Foresight 6. Rise of populism

Background

The initial proposition was that conservatives come to have increasing influence over governments. The key features in this scenario are an uncritical pro-business (that is, generally pro-big business) stance, and an uncritical anti-science stance.  It’s deeply anti-intellectual more generally, and therefore intolerant and dismissive of criticism.  These can be powerful forces that through traditionalist beliefs promote unsustainable use of resources, especially against a background of uncertainty. These groups are often reactionary and put individual or local community interests over that of the greater good for all in the long term.  The timescale we are considering is short- to medium-term, but effects could be long-lasting. As for effects, our interests are, in order of increasing focus, marine matters generally, marine science, and marine resource management.

Scenario

  • Government is increasingly influenced by people holding dogmatic (often evidence-defying), generally right wing viewpoints that occupy the political spectrum between liberalism and fascism. They are often elected using “populist” slogans, but unlike incoherent populists, these have a consistent agenda and set of beliefs or values (religious, cultural, social). We characterise them as sticking to old-fashioned ideas which, whilst they might have held a grain of truth or worked quite well for a while, were probably never, and are certainly not now, viable without qualification and regulation.  Ideas such as: freedom of the individual, small government, the “wisdom” of “the market” (untrammelled by regulation), the primacy of economic growth, trickle-down economics, the efficiency of private enterprise compared with government agencies and the likes. For brevity below, we will call them D views (D for denial, or evidence-defying dogma).
  • Talking in a “learned” and confident way about ideas such as the above (with dog-whistling towards various unspeakable prejudices), provides a mouthpiece and rallying point for people who really just want things to be the way they were earlier in their own lifetimes (e.g. high economic growth, low unemployment).
  • For this reason, they get a lot of voter support and so, despite their small numbers, they manage to impose their views on government policies and decisions, and to block moves with which they disagree. Because of the various independent parties with different agendas, backroom deals are made; this compromises good, transparent governance and is extremely difficult to predict.
  • Under the influence of D views, governments support the agendas of these parties, without critical review, including: marine development proposals (more aquaculture leases, more fishing boats licensed, permission to explore for petroleum in ways/locations considered risky, more port developments, offshore oil and gas platforms, expanding the cruise ship industry). They reduce efforts to combat climate change (repealed carbon tax and renewable energy quotas/targets), and oppose marine conservation (e.g. MPAs, action on biodiversity and threatened species and communities). Governments do nothing to manage recreational fishing (freedom of the individual etc.), but fishing intensity will gradually level off as stocks are over-exploited.
  • As a result, sustainability will be prejudiced by short-term gains achieved at the expense of declining ecological services, values or resilience.

Indicators: How would we know this is starting to happen?

  1. Political statements are later contradicted 20% of the time (where the contradiction reflects the influence of dogmatism views).
  2. Increase in representation (reaching 20%) by minor parties that offer dogmatism assertions.
  3. Increase in funding (by more than 20%) for things that accord with dogmatism views (e.g. a coal mine)
  4. Number of ‘ethical’ resignations decreases (e.g. when politicians fall on sword for mistakes) to less than 10% of the time
  5. Defunding of management agencies which leads to 25% decrease in staff
  6. Increase in concentration and centralization of capital (e.g. in larger or monopoly companies) with more than 50% annual growth in wealth held by the top 1% richest Australians
  7. Potentially environmentally damaging developments (e.g. canal estates, ports, oil and gas platforms, dredging shipping lanes, etc.) initiated more than 90% of time when proposed
  8. Use of marine spaces and resources shifts from local, small-scale fisheries (e.g. self-employed or family operated, often operating small vessels) to more than 50% in large-scale commercial fishing, coastal tourism, and recreational, bio-prospecting and military uses.

Scoring of indicators

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Related articles

Trust in Government in Australia and New Zealand Rises during COVID-19 pandemic – The Conversation February 2021

Anti-science occurs on the left, right and in populism – The Conversation July 2017