2017年11月13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。」(2)

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 (2)

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。」(2)



Each of these communities defines itself in terms of its opposition to the other. They live in different worlds, desire different things, and share almost nothing in common. There is no real basis for agreement and thus no reason to communicate. 

define:〈権限立場義務など〉を明確にする
in terms of design:デザインの点から見ると

The practical consequence of this is a politics marred by tribalism. Worse, because the fault lines run so deep, every political contest becomes an intractable existential drama, with each side convinced the other is not just wrong but a mortal enemy. 

marred:The election was marred by fraud. その選挙は不正行為によって台なしにされた.
political contest:政治的な争い
intractable:手に負えない
convinced:…ということを[A〈事〉を]確信している 

Consider this stat: In 1960, 5 percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats objected to the idea of their children marrying across political lines. In 2010, those numbers jumped to 46 percent and 33 percent respectively. Divides like this are eating away at the American social fabric. 

stat:statistic (1つの)統計値[量]; ⦅否定的に⦆単なるデータ(の1つ)
eat away:侵食する
social fabric:社会機構

A 2014 Pew Research Center study reached a similar conclusion: "In both political parties, most of those who view the other party very unfavorably say that the other side's policies 'are so misguided that they threaten the nation's well-being,'" Pew reports. "Overall, 36% of Republicans and Republican leaners say that Democratic policies threaten the nation, while 27% of Democrats and Democratic leaners view GOP policies in equally stark terms." 
on equal terms (with A) ≒ on the same terms (as A):(Aと)同じ条件で, 対等で
stark:全くの

So it’s not merely that we disagree about issues; it’s that we believe the other side is a grievous threat to the republic. According to Pew, the numbers above have more than doubled since 1994. 

grievous:深刻[重大]な〈過ち犯罪けがなど〉; 悲嘆すべき.
republic:社会

Kuran warns that autocrats tend to exploit these divisions by pushing “policies that may seem responsive to grievances but are ultimately counterproductive.” Think of Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban” or his insistence on building a giant wall on the southern border. Neither of these policies is likely to make a significant difference in the lives of Trump’s voters, but that’s not really the point. 

autocrats:独裁者
counterproductive:逆効果を招く; 非生産的で.
insistence :主張

By pandering to fears and resentments, Trump both deepens the prejudices and satisfies his base. 

pandering:【欲望弱みなどに】付け込む; 迎合する
resentments:憤り, 憤慨, 怒り(anger); 恨み
prejudices:(人種思想性別などに基づく)先入観

Donald Trump and “the politics of eternity” Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian and author of the book On Tyranny, gave one of the more fascinating talks of the conference. 

Strangely enough, Snyder talked about time as a kind of political construct. (I know that sounds weird, but bear with me.) His thesis was that you can tell a lot about the health of a democracy based on how its leaders — and citizens — orient themselves in time. 

construct:構成概念; 〘言〙構成体
weird:奇妙な
bear with:〈人の話など〉に辛抱して耳を傾ける (!丁寧な依頼表現で) ; A〈人(の行為)不快なことなど〉を我慢する 
I tried to orient myself in the darkness.:私は暗闇の中で自分が今どこにいるのかを知ろうとした.

Take Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. The slogan itself invokes a nostalgia for a bygone era that Trump voters believe was better than today and better than their imagined future. By speaking in this way, Snyder says, Trump is rejecting conventional politics in a subtle but significant way. 

subtle:detect subtle but significant changes わずかだが重要な変化を見つけだす.

Why, after all, do we strive for better policies today? Presumably it’s so that our lives can be improved tomorrow. But Trump reverses this. He anchors his discourse to a mythological past, so that voters are thinking less about the future and more about what they think they lost. 

strive:strive for excellence in education 優れた学力を身につけることに努める
Presumably:おそらく
discourse:対話
mythological:神話(上)の; 偉大な

“Trump isn’t after success — he’s after failure,” Snyder argued. By that, he means that Trump isn’t after what we’d typically consider success — passing good legislation that improves the lives of voters. Instead, Trump has defined the problems in such a way that they can’t be solved. We can’t be young again. We can’t go backward in time. We can’t relive some lost golden age. So these voters are condemned to perpetual disappointment. 

legislation:pass legislation to ban workplace discrimination 職場差別を禁じる法律を通過させる.
relive:(想像などによって)〈過去の体験感情など〉を再び体験する, 追体験する.

The counterargument is that Trump’s idealization of the past is, in its own way, an expression of a desire for a better future. If you’re a Trump voter, restoring some lost version of America or revamping trade policies or rebuilding the military is a way to create a better tomorrow based on a model from the past. 

restoring:restore the brightness to one's eyes 目の輝きを取り戻す
revamping:を改造[改良, 改装]する; …を改訂する

For Snyder, though, that’s not really the point. The point is that Trump’s nostalgia is a tactic designed to distract voters from the absence of serious solutions. Trump may not be an authoritarian, Snyder warns, but this is something authoritarians typically do. They need the public to be angry, resentful, and focused on problems that can’t be remedied. 

distract:〈人注意など〉をそらす

Snyder calls this approach “the politics of eternity,” and he believes it’s a common sign of democratic backsliding because it tends to work only after society has fallen into disorder. 

My (depressing) takeaway
Back in June, I interviewed political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, authors of Democracy for Realists. They had a sobering thesis about democracy in America: Most people pay little attention to politics; when they vote, if they vote at all, they do so irrationally and for contradictory reasons. 

takeaway:takeout  order [get] Chinese takeout 持ち帰り用の中華料理を注文する[買う]
sobering:a sobering thought 考えさせられるもの[内容].
at all:少しでも, 仮にも Come to me if you need anything at all. とにかくいるものがあれば私のところに来なさい
irrationally:道理に反して

One of the recurring themes of this conference was that Americans are becoming less committed to liberal democratic norms. But were they ever really committed to those norms? I’m not so sure. If Achen and Bartels are to be believed, most voters don’t hold fixed principles. They have vague feelings about undefined issues, and they surrender their votes on mostly tribal grounds. 

recurring:a recurring nightmare [theme] 繰り返して見る悪夢[登場するテーマ].
tribal:部族の, 種族の

So I look at the declining faith in democratic norms and think: Most people probably never cared about abstract principles like freedom of the press or the rule of law. (We stopped teaching civics to our children long ago.) But they more or less affirmed those principles as long as they felt invested in American life. 

civics:(授業科目としての)公民(科), 倫理(社会); 市民論(研究), 市政学.
affirmed: affirm a scientific truth 科学上の真理を認める

But for all the reasons discussed above, people have gradually disengaged from the status quo. Something has cracked. Citizens have lost faith in the system. The social compact is broken. So now we’re left to stew in our racial and cultural resentments, which paved the way for a demagogue like Trump. 

disengaged:【束縛などから】〈人物〉を解放する, 自由にする ≪from≫ .
stew:leave A to stew  A〈人〉を(自業自得だから)苦しませておく, 放っておく.

Bottom line: I was already pretty cynical about the trajectory of American democracy when I arrived at the conference, and I left feeling justified in that cynicism. Our problems are deep and broad and stretch back decades, and the people who study democracy closest can only tell us what’s wrong. They can’t tell us what ought to be done. 

No one can, it seems.

cynicism:懐疑的態度, 不信感; 冷笑的な意見

彼はトランプのやり方が独裁主義ではないが、現状を否定して、投票者に過去を賛美させる。そして現状に対して怒りと憤慨をもたせ、将来に対しての解決できない問題に対しての関心をそらそうとする。一般大衆は現在の政治に仕組みを信用していないし、社会契約が崩壊していて、民族的なそして文化的な憤りを感じていて、それをトランプがうまく利用している。驚くべきことに共和党の支持者は36%もの人が民主党の考えが国に脅威を与えると信じていて、民主党は27%の人がそう思っている。社会的にこうした分裂現象があるが、言論の自由とか法による統治といった民主主義の基本は国民は意識はしていないが、そういうことは誰もが認めている。

火曜日。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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