Escape from democracy? Reading the threat to democracy by Fathali M. Moghaddam

0531778 - PSÚ 2021 RIV CZ eng J - Journal Article
Klicperová-Baker, Martina
Escape from democracy? Reading the threat to democracy by Fathali M. Moghaddam.
Československá psychologie. Roč. 64, č. 4 (2020), s. 480-489. ISSN 0009-062X. E-ISSN 1804-6436
R&D Projects: GA ČR GA15-11062S
Grant - others:AV ČR(CZ) StrategieAV21/14
Program: StrategieAV
Institutional support: RVO:68081740
Keywords : political psychology * democracy * freedom * dictatorship * psychology of democracy * populism
OECD category: Psychology (including human - machine relations)
Impact factor: 0.471, year: 2020
Method of publishing: Open access

Since politics is to a great degree applied psychology, psychologists should get involved in the analysis of the current democratic decline and reversal of this trend. Martina Klicperová Baker introduces and discusses the book Threat to Democracy by a political psychologist, F. M. Moghaddam. Many of its useful concepts will very likely enter the vocabulary of the discipline, e.g., the springboard model to dictatorship, sacred groups, fractured globalization, and political plasticity. Also, Moghaddam’s circular explanation of history (peoples who free themselves from a dictatorship often find themselves trapped by another dictator) and his suggestion to replace multiculturalism with a unifying humanistic orientation (omniculturalism) are very topical. The article is devoted to discussion and elaboration of the main concepts of the book. Klicperová-Baker augments the springboard model of dictatorship theory and converts it into a diagram, she expands definition of populism into a prosocial/antisocial dichotomy, she sup- plements the “sacred groups” (religion, ethnicity, and race) used by dictators with an additional category of “dark sacred groups” which result from fear and hatred and lead to a negativistic counter-identification (racism, misogyny, malevolent religious self-righteousness, a priori antigovernmental rebelliousness, unsubstantiated climate denial, homophobia). The main point of argument is the concept of freedom (attached and detached freedom) and applicability of Fromm’s “escape from freedom” to the current situation. It is concluded that if Fromm’s idea is not consensual, perhaps the notion of “escape from democracy” is. Further discussion of the matter is very welcome.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0310394