Publication: Anti-democratic political parties as a threat to democracy: Models of reaction and the strategic democracy
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2018-12-01
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Thomson Reuters
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There is a consensus among policymakers, lawmakers, legal scholars and ‘we the people’ in the western world, that democracy is a blessing. However, how do we defend democracy from anti-democratic political parties that aim to overthrow the democratic regime by abusing the guarantees and the tolerance of democracy?
This article argues that there are three public policy options: the traditional model that permits the dissolution of anti-democratic political parties; the business as usual model, that regulates such parties with ordinary administrative law and controls the conduct of their members via ordinary criminal law; and finally, the strategic model that employs an electoral system according to which political parties, like the anti-democratic, having more enemies than supporters are ostracized.
That said, this article argues that whilst electoral law is the most rule-of-law based mechanism to safeguard democracies from anti-democratic parties, not all electoral systems are capable. Only the electoral systems that allow for ‘strategic voting’ can be employed for this purpose.
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IE Law School
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Kouroutakis, A. E. (2018). Anti-Democratic Political Parties as a Threat to Democracy: Models of Reaction and the Strategic Democracy. PUBLIC LAW REVIEW UPDATE, 29, 310.