I think it’s important for EA to avoid partisan political fights like this—they’re not neglected cause areas, and they’re often not tractable.
It’s easy for the Left to portray the ‘far right’ as a ‘threat to democracy, in the form of ‘fascist authoritarians’.
It’s also easy for the Right to portray the ‘far left’ as a ‘threat to democracy’ in the form of ‘socialist authoritarians’.
The issue of immigration (e.g. as considered by AfD) is especially tricky and controversial, in terms of whether increased immigration into Western democracies of people with anti-democratic values (e.g. fundamentalist religious values) would be a good or a bad thing.
So many political groups are already fighting over these issues. It would dilute EA’s focus, and undermine our non-partisan credibility, to get involved in these things.
I think it’s important that EA analysis not start with its bottom line already written. In some situations the most effective altruistic interventions (with a given set of resources) will have partisan political valence and we need to remain open to those possibilities; they’re usually not particularly neglected or tractable but occasional high-leverage opportunities can arise. I’m very skeptical of Effektiv-Spenden’s new fund because it arbitrarily limits its possible conclusions to such a narrow space, but limiting one’s conclusions to exclude that space would be the same sort of mistake.
Just to make sure I understand you correctly: Where or how exactly do you think we “arbitrarily limit” ourselves or our fund (besides planning to continue to comply with the applicable non-profit laws in the countries we are working in)?
I mostly meant the fact that it’s currently restricted to Germany, though also to some extent the focus on interventions that fit into currently-popular anti-AfD narratives over other sorts of governance-improvement or policy-advocacy interventions (without clear justification as to why you believe the former will be more effective).
Agreed. Being able to identify effective interventions that support or protect democracy in certain contexts doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad idea.
The challenge with the AfD is that they seem to be the victims of behaviour that could be considered antidemocratic: lawmakers are considering banning the party, and the state has put the party under surveillance. This would be unconstitutional in many countries. I think there could be legitimate arguments that “protecting democracy” could sometimes involve defending groups like the AfD, as well as defending democracy from them.
I’d prefer for a politically neutral pro-democracy organisation to have the courage to defend a party like the AfD when their democratic freedoms are under threat, while also ensuring that they are stopped from damaging the democratic system. But, because this could be very messy, and have significant PR risks, I think EA-aligned groups just shouldn’t be taking that risk either way.
I agree that there are some interventions like calling for the banning of a certain party might be net negative, even if they seem appealing at first sight. I also think that it can be possible and laudable to defend the rights of people you strongly disagree with like the ACLU does (or used to do → haven’t really followed them lately)
It might be worth pointing out to others reading this who aren’t aware that the banning of parties constituting a threat to the constitution is constitutional in Germany. It was enshrined in the German Basic Law to prevent repeating the mistakes of the Weimar Republic.
(This is not to say that banning the AfD is a good idea, I am personally sceptical about this.)
I think it’s important for EA to avoid partisan political fights like this—they’re not neglected cause areas, and they’re often not tractable.
It’s easy for the Left to portray the ‘far right’ as a ‘threat to democracy, in the form of ‘fascist authoritarians’.
It’s also easy for the Right to portray the ‘far left’ as a ‘threat to democracy’ in the form of ‘socialist authoritarians’.
The issue of immigration (e.g. as considered by AfD) is especially tricky and controversial, in terms of whether increased immigration into Western democracies of people with anti-democratic values (e.g. fundamentalist religious values) would be a good or a bad thing.
So many political groups are already fighting over these issues. It would dilute EA’s focus, and undermine our non-partisan credibility, to get involved in these things.
I think it’s important that EA analysis not start with its bottom line already written. In some situations the most effective altruistic interventions (with a given set of resources) will have partisan political valence and we need to remain open to those possibilities; they’re usually not particularly neglected or tractable but occasional high-leverage opportunities can arise. I’m very skeptical of Effektiv-Spenden’s new fund because it arbitrarily limits its possible conclusions to such a narrow space, but limiting one’s conclusions to exclude that space would be the same sort of mistake.
Just to make sure I understand you correctly: Where or how exactly do you think we “arbitrarily limit” ourselves or our fund (besides planning to continue to comply with the applicable non-profit laws in the countries we are working in)?
I mostly meant the fact that it’s currently restricted to Germany, though also to some extent the focus on interventions that fit into currently-popular anti-AfD narratives over other sorts of governance-improvement or policy-advocacy interventions (without clear justification as to why you believe the former will be more effective).
Agreed. Being able to identify effective interventions that support or protect democracy in certain contexts doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad idea.
The challenge with the AfD is that they seem to be the victims of behaviour that could be considered antidemocratic: lawmakers are considering banning the party, and the state has put the party under surveillance. This would be unconstitutional in many countries. I think there could be legitimate arguments that “protecting democracy” could sometimes involve defending groups like the AfD, as well as defending democracy from them.
I’d prefer for a politically neutral pro-democracy organisation to have the courage to defend a party like the AfD when their democratic freedoms are under threat, while also ensuring that they are stopped from damaging the democratic system. But, because this could be very messy, and have significant PR risks, I think EA-aligned groups just shouldn’t be taking that risk either way.
I agree that there are some interventions like calling for the banning of a certain party might be net negative, even if they seem appealing at first sight. I also think that it can be possible and laudable to defend the rights of people you strongly disagree with like the ACLU does (or used to do → haven’t really followed them lately)
It might be worth pointing out to others reading this who aren’t aware that the banning of parties constituting a threat to the constitution is constitutional in Germany. It was enshrined in the German Basic Law to prevent repeating the mistakes of the Weimar Republic.
(This is not to say that banning the AfD is a good idea, I am personally sceptical about this.)