Misdiagnosing the western crisis

Disentangling cause and effect is notoriously hard in social and human sciences, and the current crisis of the West is no exception. Is Donald Trump to blame for the erosion of the “liberal international order”? Is Vladimir Putin undermining our democracies? Has the proliferation of fake news and cognitive bubbles on social media amplified the appeal of authoritarian populists?

There are decent reasons to answer such questions in the affirmative. Trump’s behavior is indeed raising questions about the future of existing international norms and platforms for cooperation, from the World Trade Organization to the Paris Accord. There is no question that the Kremlin is actively exploiting the West’s weaknesses to reassert itself. And the abundance of disinformation and propaganda on social media has clearly changed some hearts and minds.

However, the thrust of causality might well run in the opposite direction. Trump’s attacks on international rules and institutions, Russian interference, and the continuing appeal of fake news can be seen as manifestations of the West’s political and intellectual crisis, rather than its primary drivers. It follows that much of the common response within Western democracies—from attempts by some European leaders to turn Trump into a pariah, through attempts to shut down Russian troll accounts and propaganda websites, to devising a new regulatory regime for social media—are at best Band-Aid solutions to much deeper problems.

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