Democracy At the Edge of Oblivion

Rumours have it that the global order is collapsing. If so, it may be time for us to choose...wisely.

Well, that should fix things. Photo by Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash

With all the talk of the changing world order, old order, Jedi order, or whatever, I’m reminded that for 99 percent of the population, that’s all gibberish. That doesn’t mean that things aren’t changing or that those changes don’t matter. They are and they do, but it also means that macro shifts in the structures that shape lives beyond the immediate control of people day-to-day are, at best, little known and less understood. For most people, immediate concerns are material concerns such as having enough money to make rent or the mortgage payment, filling the cart with groceries, and maybe saving a little bit for a vacation, these days probably one closer to home than wherever the trip aggregators are pushing as the deal of the month.

People worry about their health and that of their loved ones. They want to get their kids to school and, if they’re lucky, keep the house a little bit tidy. Maybe, after all that, they just want to flop down on the couch and scroll and stream or both. If they’re anything like me, they hear the word “order” and think, hmmm, maybe we dial up some pizza tonight?

What else do you expect people to do? In the liberal democracies we’ve built, or that have been built upon us, citizens are expected to be liberal first and democratic second, if at all. Individuals are meant to produce and reproduce and do the following things, more or less: pay taxes, obey the law, and vote. Beyond that, you’re not meant to make much trouble, and you’re certainly not meant to get involved unless it’s in service of something from the list above. Politicians would love for you to vote, provided it’s for their side. If the gears of the universe turn on, then it’s all working out as it should. If they cease to turn, then it’s something well beyond the ken of those who aren’t initiated in the sacred rituals of the deciders. It’s best to just mind your business, support the home side, and keep calm and carry on.

The distance between most people and the systems in which they operate is the same as the distance between the Earth and Jupiter. I don’t know how far that is, but I know it’s not close. That isn’t to say that changes over the last few centuries aren’t to be celebrated, remarkable as some of them are. In 1789, there were effectively no democracies, at least not as we understand them or at scale. Democracies are better than autocracies and they’re certainly better than absolute monarchies. It’s silly to try to convince anyone otherwise. But that’s not the bit in which lies the trap of our times. That bit is complacency, our own and, in particular, that of those who shape orders and institutions.

Our World In Data offers a handy chart to track the rise and fall of self-government over time. There are other sources and definitions that change the count here or there, but the upshot is the same. For a long time, there were very few democracies. Then there were more. Today, it could go either way.

After years of being mostly forgotten, by the dawn of the 20th century, democracy was on the board in single digits as a share of government types. Then came two world wars and big changes in what scholars and lunatics called the world order, though for different reasons. By 1950, liberal democracies on their own made up 10 percent of governing systems. If you include electoral democracy, a lower-bar that counts states with free and fair elections but not full-fledged human rights regimes, the 1950s through to the 1990s witnessed a steady climb for democracy up to 30 percent. Not bad given that for most of human history, democracy had been for most people a strange or unknown thing — the exception, certainly, and not the rule.

Then came the rise of post-Soviet democratization, such as it was. Between 1990 and 2010, the share of countries that counted as liberal democratic or electoral democracies rose from 17 and 19 percent respectively to 25 and 28 percent. Democracy was in the majority. by a smidgen Electoral democracy kept climbing, hitting a high of 32 percent. Everyone gets a television set, a pair of jeans, and a vote. Use it wisely, or not. Either way, it’s all set-it-and-forget-it. Nothing to worry about.

History and events, however, have a way of sneaking up on us just when we think we’ve licked them for good. We’re constantly reminded that however clever we think we are, well, we’re not. Maybe it’s a war. Or a pandemic. Or a botched response to a natural disaster. Or a financial crisis. Maybe a country elects a real piece of work and then elects them again, just for sport.

Between 2010 and 2024, democracy found itself in decline, what Larry Diamond warned of as a “democratic recession” back in 2015. Good thing we listened. By 2024, liberal democracies made up 16 percent of governments and electoral democracies accounted for 33 percent. That may seem good enough by number of states (though it’s not), but if you count population, there’s serious and obvious reason for concern. Democratic decline in India and the United States alone has accounted for just under two billion people who are living on the edge.

For years, I’ve argued that liberal democracy is too thin to withstand the weight of history and events, separating individuals too much from self-government while simultaneously asking too much and too little of them. Democratizing the economy by giving workers more control of their industries and workplaces and a greater share of the abundance they produce would go a long way to shoring up democratic capacity, especially if paired with more participatory democratic institutions, but few who make decisions have an interest in that. But we may have little choice but to take structural reform seriously or else let ourselves be carried away by the sweep of whatever is sweeping at the time. A cynical person might call the latter choice nihilistic, the sort of thing upon which future generations, should there be any, might look back upon and offer a tsk, tsk, tsk. What were they thinking?

The best time to have sorted out a change in course would have beeen before our present crisis. The next best time is now. Beyond that, who knows if we’ll have the option any time soon, if ever in our lifetimes. The thing about a crisis, though, is you shouldn’t waste it. Whether we asked for or invited the democratic decline global re-ordering, or whatever else we face is incidental to the fact that now we’re facing overlapping and intersecting challenges. Accordingly, we might think about rising to meet them in such a way that chooses a new path, and ideally one that moves forward.