'The Centre Must Hold' - can centrism compete with the emotional pull of populism?

What is 'centrism' in politics? Merely the mid point between two extremes? Or is it a political ideology in itself?

In a new book, Yair Zivan, a former foreign policy adviser to Israel's centrist party leader, puts the case for centrism as more the just the 'lukewarm water' between the fire and ice of right and left – and, rather, a vital force to help get the best form of democracy that works for all.

"Politics isn't a spectrum," Zivan tells the Forum's Radio Davos podcast.

"It's not the left here and the right here. It's a horseshoe. And the extremes are the ones who are furthest away from the centre. The more you can broaden out the centre, the more the centre can dominate politics, the more you can have those arguments [on key policy issues] and have them be positive."

Zivan's book, The Centre Must Hold, is a collection of essays by centrist thinkers around the world. Its publication comes in a year where more people than ever are voting in elections to decide the future of their countries, and as politics in many places has become more divided and polarized that in recent decades.

Zivan says centrists must offer a viable alternative to what he sees as the easy-answer politics of populists:

"If populists and extremists try to govern and try to campaign through fear, there's no point us competing with that. We're never going to be able to out-fear them. And so what we should be doing is offering an alternative. And that alternative is is a message of hope."

And he rejects the notion that centrists are really just trying to fend off more radical politics from the left and right in the hope of maintaining a bland status quo:

"Centrists absolutely aren't about status quo," he tells Radio Davos.

"I think the idea of pragmatism and moderation and nuance and complexity and seriousness in politics is as far from the status quo as possible right now. And that's one of the reasons we see so many challenges."

Listen to the full interview with Yair Zivan here or on any podcast app via this link: https://pod.link/1504682164 or on YouTube @wef/podcasts.

Here are some passages from the essays by various authors in The Centre Must Hold.

The final result will be written in the history books of the future, but I believe that this movement expresses a deep truth, one which will define global politics in the coming years: the separation into right and left is artificial and outdated, and the real struggle is between the moderates and the extremists. Not the moderates from the right and the moderates from the left, but simply the moderates. Not the extremists from the right and the extremists from the left, but a destructive partnership between populists and radicals.

The only thing that can stop them are decent centrists who know how to build a civil community based on integrity and dialogue. We are not looking for the ideal way of life; rather, we seek to create the conditions that will allow different ways of life to coexist. The major challenge of the centre is to explain that moderation is not a compromise between world views – it is a world view in its own right. More than this, it is the only world view that can address the challenges of this era. The centre is not a restricted version of right or left, but an optimistic political system based on the idea that people who disagree can work together in pursuit of a common goal.

An unfortunate condition of the current era is that at the very moment when greater global cooperation is needed to address shared priorities such as scaling climate action, strengthening economies and addressing questions around breakthrough technologies, the appetite for such collaborative action appears to be in decline. The recession of support for cooperation has been replaced by waves of increasing competition and confrontation, so much so that the International Monetary Fund has warned of a risk of fragmentation ‘that would leave everyone poorer and less secure’.

[...] Like much else in the centrist approach, the case for centrist global collaboration is strong because it has been shown to be effective.

We know this from the private sector, where there is a long history of what has often been referred to as ‘coopetition’ – competitors collaborating for the sake of fending off shared risk, accessing new markets or addressing broader priorities like climate change. On the last-mentioned, companies including competitors like Airbus and Boeing and also Microsoft and Apple are part of the First Movers Coalition – an initiative launched by the World Economic Forum and US State Department at the 2021 UN Climate Conference (COP26) to decarbonise heavy industry and long-distance transport through purchase commitments for green technologies.

Centrist communications need to be proud, punchy and combative. Centrism is not just fence-sitting or ‘taking both sides’. Rather, centrism is ‘a side’. Own your beliefs, value proposition and clear set of policies. Be proudly and passionately for something; not just against. Be for liberal democracy and individual rights. Be for finding a balance between free markets and fair societies, fiscal responsibility and social-safety nets. Be for pursuing peace while remaining tough on security. Be for pragmatic solutions that will make people’s lives better. When communicating, it is perfectly possible to walk and chew gum at the same time.

At a time when party establishments are increasingly run by extremes, centrist journalism does not reflect the establishment. It does not depend solely on the official version of the facts – that’s simply being a stenographer for people in power. Instead, the guiding principle is ‘trust but verify’.

Dig into the underlying data. Judge intentions separately from results. Be fair-minded: scepticism is a virtue; cynicism is a vice. Don’t forget that good news can still be news. And never forget that holding power to account is a core responsibility of journalism.

Finally, there’s a mistaken idea that journalism from the vital centre can be understood as simply a third way between right-wing and left-wing news organisations. That framing offers a useful contrast in politics – especially given that moderate and independent voters make up an under-represented plurality. But in journalism, the ideas which correspond to the centre are beyond partisan politics: they express fundamental journalistic virtues.

The Centre Must Hold is published by Elliott & Thompson.