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What can universities do to stop the demise of democracy?

The current events in Ukraine, as well as in Hong Kong, highlight the challenges facing people who support democracy.

Over the past several years numerous political and social scientists have made a convincing case that the increase in countries with a democratic governing system has not only slowed but regressed.

Barbara Walter, in her new book How Civil Wars Start, points out the ingredients that lead to authoritarianism.

Although citizens in democracies will have differing views of governance (taxes, healthcare, education and the like), what leads to civil unrest and war are larger disagreements about identity (religious, racial, urban-rural, caste, etc).

Ethnic nationalism creates an intense focus on one’s identity and, in turn, is an accelerant for the rejection of democracy. We have seen the results in countries such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Rwanda and now, to a certain extent, in the world’s oldest and largest democracies, the United States and India.

The weakness of democracy against the march of totalitarianism is, paradoxically, what has been seen as a strength. Democracy only works if there is a shared sense of trust that the parameters of governance are good and valid even if a particular decision is not in a person’s best interest.

As a democratic citizen, I may have voted for a losing candidate, but I trust that the election was fair. My hope remains that tomorrow will be better than yesterday, not only for myself but for my children, family and neighbours.

The lack of trust among the polity, the rejection of what I am told is true and a loss of hope for a better tomorrow leads to individuals and groups creating their own version of truth, their own definition of reality and a rise in attacks against those with whom I disagree.

When the polity disagrees over the parameters of truth then ‘the other’ – be they immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, the impoverished or others who can be demonised become targets for attack. A democracy at risk is one where groups first classify and define ‘us’ versus ‘them’ and then find ways to discriminate, dehumanise and polarise daily interactions.

Eventually the dominant group, which believes itself to be aggrieved, develops plans to eradicate other groups. Citizen militias are examples of groups coalescing around a shared narrative of allegiance and grievance. Such groups are particularly easy to form at a time when the rules for social media are in flux and lies and distortions can be propagated in private chat rooms and on websites.

The search for truth

For those of us in academe who value a devotion to truth the warning signs are apparent of the clear and present danger. Universities, at their best, model how discussions and arguments might take place over the nature of phenomena whether it be in the laboratory, the classroom or the college square.

Indeed, when free speech is curtailed and academic freedom dies, such as has happened in Hong Kong, for example, the university becomes a shell of an organisation that should be devoted to the search for truth.

Certainly, universities will be able to function and do the bidding of the authoritarian government, but for those of us who believe that the search for truth is the raison d’être of academic life, the university exists in name only and nothing more.

The democratic role of universities

If academics support democracy, what might we do to prevent the demise of democracy? What is a counter-strategy to those who wish to kill democracy?

Affirm the university’s role in advancing democracy: Rather than try to avoid controversy, universities as institutions should clarify their role in support of democratic governance.

A culture of democracy is one that affirms the centrality of knowledge production in decision-making and rejects authoritarian calls to crown an individual with all decision-making authority or to demonise any minority group. The result is that the institution becomes a centre for the advocacy and support of democracy.

When we educate students only for jobs, we are doing little to defend democracy. We need to educate students so that they are able to participate in the democratic public sphere. Rather than try to avoid conversations that animate public life in countries where controversy rages, those of us in academe need to embrace our role as intellectuals concerned about public debate and the nature of truth.

Clarify authoritative knowledge: Accordingly, the university needs to reaffirm the parameters of scholarly discourse and then engage in those debates. The claim that all knowledge is provisional opens up society to any claims a fascist state wishes to put forward.

Social media is now able to develop ‘deep fakes’ that create false portraits of reality. A critical role of the university is to be able to foster discussions that broaden understanding rather than disable it.

The pandemic fostered enormous amounts of disinformation that academic scientists might have refuted robustly on a more timely and systematic level.

Most recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s history of Russia and Ukraine is a fiction that warrants vigorous academic rebuttal. However, if we look at either situation – the pandemic or the invasion of Ukraine – the university was not thought of as a site of defence for authoritative knowledge.

Enable the university to be a locus of informed debate that stimulates action: Academic institutions, in multifaceted ways, are involved in the definition, creation and refinement of a better future for the local and global community. Academics are cartographers of the mind – but we are at a time where ideas disengaged from action enable fascism to rise.

I am suggesting that we need to reinsert our institutions in the public debate and on the side of democracy. It is not enough for individual academics to speak out as experts. Universities as institutions need to be participants in democracy, not bystanders.

We should welcome all those who offer thoughtful arguments on all issues that confront us and we have to create the conditions so that these arguments are seen as scholarly interchange.

Disinformation campaigns and statements that run counter to the truth need to be rebutted rather than enabled.

These debates ought to be not merely an academic exercise as if the university is simply a debating society and nothing more. Debates need to lead to action that enables the democratic public sphere to flourish.

Work across the globe for democratic engagement: Previous scholarly work has investigated the four ‘cultures’ of the faculty – the profession, the discipline, the institution and the nation. At a time of increasing globalisation and polarisation, academics need to stand with those academics and institutions which are under threat.

Scholars at Risk is an example of an organisation that actively supports academic freedom and those individuals who place themselves in danger because they dare to speak truth to power.

Strength comes from working across groups rather than staying silent when threats and crises erupt in other institutions in other countries. Do we really have nothing to say when universities are closed, fire-bombed and students and faculty are imprisoned?

Far too often we plead ignorance as a rationale for inaction. If we are concerned about advancing democracy, then we need to be more centrally engaged with democratic movements at universities around the globe.

Get involved: One truism of academic life is that virtually all academics everywhere have little tolerance for meetings, even though we spend an inordinate amount of time at them. Participation in meetings counts as service.

At a time when democratic governments are in danger of collapse, we need an expanded notion of service. Multiple groups are organising that would welcome the expertise of academics as we seek to stimulate informed action.

Groups such as Citizen University and Third Act are examples of newly formed organisations that rise to the current crisis democracy faces.

Rather than complain about attending yet another departmental meeting, academics need to participate in, or found, organisations dedicated to the protection and advancement of democracy.

William G Tierney is university professor emeritus, founding director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California, United States, and author of Higher Education for Democracy: The role of the university in civil society (SUNY, 2021).