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Outside In | Judge democracy on its results, not pretty-sounding ideas

  • As about half the world’s population goes to the polls this year, it’s worth asking exactly how democracy is delivering better than autocracies
  • Human rights and civil liberties are nice, but the true value of democratic politics must ultimately be judged by whether it delivers a full stomach

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A Donald Trump supporter poses with a life-size cutout of the former US president in front of a polling station in Eagle Pass, Texas, on February 27. The United States is one of more than 60 countries holding national elections this year at a time when the democratic process is under unprecedented attack. Photo: Reuters
In this busiest election year on record, with more than 60 countries accounting for about half the world’s population set to go to the polls, it is perhaps a good time to ask what the value of elections is if they don’t deliver competent leaders focused on making a better world?

The question has relevance when the US human rights organisation Freedom House warns of a “crucial test” for democracies in 2024, recording that democracy has suffered an aggregate decline in every one of the past 18 years. Its Freedom in the World Report 2024 records that political rights and civil liberties were diminished in 52 countries last year while only 21 countries experienced improvements.

Freedom House’s alarm is a matter of concern. “In every region of the world, democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power to advance the particular interests of their supporters, usually at the expense of minorities or other perceived foes.”
When they are talking about the coups in the Sahel region of Africa or travesties of the democratic process in countries such as Russia, North Korea or Pakistan, then so far so normal. But when we start to ask questions about the endangerment of the democratic process in Bangladesh, India or Israel, some serious problems have to be addressed.

In a recent Financial Times article, Robin Harding raised concerns about “elections without ideas, full of politics without policy and fierce debate over values but none over direction”. Many of the elections we will watch over the course of this year will suffer this malaise. We are not just talking about flawed elections marred by coups, violence or armed gangs, nor about manipulation or controls over electoral competition.

We are talking about political contests full of sound and fury focused on big-picture differences of vision, concepts of nationhood and preferences over the role of the state. But for voters who expect their leaders to focus on and deliver better lives for ordinary citizens, the electoral process has for some countries become an empty shell and a hollow echo chamber for polarised social media to fill.

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