The danger when voters behave like football fans
Soccer brawls offer insights into what’s driving political polarisation.
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Fans clash with police officers outside the stadium before the match between Morocco and Spain on Dec 6, 2022.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Kaushik Basu
The state of global politics has economists, political scientists and political philosophers floundering. We are witnessing a level of polarisation rarely seen. From Turkey, Brazil and the Philippines to Sri Lanka, India and the United States, the centre has not held, because people have either veered left or clustered around figures on the far right.
In authoritarian countries like North Korea and China, one usually cannot see authentic public expression of political demands. Yet the politics is still there, and can become apparent during periods of severe strain, as has happened with the widespread backlash in China against the government’s zero-Covid policy. Such moments suggest the opposition is much larger than it may have seemed.