. Do that long enough, Bermeo says, and you’ll cultivate an angry, divided society that pulls apart at the seams. 

activity that someone take for granted:(人)が当たり前だと思う活動
come [fall] apart at the seams:〈計画組織などが〉失敗[破綻, 崩壊]する.

So how might this look in America?
Adam Przeworski, a democratic theorist at New York University, suggested that democratic erosion in America begins with a breakdown in what he calls the “class compromise.” His point is that democracies thrive so long as people believe they can improve their lot in life. This basic belief has been “an essential ingredient of Western civilization during the past 200 years,” he said. 

class compromise:階級の妥協
lot:Are you happy with our lot in life? 私たちの暮らしに満足していますか

But fewer and fewer Americans believe this is true. Due to wage stagnation, growing inequalities, automation, and a shrinking labor market, millions of Americans are deeply pessimistic about the future: 64 percent of people in Europe believe their children will be worse off than they were; the number is 60 percent in America. 

That pessimism is grounded in economic reality. In 1970, 90 percent of 30-year-olds in America were better off than their parents at the same age. In 2010, only 50 percent were. Numbers like this cause people to lose faith in the system. What you get is a spike in extremism and a retreat from the political center. That leads to declines in voter turnout and, consequently, more opportunities for fringe parties and candidates. 

grounded:The new therapy is grounded in [on] solid research. その新しい療法はしっかりした研究に基づいている.
spike:急上昇
believe in violent extremism:暴力的な過激主義[急進主義]を信奉する
political center:《a 〜》政治的中心地
There was a good [high] turnout at the polls.:かなりの投票数があった.
fringe:少数派, 過激[急進]派

Political polarization is an obvious problem, but researchers like Przeworski suggest something more profound is going on. Political theorists like to talk about the “social compact,” which is basically an implicit agreement among members of society to participate in a system that benefits everyone. 

social compact:社会契約(論)

Well, that only works if the system actually delivers on its promises. If it fails to do so, if it leads enough people to conclude that the alternative is less scary than the status quo, the system will implode from within. 

scary:怖い, 恐ろしい; 臆病な.
implode:組織体制などが〉(突然)内部崩壊する.
from within:(組織などの)内部[内側]から 改革するなど

Is that happening here? Neither Przeworski nor anyone else went quite that far. But we know there’s a growing disconnect between productivity (how hard people work) and compensation (how much they’re paid for that work). At the same time, we’ve seen a spike in racial animus, particularly on the right. It seems likely there’s a connection here. 

animus:animosity  (激しい)敵意, (強い)憎しみ; 反目 

Przeworski believes that American democracy isn’t collapsing so much as deteriorating. “Our divisions are not merely political but have deep roots in society,” he argues. The system has become too rigged and too unfair, and most people have no real faith in it. 

deteriorating:His health continued to deteriorate. 彼の健康(状態)は悪化し続けた

Where does that leave us? Nowhere good, Przeworski says. The best he could say is that “our current crisis will continue for the foreseeable future.” 

“The soft guardrails of democracy” are eroding
We’ve heard a lot of chatter recently about the importance of democratic norms. These are the unwritten rules and the conventions that undergird a democracy — things like commitment to rule of law, to a free press, to the separation of powers, to the basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property. 

conventions:慣例
undergird:〔〜の下部にロープなどをかけて〕補強する

Daniel Ziblatt, a politics professor at Harvard, called these norms “the soft guardrails of democracy.” Dying democracies, he argued, are always preceded by the breaking of these unwritten rules. 

preceded:先行する

Research conducted by Bright Line Watch, the group that organized the Yale conference, shows that Americans are not as committed to these norms as you might expect. 

It’s not that Americans don’t believe in democratic ideals or principles; it’s that our beliefs scale with our partisan loyalties. Vox’s Ezra Klein explained it well in a recent column: 

scale:を物差しで計る.

People’s opinions on democracy lie downstream from their partisan identity. If it had been Trump’s voters who had seen the Electoral College, gerrymandering, and Russia turn against them, then it would be Trump’s voters vibrating with outrage over the violation of key principles of American democracy. Hypocrisy aside, the reaction of nearly half the country to Russia’s meddling says a lot about our attachment to core democratic values like free and fair elections. 

partisan identity:党の独自性
vibrating:His voice was vibrating with anger. 彼の声は怒りで震えていた
Hypocrisy aside:偽善行為はさておき
attachment:忠誠  I had a special attachment to him. 私は彼を特に愛していた.

Another startling finding is that many Americans are open to “alternatives” to democracy. In 1995, for example, one in 16 Americans supported Army rule; in 2014, that number increased to one in six. According to another survey cited at the conference, 18 percent of Americans think a military-led government is a “fairly good” idea. 

startling: some startling results [conclusions] いくつかの驚くべき結果[結論].

But there’s more.
Ziblatt identified what he calls two “master norms.” The first is mutual toleration — whether we “accept the basic legitimacy of our opponents.” The second is institutional forbearance — whether politicians responsibly wield the power of the institutions they’re elected to control. 

forbearance:我慢, 忍耐, 自制; 寛容.

As for mutual toleration, America is failing abysmally (more on this below). We’re hardly better on the institutional forbearance front. 

abysmally:深く、底知れず、底抜けに、ものすごく、とてつもなく

Most obviously, there’s Donald Trump, who has dispensed with one democratic norm after another. He’s fired an FBI director in order to undercut an investigation into his campaign’s possible collusion with Moscow; staffed his White House with family members; regularly attacked the free press; and refused to divest himself of his business interests. 

dispensed:省く We cannot dispense with electricity. 我々は電気なしではやっていけない.
undercut:はばむ
collusion:共謀
divest:はぐ

The Republican Party, with few exceptions, has tolerated these violations in the hope that they might advance their agenda. But it’s about a lot more than Republicans capitulating to Trump. 

capitulating:受け入れる 降参する

Ziblatt points to the GOP’s unprecedented blocking of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, in 2016 as an example of institutional recklessness. In 2013, Senate Democrats took a similarly dramatic step by eliminating filibusters for most presidential nominations. That same year, House Republicans endangered the nation’s credit rating and shut down the government over Obamacare. 

recklessness:無謀さ
filibusters:(長い演説などによる)議事妨害(者).

There are countless other encroachments one could cite, but the point is clear enough: American democracy is increasingly less anchored by norms and traditions — and history suggests that’s a sign of democratic decay. 

encroachments:the encroachment of law on international waters 公海に関する法の侵害.
cite:引用する
decay:(精神健康富勢いなどの)衰退, 衰え; 荒廃.

“We don’t trust each other”
Timur Kuran, a professor of economics and politics at Duke University, argued that the real danger we face isn’t that we no longer trust the government but that we no longer trust each other. 

Kuran calls it the problem of “intolerant communities,” and he says there are two such communities in America today: “identitarian” activists concerned with issues like racial/gender equality, and the “nativist” coalition, people suspicious of immigration and cultural change. 

intolerant :不寛容な
identitarian: スペンサーが編集主幹を務めるオンラインメディアRadix Journalでは、昨年「私がアイデンティタリアンである理由」がテーマのエッセイ・コンテストを開催していた。それに寄せたコメントで、彼はアイデンティタリアニズムについて以下のように述べている。


 第一に、アイデンティタリアニズムとは、アイデンティティを精神的、知的、(メタ)政治的運動の中心に、そして中核的な問題に据える思想である。言い換えれば、アイデンティタリアニズムは、経済や人権、公共および外交政策等々に関する単なる一論点ではない。アイデンティタリアニズムとは、こうした問題の全て(他にもいろいろあるだろう)は、より大きな問いを問うことによってのみ解決できるという主張である。それは、我々は何者なのか?我々は何者であったのか?我々は何者になるのか?という問いだ。そして、アイデンティティとは、(そうである場合もあるが)単なる血の呼び声ではない。
 第二に、アイデンティタリアニズムは20世紀において標準的な、左翼/右翼の二分法を回避する(多くのアイデンティタリアンは右翼出身だが)。アイデンティタリアニズムは、今までと異なる新たな視点、そしてしばしば「左派」や「右派」として切り分けられてしまうエネルギーの統合に対して開かれている。「自由市場」「社会正義」あるいは「世界平和」とは我々にとって何であるのか、そのような語の意味を問い、そして我々の将来にとってそれらがどのような意味を持つのかを判断する必要がある。

 第三に、アイデンティタリアニズムは「ナショナリズム」という語、およびその歴史と言外の意味を回避する。実際、アイデンティタリアンの中心的意図の一つは、ヨーロッパにおける「他者」への憎悪の咎で断罪された、最近の歴史的記憶におけるナショナリズムの克服である。

まず、アイデンティタリアニズムは、ようはアイデンティティ至上主義なのである。ここで言うアイデンティティとは、ある集団が持つ文化や慣習、価値観を意味するようだ。スペンサーのようなアメリカの白人にとっては、それは西洋的な文化や慣習、価値観ということになろう。アイデンティティの問題が、経済的メリットや外交的配慮等に優先する、というのがアイデンティタリアニズムの基本的な主張ということになる。
nativist:移民排斥主義者

民主主義が変質しつつある。というよりも、社会がこの数十年で大きく変化してきているからだ。政治システムを人々は信じなくなってきている。政府は市民よりも政府の組織に対して仕事をしてきている。市民の賃金も上がらない。民主主義の崩壊というよりも、分裂していくと言ったほうが正しい。だから支持政党も、拡散していく。そうした価値観が多様化し、一方で、社会がどんどん従来の規則とか慣習から逸脱していく。それに伴って、民主主義自体も変質し、分裂していく。崩壊ではない。多様化していく。

月曜日。今日はソニー生命を訪問する。ではまた明日。


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海野 恵一
1948年1月14日生

学歴:東京大学経済学部卒業

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