What should we make of the shadowy undertow that is dragging international politics into unchartered waters?
In July, The Economist declared the ‘left versus right’ political divide a thing of the past — this year, its editors argue, is about ‘open versus closed’. Isolationist sentiment spurred by fear of homegrown terrorism and a frayed social safety net inadequate to allocate the gains from trade risks bringing down the global liberal order.
Larry Summers has warned of a global ‘renaissance of populist authoritarianism’, stemming from weak economic leadership in the wake of the global financial crisis. To mitigate it, he argues, leaders need to look beyond issues that concern ‘moralists and global elites’ and turn their attention to ‘the priorities of a broad middle class’. Bad economics, says Summers, make ‘angry politics’.
Whatever the favoured terminology, it seems clear that voters throughout the West and in other places are deserting what is perceived as the political mainstream. In the United States, intense polarisation, around widespread dissatisfaction with political institutions, looks like the new norm.
What will the wash up be on global engagement on the big policy choices that we face?
Policy choices that require international collective action, foresight, communication and narrative building are in special jeopardy — issues like immigration, climate change, trade policy, development assistance and the management of international investment. These are areas of policy that depend on political leadership capable of re-framing perceptions of short-term cost in favour of richer, healthier and more vibrant societies for future generations.
The weak leadership to which Summers refers can be both a cause and a consequence of populist politics. In promising a Brexit referendum, David Cameron’s Conservative Party appealed to economic nationalism in the hopes of winning over frustrated voters. The consequence is an unambiguously poorer United Kingdom. The ‘economic anxiety’ explanation of the Trump phenomenon also exemplifies the symbiosis between populist politics and irresponsible economics. For Trump, racist immigration policies, protectionism and hollow promises of ‘jobs’ go hand in hand.
Australia also seems swept up in the undertow of anti-globalisation. The rapid turnover in the leadership of mainstream political parties in the past decade is one symptom of voter disillusionment. The steady rise of minor political parties and independents is another.
In this week’s lead essay, Hugh Mackay argues that like ‘so many other institutions in Australia — the churches, mass media and trade unions — political parties are suffering a major slump in public esteem and respect’. In response, mainstream political parties have resorted to repeating ‘simplistic slogans in a desperate attempt to recapture lost hearts and minds’.
‘The undertow [in Australia] is also a reaction to the failure of too many contemporary politicians to accept responsibility for moral as well as political leadership’, says Mackay. Leaders have failed to engage Australians in ‘dreaming of a better world while articulating strategies for getting there’.
It may be tempting to ascribe the instability in Australian politics to a change in underlying cultural attitudes or dispositions, given the election of four senators from Pauline Hanson’s far-right, anti-Islam One Nation Party earlier this year. Yet throughout the instability of this political era — and despite it — Australia has retained the cultural foundations of an open and reform-oriented society. And unlike the United States, the mainstream political parties and and their platforms have not yet succumbed to isolationism and protectionism.
This year’s Lowy polling indicates that Australians are more worried about the state of their political system than about conventional populist concerns such as immigration or the rise of China. Presented with a list of ten domestic and foreign policy issues that deserved attention, 65 per cent described ‘dysfunction in Australian politics’ as a very important issue. Immigration and China’s rise bottomed out the list at 57 and 40 per cent respectively.
The benefits of immigration are clearer to Australians in 2016 than in previous years. There are 72 per cent who agree that ‘accepting immigrants from many different countries makes Australia stronger’ and ‘immigrants strengthen our country because of their hard work and talents’. Isolationist views that immigrants are a ‘burden’ on the welfare system, or, somewhat paradoxically to that claim, that they take jobs from ‘other Australians’, are in the minority.
On climate change, an ABC poll conducted in June showed that 63 per cent of Australians favour returning to a price on carbon.
That Australians appear less caught up in the wave of anti-globalisation sentiment than in North America or Europe may be explained by their circumstance in Asia and the world. Australia is one of the most East Asia-oriented economies in the world, including among those in East Asia itself. While growth has come back everywhere, the Asian economy still appears like an oasis in the global trade landscape. Trade and foreign economic policy continues on a course defined by openness, in ASEAN-led initiatives like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the ASEAN Economic Community. Though both might be proceeding slowly, they offer hope for the future of Asian regional trade integration. In contrast, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and trans-Atlantic arrangements are stymied by the politics espoused from different angles by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Trump in the United States and Brexit in Europe.
In the international effort to address climate change, Australians can find inspiration in the deal by China and the United States to ratify their Paris agreement commitments in September. India — the world’s third-biggest carbon emitter — followed suit soon after, proving that nations with a lot at stake can overcome short-term political difficulties and cooperate for absolute gains.
To tackle politically demanding issues like the global trade slowdown and climate change, Australia’s leaders will need to find a way to address disillusionment at the margins — disillusionment that while significant has failed thus far to overwhelm sound mainstream policy direction.
Mackay underlines the importance of narrative building, of putting together ‘a coherent story that would bring all the strands of policy together and help people make sense of what was happening to them and to society’. In Australia, as elsewhere, clear vision and communication of long term interest in international policy cooperation will need to triumph over populist three-word slogans.
The EAF Editorial Group is comprised of Peter Drysdale, Shiro Armstrong, Ben Ascione, Ryan Manuel, Amy King and Jillian Mowbray-Tsutsumi and is located in the Crawford School of Public Policy in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.