P Kharel

Since most third world countries are deeply wedded to the definitions and interpretations of what constitutes an ideal governance of nations, the recent talks of democracy dying or declining might jolt them out of their submissive slumber. The on-going debate is also on too much democracy and too little. If the first cousins of democratic societies terming themselves as the most successful engage in such discourses, something serious is being sensed in the Western world.
Habituated to being wedded to automatically accepting what a conglomerate of the West issues as the ultimate truth, this might sound as a shock bell to those accepting without reservations what the west wanted them to buy and believe. However, academics and commentators admit that democracy is no longer the exclusive means of prosperity. Democratic decline literature, including that by Journal of Democracy, is growing in the past few months. Doubts and distrust have begun to question the functioning of democracy.
For more than 100 years, Western democracies like United Kingdom and the United States dominated the global economy. After World War II, the UK slipped to lower rungs of the economic pedestal whereas American domination remained undisputed until the first decade of the 21st century. The last ten years, however, declared loudly and clearly that communist China was the next No. 1 economy. Today, international financial agencies assert China will overtake the US by the year 2028.

Democratic dissatisfaction
Today, along with the shift in global economic equation, doubts over existing scope and definitions of democracy echo in most countries. American and European Union academics and commentators warn of a spurt in the breadth and volume of discontent sweeping many a democracy, including their own. Democracy as the most widely accepted form of political system is losing ground for how long and to what extent cannot be ascertained as yet.
International Monetary Fund expects the total GDP of countries, rated “not free” by Freedom House, will exceed those of Western democracies’ in the next several years. The combined economies of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will be larger than of the France, Japan, Germany and the US. A survey commissioned by the Economist magazine in January indicated that 65 per cent of Britons think their country is “in decline” while “Some 57 per cent think today’s youth have a worse life than their parents.”
Freedom House found that 71 countries registered declines in political rights and civil liberties for the 12th consecutive year. Delving into the relentless deterioration of democratic governance, scholars discuss what went wrong with the existing pattern of democratic systems and what steps might stem the decline. Failure to respond to collective intelligence and participatory democracy focused on better economic distribution and welfare schemes, based on transparency and fair delivery tends to erode faith in what many political philosophers and leaders dubbed as the best platform for governance. People expect the ideals of a political system to reflect on the quality of governance conducted in deference to the core and fair needs of the general public.
Strangely, however, 43 per cent of Britons still consider colonial empire to be a source of pride. Street protests do not necessarily get a fair hearing even in the UK, which many hail as the “mother” of all parliaments. In February 2003, one million people marched through the streets of London to protest the impending invasion of Iraq but to no avail. More than 500,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the US-led attacks on that oil-rich Arab country. In March 2019, a similar million people passed through the same route in the British capital to register their desire to have their country remaining in the European Union, only to be rudely, even if narrowly, turned down.
If one looks at The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2017, for example, 89 countries became less democratic that year — a figure that was more than three times the number that became more democratic during the surveyed period.
Three faculty members at the University of Cambridge undertook an extensive research covering 154 countries, 77 of which were continuously placed under the study from 1995 to 2020. These samples were possible thanks to the combination of data from over 25 sources, 3,500 national surveys, and 4 million respondents. The report indicated that amid islands of contented countries, an ocean of others recorded most people as dissatisfied with the way democracy functioned. Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland figured among the most contented states. Countries with increasing polarization registered rising dissatisfaction as well, especially where majoritarian electoral systems that generate “winners and losers”, often leaving close to half or even more of the electorate dissatisfied after every election.
Research studies show that the US has had the largest increase in polarisation since the 1990s, and it is also among the countries with the largest increase in democratic dissatisfaction. Other majoritarian democracies, such as Canada and the UK have similar stories. The Daily Mail carried a report revealing that billionaires in UK were wealthier by 35 per cent in the COVID-19 pandemic year, when the number of tycoons with more than $1billion to their name also jumped from 46 to 53. 

Dissatisfied, unhappy
No less than half of the people in six of the 10 European countries covered by a survey were found dissatisfied with how democracy was working. Greece, Italy and Spain recorded the highest degree of discontent at 70 per cent or more. Among the many nations where a sizeable percentage of people are not satisfied with the operations of democracy are Canada (38 per cent), the US (58 per cent), Germany (43 per cent), France (51 per cent) Hungary (53 per cent), the UK (55 per cent), Italy (70 per cent) Spain (81 per cent), Greece (84 per cent) and Russia (49 per cent). Japan (56 per cent), Tunisia (70 per cent), Argentina (63 per cent), Brazil (83 per cent), Mexico (85 per cent). India (33 per cent), Australia (40 per cent). More people are unhappy with the state of democracy in their countries than are content.
Across the sub-Saharan African and Latin American countries surveyed, some half or more in every country say they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working. According to Pew Research Centre, a median of 60 per cent express dissatisfaction across the nine emerging economies it surveyed, compared with 50 per cent across the 18 developed economies. The Economist magazine observes how the COVID-19 crisis highlighted the contrast between the competent responses of East Asian governments (notably China, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) and the incompetent responses of Western governments (such as America, Britain, France and Spain). They reflected not just medical capabilities, but also the quality of governance and the cultural confidence of their societies.
Corruption and scandal constitute the strongest factors spiking dissatisfaction with democracy. Such dissatisfaction grew in 2017 and 2018. Subsequent indications suggest likewise. As long as most people are scattered or remain passive as silent majority, unorganised majority ordisorganised majority - a condition aggravated by absence of public platforms that are monopolised or influenced by foundations and foundations — their existing concerns will go unanswered. Participatory and informed discourse and maximum transparency and fair manner applied in decision-making should work better.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)