Democracy in the Doldrums

In The End of History and the Last Man, written immediately after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Francis Fukuyama argues the world was experiencing the end of “mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” Indeed, in the last two decades, many countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin American have held competitive elections for the first time. These democratic experiments and institutions, however, have faced growing political instability and legislative inertia over recent years. The global economic recession has further compounded their challenges and have called the long-term sustainability of these institutions into question, leaving many searching for new models and strategies to promote political stability and sustain growth.
In the United States, for example, Americans view excessive congressional partisanship as evidence that officials believe the public interest is secondary to political gain. While political scientists have given legislators the benefit of the doubt and attribute partisanship to ideological differences, there is growing consensus that rancor in American politics is reaching historic heights, even in institutions like the traditionally deliberative Senate. This polarization of federal politics and the growing influence of money and the media potentially exacerbates economic inequality and has reduced political diversity at the state level. Ultimately, growing political brinksmanship may reduce the ability of legislatures to represent their own constituents effectively.
The challenges facing democratic institutions, including economic volatility, public dissent, and historical instabilities, extend beyond these shores. Throughout Western democracies, governments are struggling to maintain social welfare programs while enacting austerity measures to combat ballooning deficits. The difficulty the European Union has faced in alleviating member states’ debt crises has created doubt over the efficacy of an institution meant to preserve European unity. Even in the world’s largest democratic state, India, the government has struggled to reconcile widespread public dissent over decades of corruption. Meanwhile, India’s neighbor Pakistan, despite having gained independence simultaneously, is still muddling through a staggered transition to democracy marked by historical conflict.
Many observers seeking inspiration have turned to China, which has weathered the economic recession relatively unscathed, through centralized stimulus programs. While China’s streamlined autocratic approach might remove some administrative bureaucracies that plague democratic institutions, continued economic development will probably require and eventually produce gradual democratization of its governance structure.
The prescriptions for strengthening these democratic institutions are thematically similar. These solutions must align with improvements in regulation and mitigate the social cost of necessary changes. While the challenges presented in this issue demonstrate that compromise frequently proves difficult to reach, democracy still enables a forum for compromise between individual needs and social will. As Winston Churchill stated, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Neil Patel ’13 is the Covers Editor.