After surging forward through the latter
part of the twentieth century after the defeat of fascism,
decolonisation and the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy appears to be
in something of a retreat. According to the Economist, even
though 45 per cent of the world’s population live in countries that
‘hold free and fair elections’, there is now widespread recognition that
‘democracy’s global advance has come to a halt, and may even have gone
into reverse’. After many years of trying to spread democracy abroad,
the US and other Western powers seem to have lowered their sights
following the tragic, contemporary debacle in Iraq. Elsewhere, the ‘Arab
Spring’ has fared little better. Even in the established democracies of
the West, democracy appears to have lost its enduring appeal, with
declining voter turnout and a hollowing-out of once mass-membership
political parties. It was once claimed that only democracies could
develop economically; now, democracy is blamed for gridlock. The
contrast between the failure of the US Congress to agree a budget and
the ability of China to get things done is much remarked upon.
Very few in the developed world openly discount democracy as an
ideal, but nearly everyone agrees the reality is flawed. Some would
reform it in various ways: lowering the voting age, using more new
technology, etc. Occupy activists oppose ‘representative democracy’
altogether, preferring ‘direct democracy’. Some argue for limits on
democracy in favour of the considered opinion of experts. Elected
governments in Greece and Italy have even been replaced by interim
technocratic administrations during the European economic crisis, and
democratic mandates can be annulled when people vote the ‘wrong way’, as
when the Irish voted ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty in 2008 or when the
Muslim Brotherhood was voted into power in Egypt. And far from being
cheered as a historic democratic exercise that ousted an entrenched
Gandhi dynasty, this year’s election in India provoked fears that
815million voters were expressing atavistic religious prejudice.
If anything sums up the contemporary concern with democracy, it is
the word ‘populism’. In Europe, it is the fear of people voting for the
wrong sort of political party: the Front National in France, the PVV in
the Netherlands, UKIP in the UK. In America, it is the fear of what used
to be called the ‘moral majority’: conservative voters out of step with
the liberal consensus on social issues.
Are populist political movements simply throwbacks, appealing to the
bigotry of greying voters? Or do they give voice to the frustrations of
citizens who feel increasingly cut off from an aloof and deracinated
political class? Will the twenty-first century see the demise of
democracy in favour of technocratic governance? What has so tarnished
our view of what used to be the foundational principle of Western
Speakers
Professor Ivan Krastev
Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia; permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna
Professor Chantal Mouffe
Professor of political theory, University of Westminster; author, Agonistics: thinking the world politically
Brendan O'Neill
editor, spiked; columnist, Big Issue; contributor, Spectator
Dr David Runciman
professor of politics, Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), Cambridge University; author, The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from World War 1 to the Present
Chair
Claire Fox
director, Institute of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze
