THIS POST IS A LITERATURE REVIEW OF HOW THE ELITE CAN SUBVERT DEMOCRACY TO PUSH THROUGH AN AGENDA AS SEEN IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE MOVEMENT OF OUR TIME.

PART-1: A SAMPLE OF CLIMATE ACTIVISM FOUND IN THE MEDIA

“The emergancy situation that our planet is now in. We remain on track for a catastrophic warming of 3C above pre-industrial levels. Alongside this is the accelerating anhilation of wildlife on earth and the pollution of our most precious resources – air, water, and land. It feels overwhelming to to face such vast and all encompassing issues We know what we need to do. We must reduce carbon entering the atmosphere and we must reduce our impact on the natural environment So the next question is how? Can we individually make a difference or should politicians, companies, and global organizations be leading the charge?”

This text above provides a glimpse into the fear activism presented daily in the media on climate change as an overriding issue in which the survival of life on earth and of the planet itself is at risk unless we take climate action and stop using fossil fuels to move our energy infrastrucure to renewable energy. In the context of the horrendous alternatives to climate action, any attempt to question the climate action priority being demanded is therefore a form of evil described as heretical science denial that places humanity at risk. This kind of heresy, by what is described as a small group of deniers with vested self interest in fossil fuels, if not contained could be the end of life on earth. Therefore the only alternative is for all citizens to unquestionably accept all premises for climate action and to participate in the climate action demanded.

We propose that this argument presented in this peculiar format of fear that makes it impossible to question the data, the methodology, or the science is best understood as a form of elite consensus subverting democracy. The people are not allowed to have a voice in the matter since it has been determined to be true by elite scientists and because it has been further determined that any opposition to the climate action demanded can cause human civilization and the planet itself to collapse. The people’s voice and will are thus removed and democracy is subverted. This kind of politics is not new and is described in the literature as the subversion of democracy by elite consensus.

Here we present a literature review of this topic with the proposition that the climate change movement of our time is best understood in this context as a political coup by elite consensus that makes it necessary for both the government and the citizens to serve the elite and refrain from critical evaluation against the elite consensus. The elite have thus seized power for all practical purposes because it is not possible for democracy to function under these conditions. It is not possible either for the citizens or their for democratic institututions to oppose the elite under the proposed conditions.

PART-2: THE LITERATURE ON ELITE CONSENSUS SUBVERTING DEMOCRACY.

Wolf, Sonja. “Subverting democracy: elite rule and the limits to political participation in post-war El Salvador.” Journal of Latin American Studies (2009): 429-465. ABSTRACT: After decades of authoritarianism and a twelve-year civil war ended by a negotiated peace agreement in 1992, El Salvador is a markedly different country. Despite important changes, however, public institutions have remained largely unresponsive, acute social exclusion persists and violent crime has soared. Rather than the possibly inevitable by-products of a post-conflict situation, these and other developments are the consequences of a regression from an incipient electoral democracy to electoral authoritarianism. The elite controlled the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista party and had more to gain from the preservation of the status quo than from democratic changes and only accepted a politically inclusive system to restore the oligarchy’s dominant position through electoral politics. Uncommitted to democratic consolidation, successive elite administrations maintained an institutional façade of democracy to reproduce authoritarian governance and defend elite interests. FULL TEXT PDF: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27744162?seq=1

Hoffmann-Lange, Ursula. “Changing coalitional preferences among West German parties.” (1986). In 1949, deputies of ten parries and three independents were elec;ted into the first Bundestag (federal legislature) of the Federal Republic. At that time, it was by no means clear whether the high fractionalisation that had been characteristic of the Weimar Reichstag would continue in the new legislature. However, Adenauer was able to form a government coalition including only three parties which disposed of 52 per cent majority of the seats. 1 Throughout the fifties, a process of concentration among the political parties represented in the Bundestag took place, which reduced the number to four in 1957 and to three in 1961. lt is only since 1983 that, with the newly founded Green party (Die Grünen), a fourth party came again into the game. Nevertheless, only once, in 1957, did the Christian Democrats win an absolute majority in the Bundestag, and coalition govemments have been the rule. In this chapter, I shall limit myself to studying the coalitional behaviour of the political parties in ehe period between 1968 and 1982, when only three parties
played a significant role in West Germany, i.e. the Christian Democratic party (CDU/CSU), the Social Democratic party (SPD) and the liberal Free Democratic party (FDP). Under the conditions of this party system, aside from the possibility of an all-party coalition which was never formed, three coalitions of two panies are possible and have in fact come into existence. In the language of formal coalition theory, all three are minimal winning coalitions, while only the Social-Liberal coalition governments of 1969, 1976 and 1980 were also smalltstsiu roa/itions. Coalition theory offers two possible explanations for the fact that the Grand Coalition2 of the two big parties CDU /CSU and SPD lasted for only three years,

Hagopian, Frances. ““Democracy by undemocratic means”? Elites, political pacts, and regime transition in Brazil.” Comparative Political Studies 23.2 (1990): 147-170. Why has Brazil failed to develop strong democratic institutions, despite widespread opposition to authoritarianism and support for civilian rule in the 1980s? This article argues that the political pacts bargained by elites that made the regime transition possible limited the extension of democracy. By restoring to old regime elites many sources of their political power as the price for their support for democratization, political pacts left the military with a substantial degree of formal and informal power over civilians, preserved clientelism, and undermined the ability of political parties to transform themselves into genuine transmission belts for nonelite interests. The undemocratic character of the Brazilian state, as embodied by military autonomy, technocratic modes of policymaking, and executive dominance over the legislature, moreover, was reinforced by the defeat of parliamentarism by the constituent assembly in 1988.

McMillan, John, and Pablo Zoido. “How to subvert democracy: Montesinos in Peru.” Journal of Economic perspectives 18.4 (2004): 69-92. Which of the democratic checks and balances–opposition parties, the judiciary, a free press–is the most forceful? Peru has the full set of democratic institutions. In the 1990s, the secret-police chief Montesinos systematically undermined them all with bribes. We quantify the checks using the bribe prices. Montesinos paid a televisionchannel owner about 100 times what he paid a judge or a politician. One single television channel’s bribe was five times larger than the total of the opposition politicians’ bribes. By revealed preference, the strongest check on the government’s power was the news media.

Cunliffe, Philip. “From peacekeepers to praetorians–how participating in peacekeeping operations may subvert democracy.” International Relations 32.2 (2018): 218-239. This article provides a heuristic study of three cases where participation in peacekeeping operations prompted military rule in the peacekeeper-contributing state. These three atypical cases contradict the theory of diversionary peace, which claims that contributing to peacekeeping operations abroad should stimulate democracy at home. The experience of these three countries also calls into question the conventional wisdom that strongly associates peacekeeping with liberal democratic institutions, outcomes and practices. Via triangulation across literature, reports, elite interviews and WikiLeaks cables, these cases are examined in order to identify more generalisable observations regarding how participation in peacekeeping may enhance the role of the military at the expense of democratic order and civilian rule in the contributing state. The theory of diversionary peace is shown to suffer from serious conceptual flaws. Some preliminary efforts are made to generalise the findings, with Ghana and Uruguay identified as warranting further investigation. A number of variables are identified as offering scope for generalisation, namely, revenue, leadership and military size. Several promising areas for further research are also identified: how military dependence on peacekeeping may make political systems more permeable to outside influence, how far the United Nations (UN) can politically influence its contributor states and how peacebuilding may affect peacekeepers’ understanding of their role in their own countries. By examining the feedback effects of peacekeeping on peacekeeper-contributing states, the article reverses the conventional focus of peacekeeping scholarship and contributes to the growing literature examining the wider ramifications and unintended consequences of liberal conflict management.

Herman, Lise Esther. “Re-evaluating the post-communist success story: party elite loyalty, citizen mobilization and the erosion of Hungarian democracy.” European Political Science Review 8.2 (2016): 251-284. In light of the instability of several Central Eastern European democracies following their accession to the European Union, most dramatically embodied by the ‘constitutional revolution’ taking place in Hungary since April 2010, this paper offers a critical reading of the dominant, rational-institutionalist model of democratic consolidation. Drawing on the Hungarian case, it argues that the conditions set out by this model are insufficient for ensuring a democratic regime against erosion. On this basis, the paper considers additional elements to understand Fidesz’s reforms: the importance of deeper commitments to democracy among the leadership of mainstream parties, and the pivotal role of party strategies of citizen mobilization in the consolidation of young democracies. Drawing on these insights, the paper argues for approaching democratic consolidation as an agent-led process of cultural change, emphasizing the socializing role of mainstream parties’ strategies of mobilization in the emergence of a democratic political culture. The last section concludes with methodological and empirical considerations, outlining a three-fold agenda for future research.

Saunders, Elizabeth N. “War and the inner circle: Democratic elites and the politics of using force.” Security Studies 24.3 (2015): 466-501. Much of the literature on domestic politics and war assumes that open political debate, and especially the role of public opinion, is a key distinguishing feature of democracies in the international arena. Yet scholarship on political behavior demonstrates that the public is uninformed and tends to take cues from elites. This paper argues that the importance of elite cues gives democratic elites a crucial and often-overlooked role in democratic foreign policymaking. Four features of an elite audience—different preferences, concentrated power, informational advantages, and small coalition size—mean that the political logic of facing an elite audience is distinct from the public-driven logic of traditional models. These features give democratic leaders strategic incentives to bargain with, accommodate, or co-opt key elites, and to manage information flow among elites themselves. These elite political dynamics yield different insights than a voter-driven model and have significant implications for theories of democracies and war. This paper explores these dynamics in the Vietnam War, arguing that Lyndon Johnson’s main domestic political task was to manage elites as he pursued escalation.

Albertus, Michael. “The fate of former authoritarian elites under democracy.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 63.3 (2019): 727-759. Why do some former authoritarian elites return to power after democratization through reelection or reappointment to political office, or by assuming board positions in state-owned or major private enterprises, whereas others do not and still others face punishment? This article investigates this question using an original data set on constitutional origins and the fate of the upper echelon of outgoing authoritarian elites across Latin America from 1900 to 2015. I find that authoritarian elites from outgoing regimes that impose a holdover constitution that sticks through democratization are more likely to regain political or economic power—especially through national positions where the potential payoffs are largest—and less likely to face severe or nominal punishment. I also find a positive role for political capital among former elites. These results are robust to alternative explanations of authoritarian elites’ fate and using instrumental variables to address potential endogeneity. The findings have important implications for democratic consolidation and quality.

PART-3: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The climate change alarm demands that we must stop using fossil fuels to save the world, that these relationships are what the science says, that they are well understood by the elite and validated by elite consensus, and that they cannot and must not be questioned.

To question any aspect of this elite consensus sceince is evil, anti science, and anti nature, such that it places all humans on earth in danger of anhiliation.

What we find in the ELITE CONSENSUS literature:

This kind of argument is not new and it is seen in the literature where exactly this kind of elite consensus demands have subverted democracy to abject servitude of the masses and the their elected government and complete breakdown of democracy.

The government actors that appear to be carrying out the implementation are themselves trapped in elite consensus such that they no longer serve the people but their new elite consensus masters.

THE ESSSENTIAL ELEMENT IN THIS LOGIC IS THAT TO QUESTION ELITE CONSENSUS IS SUICIDAL.

RELATED POST: THE GREAT RESET

LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/12/09/the-great-reset/

Related articles online both for and against:

Is climate science taking over the science?’: A corpus-based study of competing stances on bias, dogma and expertise in the blogosphere: LINK: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00582-z

Political events and public views on climate change: Thomas Dietzcorresponding author1,2, Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer: The gap between the scientific assessment of climate risks and the actions being taken to mitigate and adapt to climate change is stunning. Why does this gap exist, and what can be done to close it? First, it is important to remember that facts are never sufficient for making decisions. LINK: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7347262/

An opposing view by And Then There’s Physics, a blog much like climate science that demands credibility of its contents because it’s physics. LINK: https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/09/24/subverting-democracy/

Elite Domination of Public Doubts About Climate Change (Not …www.tandfonline.com › … › Volume 35, Issue 2
by M Tesler · ‎2018 · ‎Cited by 42, Nov 2, 2560 BE — This article examines the sources of ideological skepticism about two issues where there is a scientific consensus: climate change. LINK: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2017.1380092

NEOLIBERALISM, POLITICAL ACTION ON CLIMATE … – COREcore.ac.uk › download › pdf. by E Moon · ‎2013 · ‎Cited by
6.5.1 Mainstreaming climate change and a post-political carbon consensus . … representative democracy and neoliberal capitalist economic systems can … where opportunities for the “properly” political have been subverted. … solutions handed down from elites in response to an issue such as climate change do nothing. LINK: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41338377.pdf

The Politics of Climate Change in the United States | Pew …www.pewresearch.org › … › Political Polarization
Oct 4, 2559 BE — Liberal Democrats, more than any other party/ideology group, perceive widespread consensus among climate scientists about the causes of …LINK: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2016/10/04/the-politics-of-climate/

Mass Media Roles in Climate Change Mitigation | SpringerLinklink.springer.com › …
In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consensus report … Elite Western media tend to frame emissions as global, without challenging or … and politicians who have tried to undermine science and subvert journalism. … In the second wave, democratic public engagement mitigates common “bads”: LINK: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-7991-9_6

POSTSCRIPT: “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-front for the urge to rule it.” – H.L. Mencken: “Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” – C. S. Lewis. “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know, it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain. “Blind trust in authority is the greatest enemy of the truth.” – Albert Einstein: {FROM THE JW SPRY CLIMATISM.BLOG }

LINK: https://climatism.blog/author/climatism/