Democracy under attack

Democracy – one of our most cherished cultural concepts, synonymous with freedom, the right of representation and expression – is under attack from multiple sources.

Ever since its formulation in ancient Greece, democracy has been viewed in very different lights. Enshrining the ideas of the Enlightenment, including social contract theory, modern democracy has its roots in the ideas of great thinkers such as Locke, Montesquieu, and de Tocqueville.

Churchill’s pronouncement that “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried”, continues to echo out as a rallying cry in support of this fundamentally held belief.

However, what was to be the end of history with the supremacy of the liberal West at the post Cold War period, has in the twenty-first century led to the attack on democracy from unlikely and diverse source such as autocracies, populism, polarised views from both the far-right and far-left and even technology itself.

For many people democracy no longer seems to work for them. Where does this leave the global geo-political zeitgeist?

Andreas Wasmuht, World Affairs convenor, BRLSI