Chapter 2
They the People
“Had I been cryogenically frozen in January 2005,” writes British historian Timothy Garton Ash, one of Europe’s most prominent public intellectuals,
I would have gone to my provisional rest as a happy European. With the enlargement of the European Union . . . the 1989 “return to Europe” dream of my Central European friends was coming true. EU member states had agreed on a constitutional treaty, loosely referred to as the European constitution . . . It was amazing to travel without hindrance from one end of the continent to another, with no border controls inside the expanding zone of states adhering to the Schengen Agreement and with a single currency in your pocket for use throughout the eurozone.
Madrid, Warsaw, Athens, Lisbon, and Dublin felt as if they were bathed in sunlight from windows newly opened in ancient dark palaces. The periphery of Europe was apparently converging with the continent’s historic core around Germany, the Benelux countries, France, and northern Italy. Young Spaniards, Greeks, Poles, and Portuguese spoke optimistically about the new chances offered them by “Europe.” Even notoriously Euroskeptical Britain was embracing its European future under Prime Minister Tony Blair. And then there was the avowedly pro-European Orange Revolution in Ukraine. . . .
Cryogenically reanimated in January 2017, I would immediately have died again from shock. For now there is crisis and disintegration wherever I look: the Eurozone is chronically dysfunctional, sunlit Athens is plunged into misery, young Spaniards with doctorates are reduced to serving as waiters in London or Berlin, the children of Portuguese friends seek work in Brazil and Angola, and the periphery of Europe is diverging from its core. There is no European constitution, since that was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands later in 2005 . . . And Brexit brings with it the prospect of being stripped of my European citizenship on the thirtieth anniversary of 1989.1
This is how pro-EU Europeans feel today.
In twentieth-century Europe, nondemocratic empires disintegrated under democratic pressure brought to bear by their own subjects. Democrats were the ones who destroyed empires; liberals sought to save and reform them. In 1848, liberals and nationalists were allies within the Habsburg Empire, united by their shared opposition to the authoritarian (but not ethnically specific) center. By 1918, they had become each other’s sworn enemies. In 1848, both democrats (most of whom were nationalists as well) and liberals insisted that the people should decide. In 1918, liberals were nervous about the prospect of popular democracy while democrats loathed the idea of being governed by unelected liberal elites. The clash between cosmopolitan liberals and national-minded democrats ended with victory for the nationalists and the death of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The European Union, unlike the Habsburg Monarchy, is a “democratic empire,” a voluntary quasi-federation of democratic states in which citizens’ rights and freedoms are guaranteed and that only democracies may join. Despite this difference, the democracy question is once again at the heart of Europe’s troubles. If in the Habsburg case the masses were enchanted with democracy, in today’s EU they are stricken with disillusionment. The general mood in Europe these days can be summed up as follows: “One of the reasons many people are skeptical about democracy is because they’re right to be.” The 2012 “Future of Europe” survey indicated that only a third of Europeans believe their vote counts at the EU level, and a paltry 18 percent of Italians and 15 percent of Greeks believe that their votes count even in their own country.2
According to a recent survey, the paradoxical effect of the global spread of democracy in the last fifty years is that citizens, in a number of supposedly consolidated democracies in North America and western Europe, have grown more critical of their political leaders.3 But that’s not all. They have also become more cynical about the value of democracy as a political system, less hopeful that anything they do might influence public policy, and more willing to express support for authoritarian alternatives. The study also shows that “younger generations are less committed to the importance of democracy” and that they are “less likely to be politically engaged.”4
From today’s uncompromising vantage point, a political union capable of backing the euro with a common fiscal policy cannot be accomplished as long as EU member states remain fully democratic. Their citizens will just not support it. Yet the breakup of the common currency could possibly lead to the fragmentation of the union, with one of the end results being a likely rise of authoritarianism on the EU’s periphery. Unlike in any earlier period, the objectives of an “ever closer union” and “deeper democracy” are at odds with one another.
The Specter of Populism
In June 2006, when the Slovak Robert Fico won a plurality of the vote and formed a government in coalition with Jan Slota’s extreme nationalistic Slovak National Party, the Slovak constitutional court announced that one of its citizens had asked the court to annul the election. The claimant insisted that the republic had failed to create a “normal” system of elections and had therefore violated a citizen’s constitutional right to be governed wisely. In the eyes of the claimant, an electoral system that could lead to a motley coalition such as the new Slovak government could not be “normal.”
The lone Slovak appellant had a point. The right to be governed wisely can contradict a citizen’s right to vote. This is what has always made liberals anxious about democracy. Indeed, those familiar with the work of the influential nineteenth-century French liberal historian Francois Guizot might suspect that he had been reincarnated in the figure of the Slovak citizen who demanded answers from the constitutional court. That democratic governance can be destructive to the European project is a common concern for many European liberals. For them, George Orwell may have said it best: “Public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind.”5
The clearest manifestation of the current fear can be seen in the reaction of European leaders to the greatest victim of the financial crisis: Greece. Unsustainably underwriting a noncompetitive economy while keeping social spending high and suffering from stunning corruption, Greece was the victim of a perfect storm. A hurricane really. In the precrisis decade, EU wages per employee had increased by 30 percent, but in Greece they skyrocketed 85 percent. For public sector wages, it was even worse: a 40 percent increase in the EU, but an astounding 117 percent spike in Greece. By the summer of 2011, it was clear that the EU was the only hope for Greece to avoid bankruptcy and to remain in the eurozone. But external support would come at the price of a costly—in both political and human terms—austerity program. On October 31, 2011, Greek prime minister George Papandreou announced a referendum on a bailout plan proposed by the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He asked his countrymen to support the reform measures demanded by the creditors. This was the price of staying in the eurozone.
But the referendum never happened. Three days after announcing it, and following a harsh reaction by Berlin and Brussels, the Greek government shelved the idea and the reforms were voted on in the Parliament instead. It was a painfully clear example of “democracy frustrated.” Western European leaders were convinced that Greek citizens should not be permitted a say when the outcome of the vote would affect the fate of a currency belonging to everyone living in the eurozone. Put more harshly, many thought it absurd to suggest that debtors be given a vote on terms they would be offered by creditors. Unsurprisingly, Papandreou’s Socialists not only lost the next elections but faded fast as a force in Greek politics more generally. The division of EU member states into a creditors-debtors axis became one of the most devastating outcomes of the euro crisis.
Several years later, a second appearance of the referendum idea emerged on the initiative of Alexis Tsipras and his radical left-wing Syriza Party. This time, we might call it “democracy castrated.” The Greeks actually held a vote on July 5, 2015—with the vast majority rejecting (as Tsipras’s government had hoped they would) the terms for a new, third bailout by the so-called troika of the IMF, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. But this heroic resistance to creditors lasted no more than a week. By the next Monday, Tsipras had swallowed a much harsher version of the bailout, agreeing to implement policies that he had only recently deemed “criminal.”
The temporary resolution of the Greek crisis was instructive on one fundamental point. For the common European currency to survive, voters of debtor nations must be deprived of their right to change economic policy despite retaining a capacity to change governments. It was the most powerful restatement that the governing formula of the EU—namely, policies without politics in Brussels and politics without policies on the national level—had been reinforced by the crisis. Given what had occurred, it became clear that what Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis (his finance minister until July 2016) were fighting was less the policies proposed by creditors than being held responsible for acceding to them. The Greek welfare state was transformed into a warfare state. The government was unable to redistribute wealth, so it worked overtime to redistribute blame.
In handling the rebellion from Athens, European leaders faced a stark choice. They could either allow Greece to default and thus put the common currency at risk, destroy the Greek economy, and send the message that in a political union of creditors and debtors there is no place for solidarity—or save Greece on Tsipras’s terms and thereby signal that political blackmail works, inspiring populist parties across the continent.
Faced with the dilemma, European leaders identified a third option: to save Greece on such draconian terms that no other populist government would ever be tempted to follow its example. Tsipras is now the living demonstration that there is no alternative to the economic policies of the European Union.
The immediate impact of the agreement was expected: the markets calmed, the Greeks felt demoralized, and the Germans remained skeptical. But did the victory of economic reason over the will of the voters contribute to the survival of the union? That story is far less clear cut.
For many, “democracy” in the EU quickly became code for the political impotence of citizens. Rather than Brussels symbolizing the glory of a common European home, the EU’s capital came to represent the unrestricted power of the markets and the destructive power of globalization.
Greeks may have despaired of their failure to resist the imprecations of the market, but their southern European neighbors, the Italians, were primed to celebrate them. Silvio Berlusconi’s last act as Italian prime minister in the fall of 2011 was to drive a car through a crowd of protesters who had been taunting him with epithets like “buffoon” and “shame.”
As the seventy-five-year-old oligarch and media mogul met with the Italian president to tender his resignation, the streets outside the presidential palace pulsated with chanting demonstrators waving Italian flags and uncorking champagne bottles. In one corner, a choir sang Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” accompanied by an impromptu orchestra. Across the way, celebrants formed a conga line. Cars honked their horns and pedestrians broke into song. It had the ambience of a revolutionary moment.
But it was far from it. The fall of Berlusconi was hardly a classic triumph of “people’s power.” Rather, it was an unequivocal triumph of the power of financial markets. The will of the voters never booted Berlusconi’s corrupt and ineffective clique out of office; it was brought about by the explicit joining of financial markets with the commanding bureaucratic heights in Brussels and the European Central Bank’s leadership in Frankfurt, all of which imparted the fateful message, “Berlusconi must go.” It was also they who picked the former European commissioner Mario Monti, a “technocrat” (and thus not “political”), to be Berlusconi’s successor. People on the streets of Rome had every reason to feel ecstatic yet powerless. Berlusconi may be gone, but the voter ceased being the most powerful figure in crisis-torn Italy. The public’s celebration of the end of the Berlusconi regime resembled the enthusiasm of Italians upon greeting Napoleon’s victorious army in 1796. People on the street were not the agents but the spectators of history.
In Greece’s case, Brussels became the symbol of the arrogant elite that shifts the cost of the crisis onto a weak and defenseless Greek people. For Italy, at least for a time, Brussels was the citizens’ sole hope to oust an unpopular prime minister and break the oligarchical regime he created. At the heart of the European Union’s loss of legitimacy is the fact that, with the deepening of the EU’s crisis, Brussels’s role as an ally of the people against corrupt national elites dimmed. Italians shifted their hopes for a better life toward populist Euroskeptical parties like Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement. In a similar way that Italian nationalism inspired by the French Revolution turned against Napoleon, those Italians who celebrated the ousting of Berlusconi’s government are today casting their vote for anti-EU parties.
In his book The Globalization Paradox, Harvard political economist Dani Rodrik suggests that we have three options to manage tensions between national democracies and globalization.6 We can restrict democracy in order to gain competitiveness in international markets. We can limit globalization in the hope of building democratic legitimacy at home. Or we can globalize democracy at the cost of national sovereignty. What we cannot have, Rodrik makes clear, is hyperglobalization, democracy, and self-determination simultaneously. But this is precisely what most governments want. They want people to have the right to vote yet are unready for those votes to sanction populist policies. They want to be able to reduce labor costs and ignore social protests while also refusing to enter the murky waters of publicly endorsing an authoritarian strong hand. They favor free trade and interdependence, but they want to be sure that when necessary (in a moment of crisis like the present) they can return to national control of the economy. Instead of choosing between a sovereign democracy, a globalized democracy, or a globalization-friendly authoritarianism, political elites try to redefine democracy and sovereignty in order to make possible the impossible. The outcome is unworkable: you end up with democracy without choices, sovereignty without meaning, and globalization without legitimacy.
What was until recently a competition between two distinctive forms of government—democracy and authoritarianism—has evolved in the wake of the global financial crisis into a competition between two different forms of the statement: “There is no alternative politics.” In democratic Europe, the fact that “there is no policy alternative” to austerity has become the mantra of the day: voters can change governments, to be sure, but they are disempowered to change economic policies. By constitutionalizing many macroeconomic decisions (e.g., budget deficits, levels of public debt), Brussels has de facto extricated them from the domain of electoral politics.
In Russia and China, the “no alternative” discourse means that it is impossible to remove their current leaders. The governing elite can be more flexible in experimenting with different economic policies, but what is excluded in Russia and China is the possibility to challenge those in power. People are not allowed to elect “wrong” leaders—therefore, elections are either controlled, rigged, or banned for the sake of “good governance.”
In order to assess the role of democracy in the current European crisis, we need to accept that what is driving public sentiment is not a democratic aspiration but a democratic confusion. This leaves the analyst of Europe’s political crisis in a trap. At one level, what was true about monarchy more than a century ago (Walter Bagehot’s notion that “it is an intelligible government [because] the mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other”7) is now true of democracy. But there is a growing fear that democracy simply does not work.
To gauge how dissatisfaction with democracy (which often takes the form of a demand for a different democracy) will affect the chances of the European Union’s survival, we must make sense of three paradoxes. First, why are Central European voters, who opinion polls tell us constitute some of the continent’s most pro-European electorates, ready to put in power anti-EU parties that openly loathe independent institutions such as courts, central banks, and the media? I will call it the “Central European paradox.” Second, why has the political mobilization of the younger generations in western Europe, who according to opinion polls are much more liberal and friendly to the union than older voters, not led to the emergence of pan-European pro-EU populist movement? I will call it “West European paradox.” And third, why are Europeans so resentful to Brussels’s elites when they are the most meritocratic elites in Europe? I will call it “Brussels paradox.”
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《民粹主義的幽靈》— 中文翻譯
民粹主義的幽靈
2006 年 6 月，斯洛伐克的羅伯特・菲佐（Robert Fico）贏得國會最大黨席次，並與極端民族主義的斯洛伐克民族黨（Jan Slota）組成執政聯盟時，斯洛伐克憲法法院宣布，有公民向法院提出請求，希望判決選舉無效。這名聲請人主張，共和國未能建立一套「正常」的選舉制度，因此侵犯了公民「被明智治理」的憲法權利。在他看來，竟然能產生一個如此混雜的執政聯盟的選舉制度，必然不是「正常」的。
這位孤獨的斯洛伐克上訴人，其實並非全無道理。「被明智治理的權利」可能與公民的投票權相互矛盾——這正是自由派一向對民主感到焦慮之處。熟悉十九世紀法國自由派史家紀佐（François Guizot）的人，甚至會懷疑他是否投胎成了這名要求法院解釋的斯洛伐克公民。民主治理可能破壞歐洲整合，這是許多歐洲自由派共同的擔憂；對他們而言，喬治・歐威爾的名言說得最好：「公共輿論並不比人性更天生善良」。
今天這種恐懼的最清楚展現，就是歐洲領袖對金融危機最大受害者「希臘」的反應。
希臘長期以來支撐著一個缺乏競爭力且高社福支出的經濟體系，並受到嚴重貪腐侵蝕，簡直像遭遇了一場完美風暴。危機前十年間，歐盟整體平均每名員工薪資成長 30%，但希臘卻飆升 85%；公部門更誇張——歐盟平均漲 40%，希臘則暴漲 117%。到了 2011 年夏季，眾所皆知，如果希臘想避免破產並留在歐元區，歐盟就是唯一救命索。然而外部援助的代價是殘酷的緊縮政策。
2011 年 10 月 31 日，希臘總理帕潘德里歐（George Papandreou）宣布，將就歐盟、歐洲央行與 IMF 提出的紓困方案舉行公投，希望希臘人民支持這些改革，作為留在歐元區的代價。
但公投從未舉行。
三天後，在柏林與布魯塞爾的強烈反對下，希臘政府撤回公投，改由國會直接表決——這是最痛苦的「被挫敗的民主」範例。西歐國家領袖深信，希臘人民不應在牽動整個歐元區命運的議題上擁有最終決定權。更尖銳地說，許多人認為讓債務人投票決定債權人的條件本身就是荒謬的。帕潘德里歐的社會黨在之後的選舉中慘敗，從希臘政治舞台快速凋零。歐盟國家被分為「債權國–債務國」兩軸，也成為歐債危機最具破壞性的後果之一。
幾年後，第二次公投出現——這次由激進左派的齊普拉斯（Alexis Tsipras）與其領導的「激進左翼聯盟（Syriza）」發動。這一次可以稱為**「被閹割的民主」**。希臘確實在 2015 年 7 月 5 日舉行公投，並（如齊普拉斯政府所盼）以壓倒性多數否決「三方機構」（IMF、歐洲央行、歐盟委員會）提出的第三輪紓困方案。然而這場英勇的抵抗僅持續一週——隔週一，齊普拉斯便吞下了更嚴苛的版本，接受那些他曾稱為「罪行般的」政策。
這段希臘危機的暫時解決展現了一個殘酷事實：
若要讓歐元存活，債務國的選民必須被剝奪對經濟政策的決定權，即使他們仍然可以更換政府。
這凸顯了歐盟的治理公式——「布魯塞爾決定政策、各國只能玩政治」—— 如何被危機進一步固化。齊普拉斯與其財長瓦魯法基斯（Yanis Varoufakis）所反抗的，其實並非政策本身，而是被迫替這些政策負責的政治代價。希臘的福利國被迫變成責備國：政府無法再分配財富，只能加倍努力分配責備。
面對雅典的反抗，歐洲領袖遇到三選一的困境：
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讓希臘違約，冒著摧毀歐元的風險；
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或接受希臘條件，以免示範效應刺激全歐民粹政黨；
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或選擇第三條路——在極端嚴厲的條件下拯救希臘，使其他民粹政府不敢效法。
歐洲選了第三條。齊普拉斯成了活生生的示範：歐洲經濟政策沒有替代方案。
短期結果如預期：市場平靜，希臘人沮喪，德國人仍然懷疑。但這場「經濟理性壓倒選民意志」的勝利，是否真的有助於歐盟的延續？答案遠非明確。
對許多人而言，歐盟中的「民主」迅速成為公民無力感的代名詞。布魯塞爾不再象徵共同歐洲之家，而代表市場的無限制權力與全球化的破壞力。
希臘人絕望；不過南歐鄰居義大利人卻以另一種方式看待。
2011 年秋，義大利總理貝魯斯柯尼在辭職前，甚至駕車衝進嘲罵他的抗議人群。當他向義大利總統遞交辭呈時，外頭大批民眾高舉義大利國旗、開香檳、唱《Hallelujah》，像革命時刻一般。
但那不是革命。
貝魯斯柯尼的垮台不是選民的勝利，而是金融市場與歐盟官僚體系聯手的勝利。真正讓他下台的，不是人民，而是那句從布魯塞爾—法蘭克福傳出的信息：「貝魯斯柯尼必須走。」接著，他們挑選了歐盟前專員馬里奧・蒙蒂（Mario Monti）這位「技術官僚」接掌政權。羅馬街頭民眾的狂喜，像 1796 年義大利人迎接拿破崙部隊——民眾不是主角，而是旁觀者。
在希臘案例中，布魯塞爾成了傲慢精英壓迫弱勢人民的象徵。
在義大利案例中，布魯塞爾一度成了人民推倒惡名昭彰領袖的唯一希望。
但隨著歐盟危機深化，布魯塞爾作為人民盟友的形象淡去——義大利人轉向貝佩・格里洛（Beppe Grillo）的五星運動等歐盟懷疑派政黨。就像義大利民族主義者曾向法國革命致敬，卻後來反抗拿破崙；曾經歡呼歐盟拯救義大利的人，如今投票給反歐政黨。
哈佛政治經濟學者丹尼・羅德里克（Dani Rodrik）在《全球化悖論》中指出，國家民主與全球化之間只有三個選項：
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限制民主以提升全球競爭力；
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限制全球化以鞏固國內民主合法性；
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或全球化民主，讓渡國家主權。
但我們不能同時擁有：高度全球化、民主與自決。然而，這正是今日政府最想同時擁有的。
結果就是不可行的政治：
— 沒有選擇的民主
— 失去意義的主權
— 缺乏合法性的全球化
在金融危機後，本來是「民主 vs. 威權」的競爭，變成兩種「沒有替代政治」的競爭。
在歐洲民主國家版本：
沒有其他經濟路線可選，選民可以換政府，但不能換政策。
在俄羅斯與中國的版本：
人民不能換領導人，政策可以改，但權力不可挑戰。
要理解「民主」在歐洲危機中的角色，我們必須承認：
驅動民意的不是民主渴望，而是民主混亂。
因此，分析歐洲危機的政治專家陷入陷阱：
民主像一世紀前的君主制一樣，被視為唯一可理解的政體，但人們又越來越害怕民主失效。
要判斷這種民主不滿（或對另一種民主的渴望）如何影響歐盟存續，我們必須理解三個悖論：
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中歐悖論：
為何中歐選民最支持歐盟，卻投票給反歐盟、反獨立機構（法院、央行、媒體）的政黨？ -
西歐悖論：
為何最親歐、最自由的年輕世代政治動員後，卻沒有形成跨歐洲的「親歐民粹」？ -
布魯塞爾悖論：
為何歐洲人如此怨恨布魯塞爾的菁英，儘管這些菁英是歐洲最具能力、最具功績制度的群體？
關鍵字詞（條列）
核心主題
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民粹主義（populism）
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民主困境（democratic dilemma）
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主權 vs 全球化
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歐盟 legitimacy 危機
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技術官僚（technocracy）
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政策無替代（no alternative politics）
民粹主義（populism）
民主困境（democratic dilemma）
主權 vs 全球化
歐盟 legitimacy 危機
技術官僚（technocracy）
政策無替代（no alternative politics）
希臘危機與民主
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被挫敗的民主（democracy frustrated）
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被閹割的民主（democracy castrated）
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公投取消、公投被推翻
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三方機構 Troika：IMF／ECB／EU Commission
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緊縮政策 austerity
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債權國–債務國
被挫敗的民主（democracy frustrated）
被閹割的民主（democracy castrated）
公投取消、公投被推翻
三方機構 Troika：IMF／ECB／EU Commission
緊縮政策 austerity
債權國–債務國
歐盟治理與權力
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布魯塞爾 vs 國家政府
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政策無政治（policies without politics）
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政治無政策（politics without policies）
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精英統治（meritocratic elites）
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主權空洞化（sovereignty without meaning）
布魯塞爾 vs 國家政府
政策無政治（policies without politics）
政治無政策（politics without policies）
精英統治（meritocratic elites）
主權空洞化（sovereignty without meaning）
政治悖論
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中歐悖論（Central European paradox）
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西歐悖論（West European paradox）
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布魯塞爾悖論（Brussels paradox）
中歐悖論（Central European paradox）
西歐悖論（West European paradox）
布魯塞爾悖論（Brussels paradox）
全球化悖論（Rodrik）
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限制民主
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限制全球化
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全球化民主
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高度全球化、民主、自決不可兼得
限制民主
限制全球化
全球化民主
高度全球化、民主、自決不可兼得
關鍵人物
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Robert Fico
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Jan Slota
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季佐 Guizot
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George Papandreou
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Alexis Tsipras
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Yanis Varoufakis
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Silvio Berlusconi
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Mario Monti
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Dani Rodrik
Robert Fico
Jan Slota
季佐 Guizot
George Papandreou
Alexis Tsipras
Yanis Varoufakis
Silvio Berlusconi
Mario Monti
Dani Rodrik
The Central European Paradox
In the last decade, European integration has been widely understood and accepted as the major factor guaranteeing the irreversibility of the democratic changes in the postcommunist countries of central Europe. Much as Europe’s welfare state guaranteed a safety net to the most vulnerable members of society, there has been a belief that the European Union is its own safety net for the new democracies from the East. The EU developed institutional mechanisms of peer pressure and carrot-and-stick policies that have the capacity to prevent the backsliding of democratization in its new members. This grand expectation, however, has turned out to be wrong. The electoral victory of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland and the “illiberal turn” in most of central Europe has forced many commentators to upend their view of the “Brussels effect” on the process of democratic consolidation in central Europe.
In the view of political scientists James Dawson and Sean Hanley, marrying the process of democratization to the process of European integration has contributed to the emergence of fair-weather democracies in the East with political elites that lack genuine commitments to liberal values.8 Even more important is the effect of the European Union serving as a kind of safety net, which mitigates against risk-taking (keeping countries from advancing irresponsible policies) but incentivizes voters to support irresponsible political parties and leaders as a way of signaling disappointment and anger. Why should Poles fear someone like Kaczyński if they know that Brussels will tame him if he goes too far? Paradoxically, the twinning of Europeanization and democratization has turned central Europe into a poster child of democratic illiberalism. In the prophetic words of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, “A democracy is not necessarily liberal. Just because something is not liberal, it still can be a democracy.” Moreover, “One could—and indeed should—say,” he insisted, “that societies founded upon liberal principles of organizing a state will likely not be able to sustain their global competitiveness in coming years—rather, it is more likely that they will suffer a setback, unless they manage to reform themselves substantially.”9 In this context, central Europe’s slide into illiberalism was not an unintended consequence. It was a choice. And in order to understand this choice, it is important to ascertain what made central Europeans so nervous about liberal democracy in the first place.
The “populist turn” varies in different countries, but we can nonetheless identify commonalities. The rise of populist sentiments signals a return to political polarization and a more confrontational style of politics. It is also a return to more personalized politics in which political leaders play an outsized role and institutions are frequently mistrusted. The Left-Right divide is being replaced by a conflict between internationalists and nativists, and the explosion of fears that it unleashes marks a violent distancing between democracy and liberalism. But populism’s key feature is a hostility not to elitism but to pluralism. As Jan Werner-Müller writes in What Is Populism?, “Populists claim that they and they alone, represent the people. . . . The claim to exclusive representation is not an empirical one; it is always distinctly moral.”10 Populists do not claim to stand for all Poles, French, or Hungarians, but they insist that they stand for all “true Poles,” “true French,” and “true Hungarians.” The electoral success of the populist parties transforms democracy from an instrument for inclusion into an instrument of exclusion.
The new populist majorities perceive elections not as an opportunity to choose between policy options but as a revolt against privileged minorities—in the case of Europe, elites and a key collective “other,” the migrants. In the rhetoric of populist parties, elites and migrants are twins who thrive off of one another: neither is like “us,” both steal and rob from the honest majority, neither pays the taxes that it should pay, and both are indifferent or hostile to local traditions.
Despite the deep public mistrust of politicians, it is perplexing why people are nonetheless ready to elect parties eager to dismantle any constraints on government power. This is the conundrum that will help us unpack the Central European paradox.
The decision of the populist governments in Hungary and Poland to take control over their respective constitutional courts, to curb the independence of central banks, and to declare war on independent media and civil society organizations should be alarming for those who are mistrustful of their politicians. But contrary to expectations, the vast majority of Hungarians and a sizable number of Poles were not concerned by their governments’ decisions to concentrate power in the hands of each country’s executive. How did the separation of powers lose its appeal? Is it because people couldn’t distinguish their support for free media or independent courts from the media outlets they blame for disregarding the truth or from the judges they see as corrupt and inefficient? Is it possible that in the eyes of the public the separation of powers is less a way to keep officeholders accountable than another trick up the sleeves of the elites?
The real appeal of liberal democracy is that it defends not only property rights and the right of the political majority to govern but also the rights of minorities, ensuring that those defeated in elections can return to compete in the next contest and don’t have to flee, go into exile, or hide underground while their possessions are seized by the victors. The little-remarked downside of this arrangement is that for winners liberal democracy gives no chance for a full and final victory. In predemocratic times—in other words, for the vast bulk of human history—disputes were not settled by peaceful debates and orderly handovers of power. Instead, force ruled. Victorious invaders or the winning parties in a civil war had their vanquished foes at their mercy, free to do with them as they liked. Under liberal democracy, the “conqueror” gets no such satisfaction. The paradox of liberal democracy is that citizens are freer, but they feel powerless. Demand for real victory is a key element in the appeal of the populist parties. “Our country is in serious trouble,” was the refrain Donald Trump repeated at his electoral rallies. “We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anyone saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal?”11
The appeal of populist parties is that they promise an unambiguous victory. They attract those who view the separation of powers (the institution perhaps most beloved by liberals) not as a way to keep those in power accountable but as way for elites to evade their electoral promises. What characterizes populists in power are their constant attempts to dismantle the system of checks and balances and to bring independent institutions like courts, central banks, media outlets, and civil society organizations under their control.
Populist and radical parties aren’t just parties; they are constitutional movements. They promise voters what liberal democracy cannot: a sense of victory where majorities—not just political majorities, but ethnic and religious ones too—can do what they please.
The rise of these parties is symptomatic of the explosion of threatened majorities as a force in European politics. They blame the loss of control over their lives, real or imagined, on a conspiracy between cosmopolitan-minded elites and tribal-minded immigrants. They blame liberal ideas and institutions for weakening the national will and eroding national unity. They tend to see compromise as corruption and zealousness as conviction.
What makes anxious majorities most indignant is that while they believe that they are entitled to govern (they are the many after all), they never can have the final say. And so they are ready to blame the separation of powers and other inconvenient principles of liberal democracy for their frustration—and readily endorse parties like Law and Justice in Poland or Fidesz in Hungary that run against those principles.
But populists revolt not only against the institutions of liberal democracy but also against the understanding of politics as a rational calculation of interests. The explosion of conspiracy theories and the growing mistrust toward mainstream media with their claim to be “fair and balanced” is one of the defining characteristics of the populist moment in central Europe. Many analysts prefer to explain the phenomenon in terms of radical changes in communication technologies and blame social media for the prevailing culture of distrust. But the “Facebook effect” can’t explain everything.
In 2007, the year the first Law and Justice government headed by Jarosław Kaczyński lost power, the legendary Polish movie director Andrzej Wajda released his epic film Katyn. Over the course of two hours, Katyn tells the story of the thousands of Polish prisoners of war—mainly military officers and professional-class civilians—who were murdered in 1940 in the Katyn forest on Stalin’s orders. It is actually a film about two crimes: the execution of Polish patriots in the woods near Smolensk and the subsequent cover-up of the truth.
The official version of the tragedy, propagated by the Communist government in postwar Poland, was that the Nazis had been responsible for the executions. But there were Poles who were never ready to live with that lie. One of the main characters in the movie, Agnieszka, seeks to erect a marble headstone for her murdered brother simply bearing the true date of his death—1940—as proof that only the Soviets, who controlled the area at the time, could have carried out the killings. She is persecuted for spreading a conspiracy theory, but she knows she is spreading the truth.
When Kaczyński—back in charge as leader of the once-again-governing Law and Justice Party—announced in a speech in December 2015 that he planned to erect a plaque at the presidential palace in Warsaw as a memorial to his twin brother, he likely saw himself as carrying on the legacy of people like Agnieszka who refused to swallow the Communist lie. Kaczyński’s brother, President Lech Kaczyński, perished in 2010 along with ninety-five other members of the Polish elite when his plane crashed upon landing at the Smolensk military airport in western Russia. (In a bizarre twist of history, they were traveling to attend the commemoration of the seventieth anniversary of Katyn.) Jarosław Kaczyński has devoted an inordinate amount of time and energy since the crash working to prove that it was not an accident but a crime perpetrated by the Russians and that the then governing Civic Platform Party, for political or geopolitical reasons, covered up the truth.
The parallels between the two proposed memorials—Agnieszka’s and Kaczyński’s—are evident. But the analogy is less straightforward. The opening of the Soviet archives in the 1990s left little doubt that in 1940 the Soviets murdered some twenty-two thousand Poles (the precise number of victims is still debated). However, the events of April 10, 2010, when the Polish plane went down in Smolensk, are harder to reconstruct. That said, there is fundamentally no credible evidence to support the Law and Justice Party’s suspicions that the crash was an assassination organized by Russians or that Russian air controllers can be held responsible for the catastrophe. In Wajda’s film, Agnieszka seeks to build a monument to truth. What Kaczyński is proposing is something quite different: a tribute to a conspiracy theory.
Kaczyński’s fight for the truth about Smolensk and the glorification of his brother’s legacy have been at the center of the Law and Justice Party’s political strategy for the past five years. Kaczyński often personally attended the marches that took place in Warsaw on the tenth of each month to commemorate the crash victims, using them as a tool to help mobilize support for the party. For their part, Poles have seemed increasingly open to persuasion. If, five years ago, most Poles rejected Kaczyński’s version of events, and even approved of Russia’s handling of the tragedy, today one in three blames Moscow. According to a 2016 opinion poll, belief in the Smolensk cover-up was the strongest predictor of whether or not a person supports Kaczyński.
Poles are not unique in believing, en masse, in the existence of a government cover-up despite a dearth of evidence. According to opinion polls, between half and three-quarters of individuals in various Middle Eastern countries doubt that the planes hijacked on September 11, 2001, were piloted by Arabs; four out of ten Russians think that Americans faked the moon landings; and half of Americans think their government is probably hiding the truth about who was behind the September 11 attacks.12 For as long as there have been suspicious deaths and powerful people, conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists have thrived. Scholars tend to agree that such theories are most popular during periods of major social change and that they represent a desire for order in a complex and confusing world. The dozens of reports13 that “prove” Smolensk was not an accident are classics of the form: carefully footnoted, like a doctoral thesis, and built around both breathtaking generalizations (“when the head of state dies in [an] airplane crash, invariably . . . sabotage is involved”)14 and minute details (the ten thousand small pieces of debris15 found at the crash site, for instance, which are pointed to as evidence of an explosion).
But what is happening in Poland today has revealed something more: how, in some cases, a shared belief in a particular conspiracy theory can play a role previously reserved for religion, ethnicity, or a well-articulated ideology. It can be a marker of political identity. This helps explain why the Smolensk conspiracy has become a quasi-ideology within the Law and Justice Party. The “assassination hypothesis” helped consolidate a certain “we”: we who do not trust the government’s lies, we who know how the world really works, we who blame liberal elites for betraying the promise of 1989 revolution. The Smolensk conspiracy was critical for bringing Kaczyński back to power, both because it mined a vein of deep distrust that Polish people feel for any official version of events and because it fit with their self-image as victims of history. But the rise of conspiracy theories highlights another major vulnerability of EU-designed democratic politics—its failure to build political identities.
A decade ago, the British polling agency YouGov undertook a comparative study between a group of political junkies and a similar cohort of young people who actively participated in the Big Brother reality show.16 The distressing finding of the study was that British citizens felt better represented in the Big Brother house. It was easier for them to identify themselves with the characters and ideas being discussed. They found it more open, transparent, and representative of people like them. Reality show formats made them feel empowered in the way that democratic elections are supposed to make them feel but don’t. Political identities proposed by populist parties are not really that much different from the identities constructed by reality shows. Both are primarily about affirming a similar experience of the world rather than representation of interests.
The populist recoil from the European Union is thus tantamount to a reassertion of more parochial but culturally deeper identities within individual European countries. This movement is driving European politics toward less inclusive, and possibly less liberal, definitions of political community. The sharp Left-Right divide, which has structured European politics since the French Revolution, is gradually blurring. With the rise of a right-wing populism of the sort unknown since the 1920s and 1930s, working classes are now liable to be captured by decidedly antiliberal leaderships. Threatened majorities—those who have everything and who therefore fear everything—have emerged as the major force in European politics. The emerging illiberal political consensus is not limited to right-wing radicalism; it encompasses the transformation of the European mainstream itself. It is not what extremists say that threatens Europe; the real threat is what the mainstream leaders no longer say—principally, that diversity is good for Europe.
Threatened majorities today express a genuine fear that they are becoming the losers of globalization. Globalization may have contributed to the rise of numerous middle classes outside the developed world, but it is eroding the economic and political foundations of the middle-class societies of post–World War II Europe. In this sense, the new populism represents not the losers of today but the prospective losers of tomorrow.
The rise of illiberalism in EU-friendly central Europe should help us understand that the existence of pro-EU majorities in most EU member states is not a fail-safe bulwark against the union’s breakup. Moreover, what makes the rise of the populist parties dangerous for the survival of the European project is not so much their Euroskepticism—some of them are in fact hardly skeptical—but their revolt against the principles and institutions of constitutional liberalism that serve as the foundations on which the European Union is built.
☝☝☝☝☝☝
The West European Paradox
If you click on “european-republic.eu,” you’ll catch a glimpse of what the new cosmopolitan revolution from below might look like. The revolutionaries believe that people want Europe, but not the EU as it exists today. In their view, home has little to do with the nationality printed on someone’s passport and everything to do with where a person currently lives. The nation itself is therefore the central obstacle to a truly united Europe.
The European Republic website was launched by the charismatic German political scientist Ulrike Guerot and is one of the myriad attempts to create a political platform that is simultaneously anti-status-quo and pro-EU. It is not a new version of the old federalist dream but an attempt to imagine the European Union as a democracy, not as a technocracy run by puppet-masters. The hope of European republicans is to mobilize the political energy of pro-European youth and jump-start a pan-European movement. But the idea of a European Republic that strives to mobilize younger, cosmopolitan-minded Europeans has few chances today to have a political impact.
Why the democratization of public life and the emergence of an increasingly cosmopolitan younger generation fail to translate into support of Europe is at the nub of the West European paradox. It is enough to look at the Brexit vote and see that age and education were among the major factors defining how people voted. The younger and better educated were the core of the “remain” vote. After the financial crisis of 2008, it became clear that younger people had become politicized and empowered through social and other media. Political protests against the austerity policies favored by Brussels were an everyday experience in most European capitals. There exists a younger generation that speaks foreign languages, values the freedom to live and work anywhere in the EU, and is prepared to fight for fairness and justice. It is also a networked generation driven by social media. Knowing the ideological make-up and the political potential of this generation, it is natural to expect the emergence of a pan-European movement that would confront a Europe of elites with a Europe of citizens. Why then did such a movement never arise?
In trying to understand the failure of the connected generation to cross national boundaries and build an effective political movement in support of a stronger EU, it is worth reflecting on the findings of Zeynep Tufekci, one of the most insightful analysts of the politics of social media. Tufekci opened a recent talk at MIT’s Media Lab with a photograph of the Hillary Step just below the summit of Mount Everest. Taken on a day that four people perished on the mountain, the picture shows the massive crowding that makes Everest perilous for climbers as they are forced to wait for others to finish before room opens up on the narrow trail.
Because of new technology and the use of Sherpas, more and more people who aren’t expert climbers are streaming to Everest. Full-service trips (for a cool $65,000) get you to the base camp and much of the way up the mountain. But the guides still cannot adequately prepare people to climb to the peak. People have proposed fixing a ladder at the Hillary Step, standing at almost nine thousand meters above sea level, to reduce the risk. But the fundamental problem isn’t the absence of a ladder; it’s the exceptional difficulty of hiking at such a high altitude. The mountaineering community has suggested a reasonable solution: requiring people to climb seven other high peaks before they take on Everest.
This is Tufekci’s analogy for Internet-enabled activism. In discussing the Internet and collective action, political commentators usually focus on the increased opportunities for coordination and community building. But in Tufekci’s view, the wonders of the Internet are also a curse for the building of effective political movements. Social movements, like inexperienced mountaineers getting to base camp without adequately acclimating to exceptionally high altitude, show how some of the Internet’s benefits can have significant handicaps as side effects. The result is that we are seeing increasing numbers of movements, but they may not have impact or endurance because they come to the public’s attention too early in their lifetimes. Movements get stuck at saying “no,” she argues, because they’ve never needed to develop a capacity for representation and can only coalesce around the negative rather than building an affirmative agenda.
My own work on protest movements supports Tufekci’s conclusions. Fascinated by spontaneity and dreaming of a politics of horizontal networks, the new social movements, whether Indignados, Occupy, or one of the other antiausterity groups in Europe, succeeded for a period in demonstrating the power of citizens to resist. But they failed to have lasting political impact. The anti-institutional culture of the protesters and their rejection of any specific ideology doomed them to irrelevance. You may be able to spark a revolution with a tweet, but you can’t tweet a government into power. (Even Donald Trump needed some help from the Republican Party apparatus.) What these protest movements will be remembered for are videos, not manifestos; happenings, not speeches; and conspiracy theories, not political tracts. They are a form of participation without representation. It is thus hardly accidental that the only two important political parties that came out of the antiausterity youth movements—Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain—only slightly resemble the horizontal dreams of the protesters. Both are traditional in their political organization, and their successes have been heavily dependent on the popularity of their respective leaders, Alexis Tsipras and Pablo Iglesias.
What seems clear are a series of aporias. The protesting citizen wants change but resents any form of political representation. Basing his theory of social change on ad copy from Silicon Valley, he values disruption and scoffs at political blueprints. He longs for political community but refuses to be led by others. He will risk clashing with the police but is afraid to risk trusting any party or politician. Mary Kaldor of the London School of Economics, who has been researching the new social movements in Europe, explains that although these movements have a transnational identity and protesters from different countries are in constant contact with each other, the idea of Europe and the reality of the European Union were almost entirely absent from the passions and interests of activists on the streets. Spontaneity tends to be local.
The idea of democracy without representation makes any serious discussion of the future of the European Union nearly impossible. A united Europe cannot exist without representation. But the uncompromising, anti-institutional ethos of young pro-EU activists makes a united Europe impossible. More disturbing still is that the political mobilization of pro-EU youth has led to the emergence of parties like Syriza and Podemos that strongly link the idea of democracy to the idea of national sovereignty. Although comprised of pro-EU youth, these parties often build their legitimacy on opposing Brussels. The fact that pro-Europeans perceive them as youth parties thus becomes a vulnerability for three reasons. First, young voters are a shrinking minority in Europe. Second, even when they are passionate about politics, young people are not in the habit of showing up to vote. And third, the support of younger people makes liberal politicians believe that the problems they face today will disappear once older generations die off. This is a grave delusion.
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《布魯塞爾悖論》——中文翻譯
「在自己的國家，我成了不受歡迎的人，許多人把我們陷入危機，以及他們的個人困境，都怪在我身上。」——前希臘財政部長帕帕康斯坦丁努（George Papaconstantinou）在回憶錄中苦澀地寫道。
「我是那個在音樂停止後，打開燈、告訴大家派對結束的人……結果，我多年來過著某種『居家軟禁』般的生活。走在街上都變成危險的運動。」
帕帕康斯坦丁努不是幾十年來掠奪國家的貪腐希臘政治人物之一，也不是利用政治權力致富的超級富豪，更不是那個世紀以來支配希臘政壇的政治家族成員。他只是歐洲標準的「菁英任賢者」：來自普通家庭，受良好教育，在希臘社會中憑才幹晉升。他受邀加入帕潘德里歐政府，並不是因為特定意識形態，而是因為他的能力與正直。然而，他卻成了全希臘最被憎恨的人之一。
為什麼像帕帕康斯坦丁努這樣的「任賢努力者」在整個歐洲如此招人厭惡？
在一個比以往更需要專業與能力的世界，人們卻拒絕信任這些受過最好教育的人？
為什麼許多父母努力讓孩子進世界名校，卻不信任從這些名校畢業的政治領導者？難道如挺脫歐的麥可・高夫（Michael Gove）所說，人們真的「受夠專家了」嗎？
今日，討論歐盟危機時，人們常從「民主赤字」或「過度菁英的體質」來談。但其核心其實是：對於菁英治理（meritocracy）願景的全面危機。
其最明顯的表現，就是民眾對「任賢菁英」的不信任日益加深。歐洲計畫能否繼續，關鍵在於：是否可能產生一群在本國與國際上都具合法性的菁英？
乍看之下，以才幹與能力來選拔領導者（meritocracy），當然優於富豪統治、老人政治、貴族政治，甚至優於單純多數決的民主制度。然而，眼前我們看到的，是一場針對這種制度願景的「不信任投票」。
歐洲的菁英不是因為民粹群眾的愚昧或偏見而被憎恨。早在 20 世紀中期，提出「meritocracy」一詞的英國社會學家麥可・楊（Michael Young）就預見到了：
任賢社會最終會製造「驕傲的贏家」與「憤怒的輸家」。
這不只是「不平等」，而是把不平等合理化——因為「你沒成功，是你不行」。
這會摧毀共同體。
回頭看脫歐投票，分析家大多同意其底層驅動因素之一是：
英國選民結構幾十年來持續發生變化——中產階級與自由派大學畢業生的崛起。
1960 年代，英國超過一半勞工是藍領工人，只有不到 10% 的選民有大學學歷。
2000 年代，藍領階層縮至約五分之一，而三分之一的選民是大學畢業生。
藍領不再是政治研究焦點。大學生群體變得自由、國際化，而藍領則停留在本地關懷。
移民問題於是成為兩個英國之間的主要衝突點。
使菁英令人難以忍受的，不是他們的學歷，而是他們那套話語：
「我成功，是因為我更努力、更聰明，通過別人通不過的考試。」
在歐洲，這些菁英形成一種「雇傭式菁英」：像足球明星一樣在各國之間被挖角。
成功的荷蘭銀行家搬到倫敦；能幹的德國官僚前往布魯塞爾。
他們像足球隊買球星一樣被高薪招攬。
但若球隊表現不佳，球迷就會遺棄他們，因為：
球星不是自己人，與地方沒有情感連結。
菁英覺得自己能在海外成功，是才華的證明；
人民則把這種流動性視為不值得信任的原因：
危機來時，他們會逃。
這使得「任賢菁英」與過去的貴族或共產黨菁英形成鮮明對比：
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貴族與土地綁在一起，不可能逃
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共產黨菁英享特權，卻不能自由離境
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現代菁英是「可退出、無忠誠」的菁英
舊貴族被教育要承擔責任與犧牲，甚至在第一次世界大戰中，上層階級死亡比例比底層更高。
但現代菁英不需要犧牲，他們的孩子不服兵役、不上公立學校、不用國家健保，也與本地社群失去情感連結。
民眾把這視為：失去作為公民的力量。
因此，「忠誠」成為歐洲民粹主義的核心吸引力。
民粹者不保證專業，而保證「我們是同一家庭」。
他們承諾「國家化菁英」——不讓菁英逃跑。
他們讚美那些不會外語、沒有護照、無處可逃的人。
簡言之，民粹承諾的不是能力，而是親密感。
拉爾斯說，任賢社會的輸家不會像在不公社會那樣痛苦——因為輸得公平。
但今日看來，他可能錯了。
這也部分解釋了為何歐洲領導力陷入危機。
整個大陸都在呼喊「領導力」，但其意義完全不同：
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在布魯塞爾，領導力＝抵抗民粹、執行理性政策
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在被去工業化的小城鎮，領導力＝犧牲、忠誠、與人民同苦
因此，歐洲危機不是民主赤字，而是：
任賢社會願景本身需要被重新想像。
不幸地，菁英與民粹之戰成了：
「退出者政黨」 vs. 「忠誠者政黨」
而且，這時代對將軍的需求正在上升——不僅在俄羅斯，也在西方。
川普政府大量任用將軍與企業家，就是典型例子。
重點問題 × 關鍵字詞（條列）
一、核心悖論：布魯塞爾悖論
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為何「任賢菁英」被憎恨？
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為何最需要專業的時代，民眾卻拒信專家？
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為何歐盟危機的核心其實是菁英治理危機？
二、任賢菁英（Meritocratic elites）危機
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優勢：能力、教育、全球流動性
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危機：被視為
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無忠誠
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無情感連結
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遇危機會逃
-
-
被批評：「不是自己人」
三、民粹的吸引力
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民粹承諾的是忠誠，而非能力
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民粹願景＝社會是家庭，不是競爭場
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民粹者承諾「國家化菁英」
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批判菁英流動性（會逃跑）
四、教育階級斷裂
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大學畢業生 vs. 藍領階層
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移民問題成為衝突核心
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教育本應促進凝聚，卻製造分裂
五、菁英 vs. 人民：情感裂縫
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菁英生活在跨國水平網絡
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不理解本國失敗者
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被視為「no loyalty elites」
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與貴族、共產時代菁英不同：後者不能逃
六、歐洲領導力危機
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布魯塞爾的「領導力」＝執行理性政策
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人民的「領導力」＝忠誠、犧牲、留下來
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兩者定義不同，產生政治斷裂
七、政治格局：退出者 vs 忠誠者
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菁英政黨＝Exit Party
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民粹政黨＝Loyalty Party
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對立本質：
-
行動者：全球移動菁英
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選民：在地被遺留者
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The Brussels Paradox
“I am persona non grata in my own country, with many blaming me for the crisis we are in and for their personal difficulties,” writes a bitter George Papaconstantinou, the former Greek finance minister in his memoirs.17 “I was the one who, when the music stopped, turned on the lights and told everyone the party is over . . . As a result, I have lived for years under a peculiar sort of ‘house arrest.’ Walking the streets became a dangerous sport.” Papaconstantinou is not one of the corrupt Greek politicians who have robbed the country blind for decades. Neither is he a superrich fellow who converted his political power into money. Nor is he a member of one of the elite Greek political families who has run the country for the last century. He is simply one of Europe’s model meritocrats who comes from an ordinary family, got a good education, and rose in the ranks of Greek society. He was invited to join the government of George Papandreou not really because of his ideological commitments but because of his competence and integrity. And yet he ended up one of the most hated men in Greece.
Why are Papaconstantinou and other meritocratic strivers from throughout the continent so resented at a time when the complexity of the world suggests their expertise and professionalism are needed more than ever? Why do people who work hard to send their kids to the world’s finest universities refuse to trust people who are graduates from these very universities? How can it possibly be true that, as pro-Brexit politician Michael Gove put it, people “have had enough of experts”?
It is fashionable these days to discuss the crisis of the EU in terms of either the union’s democratic deficit or its cosmopolitan makeup. But what’s really at its core is the crisis of a meritocratic vision of society. This is demonstrated nowhere better than in the growing mistrust in meritocratic elites. Whether it’s possible to have elites that are legitimate both at home and abroad is the pivotal question on which the European project hinges. We need to understand why meritocrats are so mistrusted, even though they are far from being the richest or the most corrupt people around.
It seems obvious that a meritocracy—a system in which the most talented and capable people are placed in leading positions—is preferable to a plutocracy, gerontocracy, aristocracy, and perhaps even democracy (the rule of the majority). But what we are witnessing today is a nonconfidence vote exactly against this vision of society.
Europe’s meritocratic elites aren’t hated simply because of the bigoted stupidity of raging populists or the confusion of ordinary people. Michael Young, the British sociologist who in the middle of the last century coined the term “meritocracy,” would not be surprised by the turn of events.18 He was the first to explain that even though “meritocracy” might sound good to most people, a meritocratic society would be a disaster. It would create a society of selfish and arrogant winners and angry and desperate losers. It will be not an unequal society but a society in which inequality is justified on the basis of differences in achievement. The triumph of meritocracy, Young understood, would lead to a loss of political community.
When analysts examine the Brexit vote in retrospect, they often agree that one of the key bottom-up drivers that determined the outcome was “a slow but relentless shift in the structure and attitudes of the electorate, the growing dominance of the middle classes, and of socially liberal university graduates.”19 In the 1960s, more than half of those with jobs in Britain did manual work, and less than 10 percent of the electorate had a university degree. By the 2000s, the working class had dwindled to around one-fifth of the employed electorate, while more than a third of the voters were graduates. Suddenly nobody was really interested in the working class. Blue-collar workers didn’t lose their political importance, to be sure, but they started to be seen by analysts as groups of limited research interest. Meanwhile, the dramatic increase in the number of university graduates, who tend to be quite liberal, created a cultural gap between them and the remaining working class. Migration was the issue on which the two Britains clashed. Instead of being an instrument for creating more social cohesion, as progressives hoped a century ago, education has turned to be a cause of disunity.
What makes meritocrats so insufferable, especially in the minds of those who don’t come out on top in the socioeconomic competition, is less their academic credentials than their insistence that they have succeeded because they worked harder than others, were more qualified, and passed exams that others failed.
In Europe, the meritocratic elite is a mercenary elite whose members behave not unlike soccer stars who get traded among the most successful clubs across the continent. They perfectly fit David Goodhart’s definition of “people from Anywhere.” Successful Dutch bankers move to London. Competent German bureaucrats head to Brussels. European institutions and banks, like soccer clubs, spend colossal amounts of money acquiring the best “players.”
But when these teams start to lose or the economy slows, their fans soon abandon them. Principally, that’s because there are no human relationships connecting the “players” and their fans beyond mutual celebration of victory. They’re not from the same neighborhood, and they don’t have mutual friends or shared memories. Many of the players aren’t even from the same countries as their teams. You can admire the hired “stars,” but you have no rational reason to feel sorry for them. In the eyes of the meritocratic elites, their success outside of their countries is evidence of their talent. But in the eyes of many, this very mobility is a reason not to trust them.
People develop trust in their leaders not only because of their competence, courage, and commitment but also because they sense that at a time of crisis, their leaders will hunker down and help out rather than rushing for the nearest emergency exit. Paradoxically, it is the “convertible competencies” of the present elites, the fact that they are equally fit to run a bank in Bulgaria or in Bangladesh or to teach in Athens or Tokyo, that makes people so suspicious of them. People fear that in times of trouble, the meritocrats will opt to leave instead of sharing the cost of staying. In this sense, meritocratic elites contrast with land-owning aristocratic elites, who are devoted to their estates and cannot take their estates with them in case they want to run away. They also contrast with communist elites, who always had better goods, better health care, and better education. But what they did not have was the power to leave; it was always easier for an ordinary person to emigrate. Communist elites, Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin has shown, were “no exit” elites, while meritocratic elites from the time of globalization and European integration are “no loyalty” elites.
Traditional aristocratic elites had duties and responsibilities and were reared to fulfill them. The fact that generations of their forebears, staring at them from portraits on the walls of their castles, had once themselves performed these same duties meant they took them seriously. In Britain, for example, the proportion of young men from the upper class who died in the First World War was greater than the proportion of the lower classes. The new elites, by contrast, are trained to govern, but they are not taught to sacrifice. Their children never died (nor even fought) in any war. The nature and convertibility of the new elites makes them practically independent of their own nations. They are not dependent on their country’s education system (their children go to private schools) or the National Health Service (they can afford better hospitals). They have lost the ability to share the passions of their communities. People experience this independence of the elites as a loss of citizen power. Meritocratic elites are very connected, but their networks are horizontal. The leading economist in Sofia, Bulgaria, is intimately familiar with his colleagues in Sweden but has no knowledge of or interest in his compatriots who failed their technocratic examinations. He highly doubts he can learn anything from them.
Unsurprisingly then, it is loyalty—namely, the unconditional loyalty to ethnic, religious, or social groups—that is at the heart of the appeal of Europe’s new populism. Populists promise people not to judge them solely on their merits. They promise solidarity if not justice. While meritocratic elites envision society as a school populated by “A” students who fight for fellowships against dropouts who fight on the streets, populists endorse a vision of society as a family where members support each other not simply because everyone deserves it but because everyone shares something in common.
At the very heart of the populist challenge is the struggle over the nature and obligations of elites. Unlike a century ago, today’s insurgent leaders aren’t interested in nationalizing industries. Instead, they promise to nationalize their elites. They don’t promise to save the people but to stay with them. They promise to reestablish the national and ideological constraints that were removed by globalization. They praise the people for not speaking foreign languages and for having nowhere to go. In short, what populists promise their voters is not competence but intimacy. They promise to reestablish the bond between the elites and the people. And a rapidly increasing number in Europe today find this promise appealing.
The American philosopher John Rawls spoke for many liberals when he argued that being a loser in a meritocratic society was not as painful as being a loser in an openly unjust society. In his conception, the fairness of the game would reconcile people with failure. Today it looks as if the great philosopher may have been wrong.
The crisis of meritocratic elites at least partially explains the crisis of leadership in Europe. The frequently heard call for “leadership” has two very different meanings depending on where it is uttered. In Brussels and in many national capitals, the demand for leadership connotes resistance to populist pressure and courage to implement the most rational and effective policies. In these places where the elites of the continent congregate, it refers to a test that should be passed with the right answers. These elites view the political crisis of the EU mainly as a communications crisis in which Brussels has simply failed to explain its policies effectively.
But in the deindustrialized and depressed parts of the continent, the demand for leadership means something very different: a demand for sacrifice and loyalty. People expect leaders to declare their personal readiness to underwrite the cost of the crisis and to publicly exhibit their family obligations to their societies. From this standpoint, the crisis of the European project at bottom isn’t so much the product of a democratic deficit as a demand for the meritocratic vision of society to be reimagined. Unfortunately for Europe, the clash between meritocratic elites and the populists has taken the form of political clash between the Exit Party and the Loyalty Party. It is not by accident that more often than at any other moment in the last fifty years, generals are in fashion not only in Russia but also in the West. One need only look to the composition of Donald Trump’s administration in order to see that the populist promise is a government of generals who know how to defend their countries and business executives who are addicted to ruthless decisions.
☝☝☝☝☝☝☝
📘 《被公投摧毀》（Destroyed by Referendums）——中文翻譯
美國政治學者 E. E. Schattschneider 曾寫道，選民是一個「詞彙僅限於『同意（Yes）』與『拒絕（No）』兩個字的主權者」。他基本上是對的。公民往往相信，只有在說「不」——而極少是說「是」——時，他們的聲音才會被統治階級聽見。因此，當對傳統政黨的支持大幅下滑，而民主制度的信任度也受到質疑時，許多人便認為，引入某種類型的直接民主，是改革民主體制的途徑。
公投的正當性問題，是民主最古老的爭論之一。直接民主的支持者主張，公投是讓公民在選舉政府之外，影響公共政策的最合理、最透明的方式。在他們看來，公投能產生清晰的授權（選舉往往做不到），能刺激公共辯論並教育人民，從而實現民主夢想——一個由知情公民組成的社會。
直接民主的反對者則不同意。他們堅稱，公投不是賦權人民的最佳方式，而是操縱人民最惡劣的工具。以柴契爾夫人的話說，公投是「獨裁者與煽動者」的手段。它危險地簡化複雜政策問題，且因為公投往往把議題割裂處理，結果常導致政策互相矛盾——例如同一天讓民眾投票同意增加社會支出、並同意減稅，兩者可能都會通過，但政客們清楚減稅會使加大社福支出變得不可能。
批評者也指出，公投通常由情緒而非理性辯論所主導。他們否認公投能提升公民參與度。證據確實支持這點：隨著公投愈來愈多，歐洲跨國公投的中位投票率，已從 1990 年代初的 71％ 掉到近年的 41％。
以下討論的不是直接民主的優缺點，而是在像歐盟這種政治建構中——政策共通，卻缺乏共同政治——只要不能阻止會員國就可能影響全體的問題舉行公投，公投爆炸式增加將是讓歐盟變得不可治理的最快方式。這樣的爆炸甚至可能引發類似「銀行擠兌」的政治連鎖反應，加速歐盟解體。
歐洲不能當成「公投聯盟」，因為歐盟是一個談判空間，而公投是人民的「最後一句話」，會阻斷後續協商。因此，公投極易被歐洲懷疑者與悲觀主義政府所利用，用來癱瘓整個聯盟的運作。如果歐盟自殺，兇器極可能就是公投。
強烈衝擊會在極短時間內，讓「不可想像」變成「不可避免」。這正是英國投票脫歐後歐洲發生的事。衝擊尤其痛苦，因為歐洲與英國的精英普遍深信「留歐」會勝利。專家、民調、金融市場——幾乎所有人都預測英國會留在歐盟。開票前幾分鐘，預測市場給予留歐高達 93％ 的勝率。結果當然完全相反，一夜之間全變了。
脫歐震盪了全球金融市場、嚇壞政治領袖，並引爆深遠的政治辯論。如果說脫歐前歐洲人還在討論誰會成為下一個加入歐盟的國家，脫歐後的問題則變成：誰會是下一個退出的？
心理學研究中有一個實驗：受試者快速觀看一堆貓的畫作，因此只會看到貓。後來畫作中混入一些狗，但受試者仍然只看到貓。直到有人突然叫住他／她，分心後再看，就開始看見那些狗。這正是 2016 年 6 月 23 日晚發生在歐洲的事情——英國投票脫歐後，歐洲人終於開始看見那些「狗」。
歷史學家迅速回憶起：20 世紀末歐洲兩次重大解體——蘇聯崩解與南斯拉夫瓦解——都伴隨著公投。南斯拉夫共和國的公投推動了鐵托聯邦的瓦解；而蘇聯在 1991 年的三月公投，雖然九個加盟共和國大多投下支持維持聯盟的票，卻反而加速了蘇聯的崩潰。那次投票證明了加盟共和國才是真正的政治中心，而蘇聯這個國家已病入膏肓。教訓是：公投即使多數人反對解體，也可能激發解體。
但關鍵在於：悲觀者雖然正確地擔心公投會摧毀歐盟，但他們害怕的其實是錯的公投。脫歐後，雖然歐洲確實掀起更多要求「留或走」二元公投的呼聲，但民調顯示，時間過去後，多數歐洲國家的公眾已不再那麼想要這種終局性公投。多數成員國舉行經典的「留歐／退歐」公投的可能性其實很低。
此外，2016 年所有舉行公投的政府，沒有一個達到自己的目標。民粹派也理解成功的反歐盟公投會帶來的麻煩，因此他們更喜歡用威脅公投來施壓，而不是真的要舉行。更可能的策略是：把每次選舉都當作「非正式的歐盟公投」，而不是要求真的二元公投。
真正需要關注的不是脫歐式公投，而是 2016 年另外三場公投：勇敢者、美國佬、與醜陋者（借用 Sergio Leone 的經典西部片比喻）：
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勇敢者（The Brave）：義大利前總理倫齊的憲改公投（2016 年 12 月）
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卑劣者（The Mean）：荷蘭 4 月的烏克蘭—歐盟聯盟協定公投
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醜陋者（The Ugly）：匈牙利歐爾班 10 月的難民政策公投
這三場公投，比任何事都更能說明：歐盟的崩解可能不是政治陰謀，而是一場「交通事故」。
📌 重點問題（Key Questions）
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公投能否真正提升民主品質？或只是情緒操縱工具？
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公投是否注定會在歐盟這種跨國政治體系中引發破壞？
-
為何公投在歐洲常常導致與政府意圖相反的結果？
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民粹主義如何利用公投威脅歐盟？
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脫歐後，歐洲為何開始擔心「公投連鎖反應」？
-
歷史上蘇聯、南斯拉夫的教訓，是否會重演在歐盟？
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為何「留或走」式公投反而變得不受歡迎了？
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2016 年三場公投（義大利、荷蘭、匈牙利）如何預示歐盟的未來風險？
公投能否真正提升民主品質？或只是情緒操縱工具？
公投是否注定會在歐盟這種跨國政治體系中引發破壞？
為何公投在歐洲常常導致與政府意圖相反的結果？
民粹主義如何利用公投威脅歐盟？
脫歐後，歐洲為何開始擔心「公投連鎖反應」？
歷史上蘇聯、南斯拉夫的教訓，是否會重演在歐盟？
為何「留或走」式公投反而變得不受歡迎了？
2016 年三場公投（義大利、荷蘭、匈牙利）如何預示歐盟的未來風險？
🧩 關鍵字詞（Keywords）
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公投政治（referendum politics）
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直接民主（direct democracy）
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民粹主義（populism）
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民主赤字（democratic deficit）
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二元選擇（binary choice）
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脫歐（Brexit）
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歐盟治理危機（EU governance crisis）
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情緒投票（emotion-driven voting）
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政治連鎖反應（political chain reaction）
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公投濫用（misuse of referendums）
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倫齊憲改公投（Renzi referendum）
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荷蘭烏克蘭協定公投
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歐爾班難民公投（Orbán refugee referendum）
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蘇聯解體與公投
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南斯拉夫解體與公投
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「卡麥隆效應」（Cameron effect）
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「非正式歐盟公投」（implicit EU referendum）
公投政治（referendum politics）
直接民主（direct democracy）
民粹主義（populism）
民主赤字（democratic deficit）
二元選擇（binary choice）
脫歐（Brexit）
歐盟治理危機（EU governance crisis）
情緒投票（emotion-driven voting）
政治連鎖反應（political chain reaction）
公投濫用（misuse of referendums）
倫齊憲改公投（Renzi referendum）
荷蘭烏克蘭協定公投
歐爾班難民公投（Orbán refugee referendum）
蘇聯解體與公投
南斯拉夫解體與公投
「卡麥隆效應」（Cameron effect）
「非正式歐盟公投」（implicit EU referendum）
三個公投案例的簡要說明（勇敢者／卑劣者／醜陋者），以清楚點出其政治背景與問題本質：
一、勇敢者（The Brave）：2016 年義大利倫齊的憲改公投
主題：憲政改革（精簡參議院、強化行政效率）
義大利前總理 馬泰奧・倫齊（Matteo Renzi） 推動大規模憲法改革，目標是結束義大利長期的「雙院制阻滯」與政府短命現象。他將憲改視為提升國家治理能力的關鍵，因此主動訴諸公投，甚至宣示若改革被否決就會辭職。
結果：
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公投 被否決，反對者混合對改革內容與對倫齊本人的不滿。
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倫齊 信守承諾辭職。
由於倫齊以政治生涯作為賭注，故被稱為「勇敢者」，象徵冒險挑戰體制僵局。
二、卑劣者（The Mean）：荷蘭 2016 年 4 月烏克蘭—歐盟聯盟協定公投
主題：是否批准 EU 與烏克蘭之間的聯盟協定
荷蘭的公投不是為了討論協定本身，而是被部分政黨與民粹團體利用為「歐盟不滿宣洩口」。發起方並非關心烏克蘭改革，而是想藉此羞辱布魯塞爾、動員反歐情緒。
特徵：
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參與度低，但否決率高。
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多數「否決票」並非基於政策內容，而是反 EU 情緒。
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最終造成荷蘭在歐盟外交立場上的尷尬與延宕。
因此被稱為「卑劣者」，暗指公投被工具化成政治鬧劇，而非真正政策辯論。
三、醜陋者（The Ugly）：匈牙利歐爾班 2016 年 10 月難民政策公投
主題：是否反對 EU 分配難民配額
總理 歐爾班（Viktor Orbán） 將公投打造為民族動員工具，利用恐懼與排外情緒挑動社會對立；整個公投過程充滿政府控制訊息、恐懼宣傳與歪曲資訊。
關鍵問題：
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問題設計偏頗、誘導。
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政府主導單邊宣傳，幾乎沒有真正辯論空間。
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公投實際上無法律效力，主要用來強化歐爾班的強人形象。
儘管投票率因抵制而不達門檻，但歐爾班仍宣稱勝利，強化其民族主義治理。
因此被稱為「醜陋者」，象徵操作仇恨、破壞民主程序的政治工程。
Destroyed by Referendums
The electorate is “a sovereign whose vocabulary is limited to two words: ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’” wrote the American political scientist, E. E. Schattschneider. He is basically right. Citizens tend to believe that only by saying “no,” and much more rarely, “yes,” their voices will be heard by the ruling class. And so when support for traditional political parties has plummeted and the confidence in democratic institutions is in question, many believe that a move to some form of direct democracy is the avenue to reform the democratic system.
The question of the legitimacy of referendums is one of democracy’s oldest debates. Advocates of direct democracy argue that they are the most reasonable and transparent way for citizens to influence public policies beyond electing a government. In their view, referendums produce clear mandates (something elections generally can’t do), stimulate public debate, and educate people, thereby achieving the democratic dream of a society of informed citizens.
The opponents of direct democracy disagree. They insist that referendums are not the best way to empower people but the most perverse way to manipulate them. In the words of Margaret Thatcher, referendums are a device of “dictators and demagogues.” They dangerously simplify complex policy issues and often lead to incoherent policies because referendums look at issues in isolation, the result being that people may approve measures that contradict each other. It is generally believed that if citizens are going to be asked on the same day to vote for an increase in social spending and on tax cuts, they may likely support both (while politicians know full well that cutting taxes will make it impossible to increase social spending). The critics of direct democracy also argue that referendums are most often run by emotions and not by arguments. They deny that referendums foster civic engagement. The evidence bears this out. As referendums have proliferated, the median turnout for nationwide referendums across Europe has fallen from 71 percent in the early 1990s to 41 percent in the past few years.
What follows is not an argument about the advantages and disadvantages of direct democracy. What I argue, instead, is that in a political construction like the EU, where you have a lot of common policies, you have far fewer common politics. Where nobody can prevent member states voting on issues that can dramatically affect other states in the union, an explosion of national referendums is the fastest way to make the union ungovernable. Such an explosion could even trigger a “bank run” that could catalyze the breakup of the union. Europe can’t exist as a union of referendums because the EU is a space for negotiation while referendums are the final word of the people that preclude further negotiations. Referendums are therefore political instruments that can be easily misused by both Euroskeptical minorities and euro-pessimistic governments to block the work of the union. If the EU commits suicide, the weapon used will quite likely be a popular referendum or a series of popular referendums.
A harsh shock can turn the unthinkable into the inevitable with frightening speed. This is precisely what happened in Europe after Britons voted to leave the union. The shock was particularly painful because European and British elites had managed to convince themselves that the “remain” camp would prevail. Experts, pollsters, markets—almost everybody predicted that the United Kingdom would stay in the union. Political oddsmakers gave Remain an astounding 93 percent chance of victory in the minutes before the first results were announced. All predictions turned out to be wrong, of course, and everything changed overnight.
The vote in favor of Brexit sent shockwaves around the world, rocking financial markets, frightening political leaders, and provoking far-reaching political debates. If the day before Brexit Europeans were arguing about which would be the next country to join the EU, the day after Brexit the question was who would next leave. In psychology, there is a well-known experiment in which a person is asked quickly to look at drawings of cats and is constantly asked what he or she sees. Unsurprisingly, he or she sees cats. Then the drawings of cats are mixed with occasional drawings of dogs, yet the person insists that he or she sees only cats. Soon somebody shouts a person’s name distracting him or her from the drawings. When the person looks at them again, he or she starts to see the dogs. This is what happened with Europe on the night of June 23, 2016, the day the Brits voted to leave. It finally became possible to perceive the dogs.
Historians are quick to recall that referendums accompanied the two fateful disintegrations Europe witnessed in the last decade of the twentieth century: the shattering of the Soviet Union and the violent implosion of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Referendums in the Yugoslav Republics put in motion what would become the collapse of Tito’s federation; and in the Soviet Union, in paradoxical fashion, the March 1991 referendum conducted in nine of the Soviet Republics and resulting in a massive victory for the pro-union camp contributed to the collapse of the Soviet state. The vote demonstrated that national republics were the centers of political life in the union and that the USSR was sick and dying. The lesson was that a referendum could inspire disintegration even if majorities voted against it.
The crucial point here is that although pessimists are right to fear that the European Union will be destroyed by referendums, they are afraid of the wrong referendums. While in the wake of Brexit, we witnessed a growing desire among Europeans for binary-like “in-out” referendums, opinion polls indicate that with the passing of time the desire for such a final say has declined in most European countries. The likelihood of classical “in-out” referendums is quite limited in the vast majority of the member states. This can certainly change, but for the moment, the appeal of such referendums has declined. Pro-European elites will scarcely risk triggering the “nuclear option” after experiencing what transpired in Britain. Call this one the “Cameron effect.” Moreover, what is common to all referendums that took place in 2016 is that governments never achieved their objectives. Populists, it is fair to say, prefer to threaten a stay or leave referendum than genuinely to advance one. After all, they have witnessed with Brexit the problems a successful anti-EU referendum invites. Their preferred strategy will likely be to insist that every election be an informal referendum on the EU rather than explicitly asking for an up-or-down vote on exit.
Rather than fixating on a Brexit-type referendum, we need to focus on three other referendums that took place in 2016. In the manner of Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti Western, let’s call them the Brave, the Mean, and the Ugly. The Brave was former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s December referendum in Italy; the Mean, the Dutch referendum on the Ukrainian Association Treaty with the EU in April; and the Ugly, Viktor Orbán’s October referendum on the refugee policy of the EU. These three referendums illustrate better than anything else the risk of the EU’s breakup unfolding as a kind of a traffic accident.
☝☝☝☝☝☝
《勇敢者》（The Brave）中文翻譯
2016 年春天，馬泰奧・倫齊（Matteo Renzi）萌生公投的想法，本不令人意外。在金融市場與布魯塞爾高層於五年前成功將貝魯斯科尼（Silvio Berlusconi）趕下台後，義大利依然是歐盟危機的主要受害者之一。義大利經濟長期停滯，其銀行體系尤其脆弱。義大利的政治系統依然一如既往的極端分裂、效率低落，同時還出現了古怪又強烈抗議建制的「五星運動」崛起。
同一時間，義大利也成為大多數難民與移民進入歐洲的入口。2016 年巴爾幹路線關閉之後，義大利成為歐洲移民危機的震央。更雪上加霜的是，馬泰奧・倫齊是在沒有經過選民直接授權的情況下成為義大利總理的。在一個習慣以公投處理重大政治議題的國家，這位年輕的新總理想藉由公投來爭取民意正當性，同時推動政治制度改革、建立更有效率的決策程序，實屬合情合理。義大利反對黨不願在國會與參議院支持倫齊的改革方案，也使得公投幾乎成為必然。
倫齊提交給義大利人民的問題極為繁複：「你是否同意《憲法法案》之內容，關於『超越兩院對等制、減少議員人數、降低機構運作成本、廢除全國勞工與經濟委員會（CNEL）、修改憲法第二部分第五章』？」
倫齊的改革目標多重：削弱目前與眾議院權力對等的參議院，以改革義大利失能的「否決政治（vetocracy）」，將參議員從 315 人減至 100 人，剝奪參議院對政府提出「不信任案」的權力，並終止參議院的直接選舉，改以 21 位地方市長、74 位大區議會代表與 5 位總統提名人士組成。改革也會減少義大利 20 個大區政府的權力，讓中央政府在能源、基礎建設、對外貿易等議題上掌握更多決定權。改革派聲稱，這些措施每年可降低政治成本 5 億歐元，並終結數十年來兩院互相打回票的惡性循環。
如果公投成功，義大利將終結「完全對等兩院制」，政府權力將因此提升，法案也能更迅速通過。公投前的民調顯示倫齊的勝算不差，公投甚至能讓他以「挑戰既有體制」的姿態出現，迫使反對者去捍衛混亂的現狀。正如倫齊所說，這場改革是一場「懷舊與未來之戰，是在什麼都不想改變的人與向前看的人之間的對決」。
2016 年 12 月 4 日，投票率超過 65%；其中 59% 投下了「反對」，約 41% 投「贊成」。倫齊的憲改方案遭到明確否決，他也被迫辭職。分析人士認為，正是倫齊先前承諾「若公投失敗就下台」的宣示，讓這場投票從制度改革公投，變成了對這位備受爭議的總理個人野心的公審。然而沒有這個承諾，結果會有多大差異，我們也只能猜測。
投票當天的義大利，就像是病人到了手術日，卻突然逃出醫院。政府的失敗讓金融市場更懷疑義大利有能力處理危機，也削弱義大利與布魯塞爾談判的地位，並在歐洲各地助長了對歐元的悲觀情緒。正如法國極右「國民陣線」的瑪琳・勒龐（Marine Le Pen）所說：「繼希臘公投與英國脫歐後，義大利的否決票讓另一個民族加入了那些想背離荒謬的歐盟政策——那些讓整個大陸走向貧困的政策——的行列。」
倫齊的公投失敗清楚揭示一件事：在當前歐洲危機之中，人民已失去對民主制度的信任，政府也被視為人民的敵人。此時任何試圖藉公投動員改革支持的作法，最終都很可能自我毀滅。政府與國會固然有權提出公投問題，但人民會決定他們真正要回答的是什麼問題。
重點問題（條列）
一、義大利的困境背景
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長期經濟停滯、銀行體系脆弱
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五星運動崛起造成政治分裂
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歐洲移民危機重壓義大利
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總理由黨內程序產生，缺乏民意正當性
長期經濟停滯、銀行體系脆弱
五星運動崛起造成政治分裂
歐洲移民危機重壓義大利
總理由黨內程序產生，缺乏民意正當性
二、為何走上公投
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尋求直接民意授權
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推動體制改革（提升行政效率）
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反對黨拒絕支持，使公投成為唯一途徑
尋求直接民意授權
推動體制改革（提升行政效率）
反對黨拒絕支持，使公投成為唯一途徑
三、憲改內容爭議
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廢除完全對等兩院制
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參議院改組：減少議員、終結直選
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削弱地方政府權力
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強化中央政府在能源、基建、外貿的決策
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目標：加速立法、降低政治成本
廢除完全對等兩院制
參議院改組：減少議員、終結直選
削弱地方政府權力
強化中央政府在能源、基建、外貿的決策
目標：加速立法、降低政治成本
四、失敗原因
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政治簡化：從制度公投變成「討厭倫齊」公投
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公投問題過於複雜、包裹式改革
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人民對政治菁英的不信任
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倫齊承諾下台 → 變成對他個人的投票
政治簡化：從制度公投變成「討厭倫齊」公投
公投問題過於複雜、包裹式改革
人民對政治菁英的不信任
倫齊承諾下台 → 變成對他個人的投票
五、後果
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倫齊辭職
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市場動盪、義大利與布魯塞爾談判地位下滑
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歐洲疑歐情緒升高
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顯示公投在民主危機時期的風險：政府問 A，人民回答 B
倫齊辭職
市場動盪、義大利與布魯塞爾談判地位下滑
歐洲疑歐情緒升高
顯示公投在民主危機時期的風險：政府問 A，人民回答 B
關鍵字詞（Keywords）
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完全對等兩院制（perfect bicameralism）
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否決政治（vetocracy）
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憲政改革（constitutional reform）
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五星運動（Five Star Movement）
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移民危機（migration crisis）
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民意正當性（popular legitimacy）
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公投政治化、個人化（personalization of referendum）
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民主信任危機（crisis of democratic trust）
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疑歐主義（Euro-pessimism / Euroscepticism）
完全對等兩院制（perfect bicameralism）
否決政治（vetocracy）
憲政改革（constitutional reform）
五星運動（Five Star Movement）
移民危機（migration crisis）
民意正當性（popular legitimacy）
公投政治化、個人化（personalization of referendum）
民主信任危機（crisis of democratic trust）
疑歐主義（Euro-pessimism / Euroscepticism）
The Brave
It should be no surprise that in the spring of 2016, Matteo Renzi hatched the idea of a referendum. Five years after the financial markets and the high command of Brussels succeeded in ejecting Silvio Berlusconi from power, Italy remained one of the main victims of the EU crisis. The Italian economy was in a kind of permanent stagnation with its banks particularly vulnerable. The Italian political system remained as polarized as ever, ineffective, and now marked by the rise of the eccentric Five Star Movement of political protest. At the same time, the country had become the portal through which most refugees and immigrants arrived to Europe. After the closing of the Balkan route in 2016, Italy became the epicenter of Europe’s migration crisis. Compounding the distress, Matteo Renzi had become Italy’s prime minister without having had to face the voters. It’s hardly surprising that in a country where political issues are often decided through referendums, the young, new prime minister would be tempted to gamble, using the vote as a way to achieve popular legitimacy as well as support for a reform of the political system that would issue in a more effective decision-making process. The reluctance of Italy’s opposition parties to support Renzi’s reform package in the Parliament and the Senate made a referendum inevitable.
The questions Renzi put before the Italian people were loaded: “Do you approve the text of the Constitutional Law on ‘Provisions for exceeding the equal bicameralism, reducing the number of MPs, the containment of operating costs of the institutions, the suppression of the CNEL, and the revision of Title V of Part II of the Constitution’?” Renzi had multiple objectives: reducing the power of the second chamber of parliament—the Senate, which is currently equal to the Chamber of Deputies—and thereby reforming the dysfunctional Italian “vetocracy,” cutting the number of Senators from 315 to 100 and stripping the Senate of the right to hold votes of “no confidence” in the government, and ending direct elections of the Senate, populating it instead with twenty-one regional mayors, seventy-four regional council heads, and five members selected by the president. The proposed reforms would reduce the powers of Italy’s twenty regional governments, handing over authority to the central government on such issues as energy, infrastructure, and foreign trade. Reformists say this would cut the cost of politics by half-a-billion euros per annum and expedite lawmaking by ending decades of parliamentary ping-pong. If the referendum had succeeded, it would have ended the system of “perfect bicameralism,” thus giving more power to the government and enabling faster passage of legislation. Opinion polls before the vote suggested that the prime minister’s chances of success were good and that the referendum would help position him as a rebel against the status quo, forcing his opponents to defend the existing political mess. In the words of Renzi himself, the reform was a battle between “nostalgia and the future, between those who want to change nothing and those who are looking ahead.”20
On December 4, 2016, more than 65 percent of the electorate voted; 59 percent voted “no” and almost 41 percent “yes.” Renzi’s constitutional reform proposal was decisively defeated, and he was forced to resign. Analysts have speculated that it was the prime minister’s own promise to step down in the event of a loss that transformed the vote from an evaluation of the electoral system to a judgment on the ambitions of a contested prime minister. However, we can only speculate how the results would have differed in the absence of Renzi’s pledge.
On the day of the vote, Italy resembled a patient who, facing the date of his surgery, decides to bolt out of the hospital. The government’s defeat made markets even more skeptical about Italy’s capacity to deal with the crisis. It weakened Italy’s position in negotiation with Brussels, and it boosted euro-pessimism among citizens across the continent. In the words of Marine Le Pen of France’s far-right National Front, “After the Greek referendum, after Brexit, this Italian No adds a new people to the list of those who would like to turn their backs on absurd European policies that are plunging the continent into poverty.”21
Renzi’s failure on the referendum makes one thing clear. In the context of the current European crisis, when citizens have lost trust in democratic institutions and governments are viewed as enemies of the people, any attempt to use referendums as a way to mobilize support for reforms is most likely to be self-defeating. It may be true that the government or parliament has the authority to introduce a referendum question, but it is the people who get to decide what question they will answer.
☝☝☝☝☝☝
《卑劣者》（The Mean）中文翻譯
2015 年，荷蘭國會通過一項新的公投法，允許公民對已在國會兩院通過的法案，發起諮詢性質的全民投票。要啟動這類針對「具爭議性」法律與條約的「諮詢公投」，需要三十萬名公民聯署。正如民主 66（D66）黨籍國會議員赫拉爾德・斯豪（Gerard Schouw）所言，這項公投倡議是重新贏回公民信任的一種方式。斯豪指出：「這部法律將讓公民擁有嚴肅的機會表達意見，也在決策過程中擁有重要聲音。」
隨著荷蘭社會的反菁英、反歐盟情緒升高——主要由反移民與反歐盟擴大所激發——主流政黨勢必尋找方式展現他們願意傾聽人民憂慮的姿態。然而，最終發生的事情是：這項新制度並不是讓人民擁有更多話語權，而是放大了荷蘭疑歐派的噪音。
利用這項新立法所提供的機會，一群疑歐組織開始收集公投所需的簽名。他們成功募集超過 42 萬個簽名，使得公投成案，問題是：「你是否贊成《歐盟—烏克蘭聯盟協定批准法》？」
投票率僅 32%，但在投票者中有 61% 反對該協定。雖然這場公投只是諮詢性、無法律拘束力，但因為投票率勉強超過 30% 門檻，加上反對票過半，使得結果看似具有正當性。然而，該公投其實對大多數公民毫無吸引力。（試問，政府以外，誰會閱讀長達兩千多頁的條約全文？）即便如此，公投結果仍迫使政府重新檢視其立場，也讓歐盟在烏克蘭問題上的脆弱共識受到動搖。
正如一位評論者所說：「聚焦在歐盟—烏克蘭聯盟協定的公投，並不是因為他們真的反對這項協定本身，而是因為他們（如挑釁性網站 GeenPeil）認為荷蘭選民在歐盟體系中缺乏影響力。」
聽起來或許荒謬，但這場公投被用作動員疑歐選票的便利工具——所投票的議題本身對支持歐盟的人毫無重大意義。
一旦理解這場公投的主要目的在於動員疑歐人士，就能理解為何執政黨反應得如此被動。他們擔心社會氛圍偏向「反對」，因此寄望投票率無法達到 30% 的門檻。執政黨也不敢公開呼籲抵制投票，因為這會與他們宣稱「新的公投法是為了讓人民能表達意見」的初衷矛盾。
阿姆斯特丹大學的疑歐派教授艾沃德・恩格爾頓（Ewald Engelton）寫道：「這場公投的妙處就在於：它沒有任何實質後果；條約無論如何都會被批准。這是一個絕對清晰的民意人氣投票：問題不是條約，而是你支持或反對那群『政治階層』。」
最後令人悲傷的結論是：荷蘭這場公投生動展示了少數疑歐群體如何劫持投票，並將其戰術性地用來癱瘓布魯塞爾的集體決策過程，使得親歐盟的政府不得不為一些公眾毫不關心的議題疲於奔命。
重點問題（條列）
一、制度背景與立法初衷
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2015 年新公投法允許公民對已通過法律／條約發起「諮詢公投」
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需三十萬人連署方能成案
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原先意圖：恢復公民對政府、國會的信任，增強決策參與
2015 年新公投法允許公民對已通過法律／條約發起「諮詢公投」
需三十萬人連署方能成案
原先意圖：恢復公民對政府、國會的信任，增強決策參與
二、社會脈絡
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荷蘭反菁英、反移民、反歐盟擴大情緒升高
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主流政黨面臨疑歐情緒壓力
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新制度成為疑歐派動員工具
荷蘭反菁英、反移民、反歐盟擴大情緒升高
主流政黨面臨疑歐情緒壓力
新制度成為疑歐派動員工具
三、烏克蘭—歐盟協定公投的問題
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提案者並不關心協定本身，而是藉題反歐盟
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條約內容長達 2000+ 頁，公民大多不知、不關心
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投票率僅 32% → 勉強越過 30% 法定門檻
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投反對票的多數來自疑歐派的戰術性動員
提案者並不關心協定本身，而是藉題反歐盟
條約內容長達 2000+ 頁，公民大多不知、不關心
投票率僅 32% → 勉強越過 30% 法定門檻
投反對票的多數來自疑歐派的戰術性動員
四、政府與主流政黨的被動反應
-
擔心民意偏向「反對」，不敢主動動員
-
期待投票率不足門檻以讓公投失效
-
不敢公開呼籲抵制，以免自打臉
擔心民意偏向「反對」，不敢主動動員
期待投票率不足門檻以讓公投失效
不敢公開呼籲抵制，以免自打臉
五、後果與啟示
-
政府被迫重新評估立場
-
歐盟對烏克蘭議題的脆弱共識受到質疑
-
公投被疑歐派「挾持」，成為針對政治菁英的「人氣測試」
-
展示公投如何被少數群體戰術性使用，癱瘓集體決策
政府被迫重新評估立場
歐盟對烏克蘭議題的脆弱共識受到質疑
公投被疑歐派「挾持」，成為針對政治菁英的「人氣測試」
展示公投如何被少數群體戰術性使用，癱瘓集體決策
關鍵字詞（Keywords）
-
諮詢公投（advisory referendum）
-
疑歐主義（Euroskepticism）
-
反菁英（anti-elite）
-
公投門檻（turnout threshold）
-
公投挾持（hijacked referendum）
-
歐盟—烏克蘭聯盟協定（EU–Ukraine Association Agreement）
-
議題與投票脫節（issue–vote disconnect）
-
政治階層（political caste）
-
戰術性投票／抗議性投票（tactical protest vote）
諮詢公投（advisory referendum）
疑歐主義（Euroskepticism）
反菁英（anti-elite）
公投門檻（turnout threshold）
公投挾持（hijacked referendum）
歐盟—烏克蘭聯盟協定（EU–Ukraine Association Agreement）
議題與投票脫節（issue–vote disconnect）
政治階層（political caste）
戰術性投票／抗議性投票（tactical protest vote）
The Mean
In 2015, the Dutch Parliament adopted a new referendum law that permits citizens to call for a consultative public vote on bills that have passed through both houses of Parliament. It requires three hundred thousand citizens to trigger an “advisory referendum” on laws and treaties of a “controversial nature.” In the words of Gerard Schouw, a member of Parliament from the D66 Party, the referendum initiative was a way to regain the confidence of citizens. As Schouw notes, “This law will give citizens a serious opportunity to express their views and an important voice in the decision-making process.”22 The escalating antielite, anti-EU sentiments in Dutch society provoked mainly by citizen opposition to migration and the enlargement of the European Union made it inevitable that mainstream political parties would look for ways to demonstrate their readiness to listen to the people’s concerns. Yet what ultimately occurred is that the new initiative not so much gives a voice to the people as it amplifies the noise produced by the Euroskeptic wing of Dutch society.
Exploiting the opportunity created by the new legislation, a group of Euroskeptical organizations began gathering signatures. They succeeded in gathering enough of them—more than 420,000—to organize a referendum in answer to the question: “Are you for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?” Turnout for the vote was a meager 32 percent of eligible voters, with 61 percent of those casting a ballot rejecting the agreement. Although the referendum was advisory and nonbinding, the fact that the turnout exceeded 30 percent (though just barely) and that a majority voted against it gave the results apparent legitimacy. Never mind that the referendum was devoted to an issue of essentially no interest to the vast majority of citizens. (Who would deny that outside of the government nary a soul read the entire two-thousand-plus pages of the treaty?) The outcome nonetheless compelled the government to revisit its position and placed into question the EU’s fragile consensus on Ukraine.
In the words of one commentator, “The decision to focus on the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine was not oriented against the agreement as such, but rather against what they [GeenPeil—a provocative Dutch weblog] perceive as a lack of influence for Dutch voters within the EU.” It may sound perverse, but the referendum was called as a useful occasion for mobilizing the Euroskeptic vote on an issue of no major consequence for those who support the union.
Once we grasp that the referendum was primarily about engaging Euroskeptics, it becomes easy to understand why the governing parties responded to it with such passivity. They feared that public opinion was in a “no” mood, so they pinned their hopes on turnout failing to reach the thirty-percent threshold. The leading parties were also afraid to lobby openly in favor of boycotting the referendum because doing so would contradict the claim that the new legislation instituting referendums was meant to permit the people to speak their minds. “The genius of [the referendum],” wrote Euroskeptical Amsterdam professor Ewald Engelton, “is that it has no consequence; the treaty will be ratified anyway. It is a crystal clear popularity poll: for or against the [political] caste—that is the question.”23 The sad conclusion is that the Dutch referendum was a powerful demonstration of how votes can be hijacked by Euroskeptical minorities and used tactically to paralyze the process of collective decision making in Brussels by pushing pro-European governments to rally for issues that are of no interest to the public.
☝☝☝☝☝☝
《醜陋者》（The Ugly）——中文翻譯
2016 年夏秋之際，任何造訪匈牙利的外國人，都不可能錯過遍布全國的政府大型看板。這些看板全部採用與歐盟旗幟相同的藍色底色，並以一句話開頭：「你知道嗎？」
這是執政黨青民盟（Fidesz）發動的大規模反移民宣傳攻勢。民眾被數以千計的政府贊助看板包圍，上面寫著：
-
「你知道嗎？自從移民危機爆發，已有超過 300 人因歐洲的恐攻喪生？」
-
「你知道嗎？布魯塞爾想要把一整座城市的人數規模的非法移民安置到匈牙利？」
-
「你知道嗎？自移民危機以來，歐洲女性遭受騷擾的事件急劇上升？」
-
「你知道嗎？巴黎恐攻的犯案者是移民？」
-
「你知道嗎？光是利比亞就有將近一百萬移民想要前往歐洲？」
政府希望匈牙利人在 10 月 2 日公投時，記住這些所謂的「事實」。那一天，公投的問題是：
「你是否同意歐盟在未經國會同意的情況下，強制在匈牙利安置非匈牙利公民？」
為替此一公投辯護，匈牙利總理歐爾班（Viktor Orbán）聲稱：
首先，我們相信匈牙利政府選擇走的道路——公投之路——是歐洲式的解決方案，也是一種歐洲政治的特徵，因此我們誠心推薦其他國家也這樣做。民主是歐洲的核心價值之一，歐盟也是建立在民主基礎上。這意味著，任何重大改變人民生活、並影響後代的決策，都不應該在人民頭上做出，也不能違背歐洲人民的意願。
配額制度將重繪匈牙利與歐洲的民族、文化與宗教地圖。匈牙利政府認為，無論是歐盟、布魯塞爾，或歐洲領袖，都沒有權力這麼做。至今沒有任何歐洲機構被賦予此種權力。沒有人問過歐洲人民是否接受強制配額。
匈牙利人民相信——而我相信政府正是順應民意——在未經人民同意的情況下強制推行安置配額，就是濫權。因此我們將詢問人民，就像我們曾詢問人民是否加入歐盟一樣……只有我們，匈牙利國會民選代表，能做出這個決定。24
要理解這場公投的動機，須先認識到政府選擇把一項匈牙利社會高度共識（反對布魯塞爾難民分配制度）拿來讓人民投票。政府之所以公投，不是因為想知道人民的意見，而是已經知道人民的意見。
2016 年 10 月 2 日的公投，是用來向布魯塞爾傳遞訊息。歐爾班希望達成三個簡單目標：
-
向國內選民證明自己才是民族利益的真正捍衛者，並壓縮極右派「更好匈牙利黨」（Jobbik）的支持。
-
向布魯塞爾表態：匈牙利堅決拒絕難民配額制度。
-
向全歐洲展示：歐爾班是「新保守歐洲」的領導者，將捍衛國界，並把權力從布魯塞爾奪回國家手中。
為達成目的，匈牙利政府耗費了將近五千萬歐元（根據 atlatszo.hu），國營電視台在選前宣傳中有 95% 時間重覆政府立場。做比較，英國政府在脫歐公投中，支持「留歐」與「脫歐」兩方的支出總額，還比匈牙利少約 700 萬歐元。
換算下來：
-
匈牙利政府單方面宣傳花費為每人 5 歐元
-
英國脫歐公投僅為每人 0.66 歐元
政府也寄出超過四百萬份全彩小冊子，向境內外匈牙利人宣傳為何要投反對票。諷刺的是，他們之所以能豪擲巨資，就是拜……布魯塞爾的歐盟補助金所賜。
然而公投的結果卻讓政府震驚。儘管投票者中超過 90% 支持政府立場，但大多數民眾選擇留在家中（聽從反對派呼籲）或投下無效票（有 20 萬張）。由惡搞政黨「雙尾狗黨」與 22 個 NGO 組成的陣營成為最大反抗者，最終有效投票率不足，使公投無效。
儘管如此，匈牙利公投顯示公投能被用作「國家否決權」——阻止歐盟共同政策的實施。加上義大利與荷蘭的公投案例，展現了歐洲面臨的公投困境。
自 2008 年金融危機後，人們愈來愈感受到：個人投票對歐盟政策毫無影響力。政治精英為了補民主赤字，引入直接民主元素，反而可能讓歐盟沉沒。
-
義大利公投顯示：公投不是穩定改革的工具。
-
荷蘭公投顯示：它能癱瘓歐盟。
-
匈牙利公投顯示：它能成為反布魯塞爾武器。
這三類公投共同塑造了歐盟的政治動態，使歐洲出現超越以往「疑歐」情緒的深層「歐洲悲觀主義」。
📌 重點問題（條列）
-
匈牙利政府為何要舉行這場公投？
-
歐爾班如何利用公投來強化其政治權力與民族主義形象？
-
政府宣傳如何塑造民意，並如何利用恐懼？
-
公投實際目的是否真的是「詢問民意」？
-
匈牙利公投如何成為「反歐盟戰略」工具？
-
公投無效後，對匈牙利國內與歐盟分別造成何種政治訊號？
-
公投亂象如何反映出歐盟整體民主危機？
-
公投在歐盟是否應被限制、改革或重新界定？
匈牙利政府為何要舉行這場公投？
歐爾班如何利用公投來強化其政治權力與民族主義形象？
政府宣傳如何塑造民意，並如何利用恐懼？
公投實際目的是否真的是「詢問民意」？
匈牙利公投如何成為「反歐盟戰略」工具？
公投無效後，對匈牙利國內與歐盟分別造成何種政治訊號？
公投亂象如何反映出歐盟整體民主危機？
公投在歐盟是否應被限制、改革或重新界定？
📌 關鍵字詞（Keywords）
-
Viktor Orbán（歐爾班）
-
Fidesz（青民盟）
-
EU refugee quota（歐盟難民配額）
-
Anti-immigrant campaign（反移民宣傳）
-
Referendum as National Veto（公投作為國家否決權）
-
Brussels vs. National Sovereignty（布魯塞爾 vs 國家主權）
-
Euroskepticism / Euro-pessimism（疑歐／歐洲悲觀主義）
-
Democratic deficit（民主赤字）
-
Propaganda strategy（宣傳策略）
-
Forced relocation（強制安置）
-
Two-Tailed Dog Party（雙尾狗黨）
-
Invalid ballots（無效票）
-
Political manipulation（政治操弄）
-
Direct democracy crisis（直接民主危機）
-
EU governance paralysis（歐盟治理癱瘓）
Viktor Orbán（歐爾班）
Fidesz（青民盟）
EU refugee quota（歐盟難民配額）
Anti-immigrant campaign（反移民宣傳）
Referendum as National Veto（公投作為國家否決權）
Brussels vs. National Sovereignty（布魯塞爾 vs 國家主權）
Euroskepticism / Euro-pessimism（疑歐／歐洲悲觀主義）
Democratic deficit（民主赤字）
Propaganda strategy（宣傳策略）
Forced relocation（強制安置）
Two-Tailed Dog Party（雙尾狗黨）
Invalid ballots（無效票）
Political manipulation（政治操弄）
Direct democracy crisis（直接民主危機）
EU governance paralysis（歐盟治理癱瘓）
The Ugly
A foreigner visiting Hungary in the summer and autumn of 2016 could not miss a series of government-installed billboards posted throughout the country, all of them colored the same blue as the EU flag and posing the question: “Did you know?”
The anti-immigrant gambit of the ruling Fidesz Party issued in a massive PR campaign. Citizens were confronted by thousands of government-sponsored billboards asking: “Did you know that since the beginning of the immigration crisis, more than 300 people have died as a result of terror attacks in Europe?” “Did you know that Brussels wants to settle a whole city’s worth of illegal immigrants in Hungary?” “Did you know that since the beginning of the immigration crisis the harassment of women has risen sharply in Europe?” “Did you know that the Parisian terror attacks were committed by immigrants?” “Did you know that close to one million immigrants want to come to Europe from Libya alone?” The government wanted Hungarian citizens to be aware of these “facts” when on October 2, they were asked to answer the question, “Do you want the European Union to be able to order the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without parliament’s consent?”
By defending the idea of a referendum on the EU refugee policy, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán insisted that
first of all, we are convinced that the path which the Hungarian government has chosen to follow—the path leading to a referendum—is a European solution; it is a feature of European politics, and therefore we wholeheartedly recommend it to others also. The Government believes that democracy is one of Europe’s core values, and the European Union is also based on the foundations of democracy. This means that we may not adopt decisions—those that significantly change people’s lives and also determine the lives of future generations—over the heads of the people, and against the will of the European people. The quotas would redraw the ethnic, cultural, and religious map of Hungary and of Europe. The Hungarian government takes the view that neither the EU, nor Brussels, nor the leaders of Europe have the authority to do this; in fact, there is no European body or agency of any kind that has been vested with such authority. To date no one has asked the European people whether they want, accept, or reject the introduction of compulsory quotas. We Hungarians believe—and I am convinced that the government was yielding to the general desire of the public when it chose to call a referendum—that introducing compulsory resettlement quotas without the consent of the people is nothing less than an abuse of power. Therefore we shall ask the people of Hungary about this question, just as we asked about Hungary’s accession to the European Union. . . . No one but us, the elected representatives of the Hungarian parliament, can make this decision.24
To grasp the motives behind Orbán’s referendum, it’s necessary is to recognize that the government decided to ask people to vote on one of the few issues on which there was consensus in Hungarian society—opposition to Brussels’s decision to settle refugees in different EU countries. The government didn’t ask people to vote because it was interested in their opinions; it pressed people to vote because it knew their opinions. The referendum that took place in Hungary on October 2, 2016, was really meant as a message to Brussels. By organizing the referendum, Prime Minister Orbán hoped to achieve three simple objectives: to demonstrate to the public that he is the real defender of the nation’s interests and thus to marginalize the support for the extreme right-wing Jobbik Party with whom he competes for the nationalists’ vote, to signal to Brussels that Hungary will remain firm in rejecting a European quota system for the refugee crisis, and to show the citizens of Europe that the Hungarian prime minister is the true leader of a new conservative Europe that will defend national borders and fight to transfer power from Brussels to national capitals.
To achieve its objectives, the Hungarian government spent nearly fifty million euros of public money (according to atlatszo.hu), and Hungarian public TV devoted 95 percent of campaign time restating the government’s position. By comparison, the money spent on Brexit by the UK government in support of both the Leave and Remain campaign was roughly seven million euros less. In the end, the Hungarian government spent €5.00 per person on its single-sided campaign, while the Brits spent only €0.66 per person on theirs. The government also sent more than four million full-color booklets to Hungarians at home and abroad making the government’s case for why Hungarians should vote “no” on the EU’s refugee policy. The irony is that the government was in a position to spend so lavishly precisely because of billions of euros coming into the country from . . . Brussels.
The results of the referendum came as a shock to the government. While more than 90 percent of those who voted supported the government’s position, the majority of people opted to stay home (as prompted by the opposition) or voted with invalid ballots (there were two hundred thousand of those). The Two-Tailed Dog Party, a group of pranksters that together with twenty-two NGOs became the government’s chief opponent over the course of the campaign, may have had the last laugh: the number of ballots cast was insufficient to validate the results.
Despite the inconclusive outcome in this case, the Hungarian vote demonstrates how referendums can be used as a “national veto” to stymie the implementation of agreed-upon, common European policies. Along with the votes in Italy and the Netherlands, it illustrates Europe’s potentially fatal referendum conundrum. The crisis of liberal democracy in EU member states is a product of the widely shared feeling, significantly worsened since the financial crisis of 2008, that the votes of individuals have no meaning or effect on European policy. Forced to address this sensation of impotence, political elites have tried to bolster the legitimacy of the political system by introducing an element of direct democracy. Yet that element of direct democracy may well end up sinking the European Union.
As Renzi’s poll clearly demonstrates, the referendum is an unreliable instrument when institutional reform is the desired end. The Dutch case makes clear how it can be used to paralyze the union. And the Orbán vote shows how a referendum can be deployed to advance explicitly anti-Brussels ends. All three kinds of referendums have the power to shape the EU’s political dynamics and to empower a form of outright euro-pessimism that goes far beyond the Euroskepticism of recent years.
《They the People》最精準、貼近原意的中文翻譯是：
✅ 《他們，人民》
以下是為什麼這是最佳翻譯：
📌 1. 語法上的反諷：對美國《憲法序言》的改寫
原句取自美國憲法著名開場：
We the People（我們，人民）
Krastev 刻意把 We（我們）→ They（他們），形成極具政治意味的反諷：
-
We the People＝共同體的自我宣稱
-
They the People＝人民不是「我們」而是「他們」
→ 指涉民主裂解、社會不再有共同「我們」。
📌 2. 中文語感：保持原始的「政治修辭扭轉」
Why not “人民他們”或“那些人民”？
因為中文語感中：
-
《他們，人民》
— 最能呈現英語原句的節奏、停頓、反諷與陌生化效果。
— 保留政治宣告的味道，像一種「烏有的集體」的自白。
📌 3. 書中主旨更吻合
本章核心論點就是：
-
民粹政治把「人民」切割成「真人民」與「假人民」
-
政治不再是「我們」對抗問題，而是「他們才是人民」的奪權敘事
-
民主被重寫成排他式的認同政治
所以 《他們，人民》 完美貼合 Krastev 的政治語用。
📌 可選替代譯名（按語氣排列）
若你需要不同語氣，也可採用：
-
《所謂的人民》 —— 解構語氣更強
-
《被宣稱為人民的他們》 —— 說明意義更明確
-
《他們才是人民》 —— 更貼近民粹者的語氣
-
《那些被叫作人民的人》 —— 文字化、學術味較重
但在寫作、引用或投稿時，仍建議：
⭐ 首選譯名：《他們，人民》
Ivan Krastev《After Europe》第二章〈They the People〉（檔案：upp-krastev1-0008.html）整理而成，包含：
-
最精準的中文重點條列（非常詳細）
-
核心名言名句整理（逐條標出）
所有內容皆依據你上傳的檔案來源
upp-krastev1-0008
。
📌《They the People》精準中文重點（非常詳細）
一、歐洲從「樂觀統合」到「震驚瓦解」
-
2005 年前，歐洲人相信 EU 正邁向史上最成功的整合：
申根自由旅行、單一貨幣、憲法條約、東擴成功、烏克蘭橙色革命。upp-krastev1-0008
-
若 2005 冷凍、2017 解凍，歐洲精英會因 危機全面爆發 而再次「嚇死」：
歐債危機、青年失業、希臘破產、英國脫歐、憲法條約失敗。upp-krastev1-0008
二、核心大前提：民主 vs. 自由主義 vs. 全球化三方衝突
-
歐盟是「民主帝國」，但正在面臨民主幻滅。
-
多數歐洲人相信：「之所以懷疑民主，是因為他們其實是對的。」（民主無力感）
upp-krastev1-0008
-
只有少數人覺得選票有用，多國人民甚至覺得「在自己國家投票也沒用」。
upp-krastev1-0008
三、羅德里克三難困境：不可能三角
國家不可能同時擁有：
-
全球化
-
民主
-
國家主權
→ 歐盟精英卻想三者都要，結果造成：
-
有選舉但沒政策選擇
-
有主權但無實質能力
-
有全球化但無正當性
upp-krastev1-0008
四、希臘危機：民主被閹割與挫敗
1. 2011 公投未生效（democracy frustrated）
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希臘總理宣布公投是否接受 EU 救援方案。
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歐洲領袖震怒，強迫取消公投 → 改由國會強行通過。
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2. 2015 公投被逆轉（democracy castrated）
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齊普拉斯訴諸公投，人民 61% 反對更嚴苛條件。
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一週後政府卻接受比原本更糟的方案 → 人民看見民主完全沒用。
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結論：
歐元區要存活，就必須剝奪債務國選民對經濟政策的決定權。
五、民粹主義的崛起
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新民粹不是「反精英」，而是「反多元」。
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他們聲稱代表「真正的人民」（true Poles, true Hungarians）。
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民主從「包容」變成「排除」：
選舉不再是政策選擇，而是對特權少數與移民的反叛。
六、中歐悖論：親歐盟但選出反自由派政府
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波、匈選民親歐，但仍支持奧班、卡欽斯基這類「非自由民主」領袖。
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原因：
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EU 像安全網，使選民敢「投票做實驗」。
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多數人想要的是「徹底勝利」，厭倦自由民主永遠無法贏到最後。
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七、西歐悖論：最親歐的年輕世代卻組織不出泛歐力量
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年輕人自由派、跨國、反權威，但拒絕階層、拒絕領導、拒絕組織。
→ 如占領運動、Indignados，有即效聲量，無長期政治力量。upp-krastev1-0008
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所以：
能上街但不能執政、能反對但不能提出正面藍圖。
八、布魯塞爾悖論：最具能力的技術官僚，卻被最不信任
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EU 精英是最有能力的一群，但被視為：
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無忠誠
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無根性
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無共同命運
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歐洲人民反感的不是專業，而是精英的「可轉換性」與「可逃離性」。
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民粹承諾的不是能力，而是「永不離開人民」的忠誠感。
九、全民公投悖論：使歐盟崩解的最快方式
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公投給人民「Yes/No」的錯覺，但複雜政策極易被操弄。
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歐盟是一個靠「協商」生存的體系，而公投是一個「結束協商的武器」。
→ 最可能讓 EU 自殺的，就是一連串的公投。
⭐ 核心名言名句整理
以下皆出自檔案
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。
■ 歐洲幻滅與民主危機
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「人們之所以對民主感到懷疑，是因為他們是對的。」
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「在歐盟層次上，只有三分之一的歐洲人相信自己的選票有效。」
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「年輕世代對民主的承諾更低，也更不願投入政治。」
■ 羅德里克三難困境（Rodrik’s trilemma）
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「我們不能同時擁有全球化、民主與國家主權。」
■ 希臘危機三句金句
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「歐洲的治理模式是：布魯塞爾的『無政治的政策』與各國的『無政策的政治』。」
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「人民可以換政府，但無法換政策。」
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「希臘福利國變成了責任歸咎的戰爭國。」
■ 民粹主義本質
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「民粹主義的核心不是反精英，而是反多元。」
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「民粹者聲稱：只有他們代表『真正的人民』。」
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「自由民主讓人民更自由，卻讓人民覺得更無力。」
■ 中歐的勝利渴望
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「自由民主給勝利者的回報太少，因此民粹提供了『真正的勝利』。」
■ 年輕世代與政治
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「你可以用推特點燃革命，但不能用推特建立政府。」
■ 布魯塞爾悖論（精英危機）
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「全球化的精英是『無忠誠』的精英。」
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「人們害怕在危機發生時，精英會選擇離開，而不是留下。」
■ 公投危機
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「如果歐盟選擇自殺，凶器很可能會是公投。」
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「公投是『獨裁者與煽動者』最愛的工具。」
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