The January 8 attack on Brazil’s key institutions by a mob of supporters of far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro is a fresh reminder of the growing threats surrounding democracy around the world. The episode, like the attack on the US Capitol two years ago, is characterized by the symbolic value of the use of force, but is part of a broader framework of symptoms of a global deterioration in the democratic fabric.
In just the past few weeks, there have been several signs of this: the dramatic descent of Peruvian democracy into the abyss; the verification of the participation of Tunisia – once a great democratic hope in the Arab world – which held elections before Christmas with a turnout of 11%, which says everything about the credibility of the process; or the passage in Indonesia in early December of a new penal code – another democratic hope in the Muslim world – that embodies a persecution of homosexuality that is inconsistent with any liberal standard; In Turkey, in an election year, the constitutional court has frozen the accounts of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, the country’s third most popular party, which faces a serious ban.
These developments are only the latest in a phenomenon of democratic decay that institutions and study centers have been warning about for some time. This does not preclude democracies from simultaneously showing notable signs of resilience, such as the ability to naturally oust figures such as Donald Trump and Bolsonaro from power, to overcome the attempts of their most radical supporters, or to demonstrate against their superiority over authoritarian ones Regimes suffering from great turbulence in many areas.
But this cannot lead to complacency. The concern of the experts is practically unanimous. Freedom House, for example, has recorded a decline in freedom in the world for 16 years. During this period, there are more countries each year that experience setbacks than those that make progress. For example, the 2021 balance sheet showed 60 in regression and 25 in edit.
Likewise, the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance – IDEA, for its English acronym, a 34-state-backed intergovernmental organization – notes that among the hundred countries classified as democracies, the number of those that do has increased greatly suffer a moderate or acute impairment of their democratic qualities. In the last available analysis, published in November, 48 out of a total of 104 were in the bearish lot. Those who improved were 14.
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe to
The V-Dem institute at the University of Gothenburg, for example, is taking the same line, highlighting, among other things, the increase in countries with toxic polarization in its latest annual report. According to V-Dem, on a global scale, the world has returned to the democratic level of 1989, when a strong wave of expansion began, which has been declining in recent decades.
On the other hand, there are many international polls – for example by the Pew Center – which point to a worrying level of mistrust of the democratic political system. A study by the University of Cambridge points to the special distancing within the younger generations.
“The prospects for democracy at the global level are not rosy. The proliferation of ominous symptoms has increased tremendously in recent years,” said Kevin Casas-Zamora, secretary general of IDEA and former second vice president of Costa Rica. “The main studies on this topic agree that they show a deteriorating trend,” said Gerardo Berthin, vice president of Freedom House, in charge of international programs.
What are the causes of this phenomenon? Of course there are many, and each country has its own unique set of circumstances, but there are some common denominators.
“There is no doubt that there is a crisis of democracies,” agrees Paolo Gerbaudo, sociologist at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence and King’s College London and author of Control and Protect: The Return of the State, to be published in Spanish in April ( verse books). “One of the main causes, I think, is the way in which globalization has made the democratic nation-state, the backbone of democracy as we know it, extremely fragile, because some capabilities, particularly the ability to determine the economy. The ability to do things, to keep promises, decreases and that causes disappointment, a sense of betrayal.”
Casas-Zamora points out three main concepts. In the first place “internal dissolution, with the increase in centrifugal forces, extreme polarization”. Then “the loss of confidence in democratic institutions as instruments capable of finding sound solutions to people’s problems. A particularly toxic element in this area is corruption, which generates a high level of detachment.” In Brazil, one of the main reasons for Bolsonaro’s rise to power was the numerous cases of corruption in the Workers’ Party (PT) during his long reign.
Finally, “the international context, in which today a lower price is paid for taking an authoritarian path, and in which there are models like the Chinese that combine cruel repression with a high degree of economic efficiency”.
Like Zamora-Casas, Berthin also points to polarization, a real hotbed of democratic problems. In this section there are many experts who point to social networks as specific elements of our time that exacerbate a problem that is not new. Evidence is accumulating that portrays them as accelerating the particles of hate, frustration, and contempt for the adversary.
Berthin also emphasizes economic inequality as a strong factor of frustration and demographic-social changes, which some groups perceive as a threatening reality.
So, within the breadth of the casuistry, a key axis of reference for democratic decay is the line that begins with the failure of the system—for example, in the face of the classes disadvantaged by globalization—and continues with the generation of popular discontent, then harnessing populist leaders from that exacerbate the polarization. The latter creates a climate of hostility within society and dysfunctions or paralysis in institutional systems, which are then used to justify measures that reduce checks and balances.
There are large swathes of democratic societies for which the assumption of a better future is fractured, creating a systemic rejection that paves the way for dangerous attempts to sit out frustrations.
The seizure of power by populist forces is one of the most dangerous elements for democratic stability. Yasha Mounk and Jordan Kyle published an interesting study on this topic in 2018. The two political scientists have built a database that summarizes a number of governments that have been defined as populist by more than fifty academic journals. They identified 46 leaders or political parties with these characteristics in power in 33 countries from 1990 to 2018.
Well, the follow-up yields several disturbing results: This type of government stays in power longer on average than non-populist ones; only a minority leaves power with a normal transition process; 50% are reforming the constitution to reduce controls and realign the system or remove the limit on consecutive terms. As for the ideological sign, the experts concluded that a similar proportion of right-wing and left-wing populist leadership led to a marked demise of democracy. Five out of 13 in the right case, five out of 13 in the left case.
The resilience
Despite all these weaknesses, today’s democracies are showing signs of resilience. Not only because they have met the challenges of the Trumpists and Bolsonaros, but also because of the quality of some of their results, because of their continued superiority over autocracies in several areas.
At the beginning of the pandemic, many observed the difficulties of democracies, comparing them to the Chinese administration, which seemed more effective, and reiterated certain arguments about the advantages of the authoritarian model. Three years later, China is mired in a complex management of the Covid crisis while democracies have outpaced them, including with pharmaceutical brilliance in manufacturing vaccines and a European solidarity response.
The war in Ukraine is also a testament to the ongoing military superiority of the democracies. The supply of limited-range weapons, training, and the provision of intelligence—along with the bravery and skill of Ukraine’s armed forces—were sufficient to stop a so-called superpower like Russia. On the other hand, they have demonstrated an effective degree of coordination between themselves and, in the case of the European ones – with the invaluable help of favorable weather conditions – to overcome the problem of energy dependency.
These qualities of efficiency and vitality contribute to the unparalleled foundations of democratic projects, beginning with respect for individual liberty and an unprecedented plenitude of rights. It is necessary to weigh carefully the significance of the protests in China amid the brutal measures taken to combat the pandemic, which prompted a panicked political turn from the authorities in the face of citizens’ anger. Or in Iran, given the unfortunate discrimination against women.
But these positive elements are not enough to guarantee a bright future.
“The demands of society are growing at an exponential rate. Responsiveness hasn’t evolved at the same pace. It is important that democracies use their virtuous self-corrective mechanism to do this: to narrow the gap between demands and responsiveness,” says Casas-Zamora, who calls for a reformulation of the social contract.
In the EU, the shift from post-crisis austerity to a counter-cyclical response to the pandemic looks very much like an attempt at a new social contract. “Austerity policies are dangerous for democracy. The next generation EU [plan de recuperación] it is undoubtedly a maturing movement in that sense,” says Gerbaudo.
In any case, the sociologist calls on people not to underestimate the attacks on failed institutions in the USA and Brazil or the ultra-dismantled network in December in Germany, which wanted to stage a coup. “They were unsuccessful and have picturesque traits. But what it means should not be underestimated. There is debate as to whether these are fascist or post-fascist adventures. In my opinion they are reminiscent of those pre-fascist authoritarian nationalism movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” In the future they could be more effective.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits