We definitely have a problem with modern democracies

How and why we have to improve our political systems.

Overlooking the meaning of democracy, there’s no a unique sense of it. We are challenging one of the hardest time in world order as we know it. Political scientists, researchers and policy-makers tell us the same story: the democratic state, meant as a western liberal/ modern democratic state based on the rule of law, is collapsing, especiall economically, and, most importantly, it is failing in facing current (and future) issues. Everybody gives the reasons the most useful for himself: someone says it is for the financial power and multinational world government, someone else says (yeah they still exist) it is due to the Jews, someone else blame migrants etc. The main problem is that, nowadays, we are missing what we need the most: a global leadership. This is due to many reasons: a) many new political actors solicit to enter inside the world problem-solving table and they should be, considering their economies and weight (in term of population and influence), but the problem is that not all of them are based on solid rule of law criteria; b) the old democracies, or better, the old liberal/western democracies are actually turning  their international position. They are wary of international institutions and law in general, and they do not recognize anymore the art of negotiation preferring the isolation and bilateral meetings, in order to assure their personal interests; c) the so called winners of globalization are the same winners of the past, the inequality in the world increases and the scissor between the richest and the poorest become higher than ever, embedding the medium – working class.

The impact of this impasse could be reassumed in one word: democratic deficit. Citizens feel no power, moreover, they are not encouraged to be well-informed, to participate in the political debate and to trust on politicians. They, basically, start to behave as “bad” citizens, a very dangerous characteristic of the quality of democracy. The first thing that happens when people do not receive answers by the entire industry of policy-making is dissatisfaction. It happens, above all, when accountability doesn’t work (the second pillar of a good democracy). Last but not least, an inclination of self-government via direct democracy is spreading in the society. National politicians are not always able to face all the issues touched above (and even if they are this requires an incredible amount of efforts and time), but they can manipulate the perception of electors in order to govern the self-government inclination. These kind of political actors take the name of “populist” and they give very short and handy answers to the citizens, no matter about their political interests or capabilities to comprehend them. The message is direct, fast and simple. And actually it works ! There’s just one problem: they are liars. The rethoric of “giving back sovereignty to the people” will not produce anything apart propaganda, because, simply, national states do not have sovereignty,anymore. At least not as citizens require. One of the paradox of modern democracies and nowadays politics is that people ask global actions, which are actually quite reasonable and practical, but they can’t decide how and who should make these decisions. They are confined to national arenas, which is definitely not appropriate. In fact the Westfalian-order is based on a simple rule: the bigger take the leadership. We are facing now exactly this complicated issue: on the one hand, there’s no leader in the world order now, and the challenge for this role are dangerously open (we need to keep attention when we want to politicize the “institutions” in order to make them more accountable, because we could have the opposite results); on the other hand, in these scheme we are skipping  people’s requests to politics,and if they will not be answered the lack of faith in politicians will increase, leading, consequently, to a decrease in the democratic participation.

So what?

In my opinion there are 3 main points we have to study deeply:

1) Populist parties are a political actor, challenging the power in force in a specific political arena. They have to be challenged, above all, by others political parties using the rules of the game they are able to stress. The political battle is the only way possibile to put them under pressure and to reveal their rethoric.

2) Citizens want to know. We have to fill up this popular demand, insted to hide behind the “It’s complicated” kind of answer. Populist is based on faifth, the same faifth citizens have no more on parties and institution in general. But in a world where the access to every single kind of information is (almost always) free and immediate, and the source is unaccountable, we have to give people tools and platform (public platofrm preferably, via political parties), in order to guarantee they’ll understand and comprehend what happens around them.

3) Consequently, we have to refuse the not in my back yard rethoric, anymore. And it is stricly connected to which type of democracy we want. If it is true that only inside a political party challenge we can assure democracy tout cours , the question on which democracy is the best is now completely open. Populist are, in this sense, far ahead from us. They, at least, tried to answer this question: for them, direct democracy is the one, because the representative democracy failed in linking voters to elected. But what about a strong representativeness, guaranteed by a correct electoral law and a basic reform on party politics (open primaries for all, internal democratic values and principles for every parties who want to be in the game, public coalitions before the elections ect ect…) And, again, what about deliberative democracy? Why nobody thought to put inside the political arena thin tanks, NGO’s, and others actors who are actually influencing public opinion now more than ever in the past?And, last but not least, what about the “majority”? Are we really sure it is still necessary the 50%+1?

Lots of questions need to be answered, as always it will take time, efforts and knowledge. We will have a better modern democracies if activists, political leaders, public opinion, company chiefs, educators, everybody will be engaged. It’s a metter where we will win together, or we’ll fall one by one.

To know more:
Firat Cengiz
Leonardo Morlino
Peter Mair 
Andrew Moravcsik

Category: democracy, politics