Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy

Confronting Polarization, Misinformation, and Suppression

Natalie Greene Taylor, Karen Kettnich, Ursula Gorham, Paul T. Jaeger, Natalie Greene Taylor, Karen Kettnich, Ursula Gorham, Paul T. Jaeger

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781839825972
• eBook ISBN: 9781839825989
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Bibliothèques et sciences de l'information

This latest volume of the Advances in Librarianship series presents original research exploring the modern state of democracies and social institutions, the contributions of libraries to the health and progress of democracies, and the political problems currently facing libraries as institutions. It details the best practices of library programs that provide political literacy education and promote civic engagement within communities. These practices include ways in which libraries can help diffuse political polarization, address significant policy issues of our day, promote political information literacy, support civic engagement, and facilitate participation in democratic processes.

Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy: Confronting Polarization, Misinformation, and Suppression is structured in three sections - questions of personal and state democracy, investigations of how the information infrastructure shapes these democracies, and explorations of the ways that libraries can and do contribute to democracy. Situating libraries within political conversations, highlighting their centrality to these discussions, Libraries and the Global Retreat of Democracy focuses on how libraries coordinate their work in political and information literacy and how these efforts can be improved, he recommendations and examples within which will serve as inspiration and motivation to its readers.

SECTION 1

WHAT IS DEMOCRACY?

CHAPTER 1

ACTUALLY-EXISTING DEMOCRACY AND LIBRARIES: A MAPPING EXERCISE

John Buschman

ABSTRACT

This is a troubled age for democracy, but the nature of that trouble and why it is a problem for democracy is an open question, not easy to answer. Widespread wishing for responsible leaders who respect democratic norms and pursue policies to benefit people and protect the vulnerable don’t help much. The issue goes well beyond library contexts, but it is important that those in libraries think through our role in democracy as well. Micro-targeting library-centric problems won’t be effective and don’t address the key issue of this volume. The author can only address the future if we recover an understanding of the present by building up an understanding of actually-existing democracy: (1) the scope must be narrowed to accomplish the task; (2) the characteristics of the retreat from democracy should be established; (3) core working assumptions and values – what libraries are about in this context – must be established; (4) actually-existing democracy should then be characterized; (5) the role of libraries in actually-existing democracy is then explored; (6) the source and character of the threat that is driving the retreat from democracy and cutting away at the core of library assumptions and values is analyzed; (7) the chapter concludes by forming a basis of supporting libraries by unpacking their contribution to building and rebuilding democratic culture: libraries are simultaneously less and more important than is understood.

Keywords: Democracy; public sphere; librarianship; community; capabilities; democratic decline; neoliberalism; library values

INTRODUCTION

This is a troubled age for democracy. “As if to mock the triumphalism” of the end of the Cold War,

liberal democracy has faltered with stunning abruptness. Even the most robust democracies are suffering from dysfunction and defection…. For both the far left and the far right, recent events are evidence that liberal democracy is inherently flawed and even doomed.¹

For others, it is the “likeness you see in family photographs, generation after generation” in echoes of the 1930s, “the last time democracy nearly died all over the world and almost all at once.”² Democracy, it is said, has become “trivialized” and “more of a slogan than a meaningful form of self-government.”³ The “warning bells” are there: “Across numerous countries … the percentage of people who say it is ‘essential’ to live in a democracy has plummeted, and it is especially low among younger generations.”⁴ But what is the nature of that trouble and why is it a problem for democracy? Widespread wishes and political support for responsible, appealing leaders who respect democratic norms and pursue policies to benefit the majority and protect those outside it haven’t helped much.⁵ The matter goes well beyond library contexts of course, but it is important that those who care about libraries in democracies think it through as well. Micro-targeting a problem in isolation – information literacy to combat fake news – and leaving it at that wouldn’t be effective and doesn’t advance the project of this volume. For librarianship to address what we are retreating from, we need to understand the terrain, not the ideal of democracy nor its cynical interpretation. “The future [can] only have a fighting chance if the present is recovered and redressed.”⁶ This must be done by building up an understanding of actually-existing democracy,⁷ via a mapping exercise to construct a view of roles and relations out of the welter.⁸ To do this our scope must be narrowed. A global analysis of democracy and the retreat from it would soon be lost in variations on the theme. That theme – the retreat from democracy – is what we wish to characterize and analyze. Second, the characteristics of that retreat should be established. Third, the core working assumptions/values that libraries instantiate should be laid out: what are libraries about, at least in this context? Fourth, characterizations of contemporary actually-existing democracy, and Fifth – the role of libraries in it – are offered. Sixth is the threat – its source and character – that is driving the retreat from democracy and cutting away at the core of library assumptions and values. Finally, the chapter will conclude by contextualizing this effort and identifying points of argument and advocacy for libraries, essentially forming a basis of arguing for them by unpacking their contribution to building and rebuilding democratic culture. (The move from “democracy” to “democratic culture” is intentional and will be addressed in Section 4 below). Libraries are simultaneously less and more important than is understood. The remainder of the chapter will work through this frame, building up our understanding of the central issues as it proceeds.

NARROWING THE SCOPE

Historian Eric Hobsbawm⁹ argued that any understanding of the “long nineteenth century”¹⁰ and the “titanic and revolutionary forces … which changed the world out of recognition”¹¹ then requires a focus on Britain, which “was at its core” from 1776 to 1914 (338). Likewise,

even in 1914 the USA had been the major industrial economy, and the major pioneer, model and propulsive force of the mass production and mass culture which conquered the globe during the Short Twentieth Century

from the First World War to the fall of the Soviet Union.¹² What has been called the “long peace” was built both on US dominance and support of violent repression of leftist movements worldwide¹³ and “the spread of democracy [and the] growth of economic interdependence and the resulting prosperity [wherein] U.S. leadership [was] essential [since they] do not arise spontaneously.”^14,15

In seeking to understand the current global travails of democracy, the United States arguably remains core. Senator Bernie Sanders compares “competing visions” between a Putin-inspired world order and progress: “we see a growing worldwide movement toward authoritarianism, oligarchy and kleptocracy [but] we see a movement toward strengthening democracy, egalitarianism and economic, social, racial and environmental justice,” elsewhere declaring that “the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth [must] help lead the struggle to defend and expand a rules-based international order in which law, not might, makes right.”¹⁶ This is not to reassert American exceptionalism, but rather that, “as the reigning empire of the day … continuities of events in the US with what happens in the rest of the world” have meaning for democracy.¹⁷ For instance, Black Lives Matter is influencing Europe:

America is taken notice of by white Europeans in a way that black Europeans aren’t always. And so we leverage that in order to shine a light on the things that otherwise would be ignored.¹⁸

Like Britain during the long nineteenth century, the United States is at the center of contemporary global developments. This has produced mixed results.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RETREAT FROM DEMOCRACY

Democracy now faces serious difficulties. But that was not always the case. There were three waves of democratic expansion in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction. Anticipating 2020 and Beyond: What’s Next for Libraries and Democracy?
• Section 1. What is Democracy?
• Section 2. How the Information Environment Contributes to and Detracts from Democracy
• Section 3. Libraries as Virtual and Physical Spaces for Democracy
• Afterword. Reverse the Retreat: Countering Disinformation and Authoritarianism as the Work of Libraries
• Index