Democracy, populism and fairness 

Is democracy working? Or more precisely: are the institutions that it depends on to deliver a better world– the engine room – doing their job?

It’s not an idle question. This year (2024) has been the year of elections. Half the adult population of the world – some two billion people – have been voting in 60 national elections. They have not been inconsequential. Western liberal democracies have been shaken to their core in a series of convulsions, from France and Germany to Argentina.

Populism is booming. Trust in the very institutions that make democracy work is lower than it’s ever been. After decades of relative satisfaction democracy’s approval ratings especially in the US and Britain have taken a nosedive.

Why? Does it matter and is there anything we can do about it?

The US will decide tomorrow whether to re-elect Donald Trump in a knife-edge election. The man is a demagogue, he is unstable, a serial liar, a narcissist and occasionally unhinged. But he has something. Up to 80 million Americans will vote for him. They must have a reason. 

If democracy’s primary function is to offer cohesion as a path to prosperity it has manifestly failed in the US. Putting Trump back in the White House for a second time might seem like a rational choice to many who feel they are not heard.

On this side of the Pond the British Conservatives have just elected the first black woman leader of any major party in Europe. Kemi Badenoch’s election – the sixth Tory leader in eight years – is equally counterintuitive. It also a remarkable display of modernity for the old codgers in the party whose average age is 73.

The party has rejected calls to pivot back to the centre after its crushing defeat by Keir Starmer’s Labour party casting off its centrist heartlands. It’s a choice. Badenoch is a culture warrior, net-zero sceptic, scourge of multiculturalism, immigrants and a swollen welfare state.

A great many Tories – including one or two I know – couldn’t bring themselves to vote either for her or her rival Robert Jenrick. 

A computer engineer, she wants to “reprogramme the British state.” She promises to “rewrite the rules of the game”. She envisages a “new blueprint” to “rewire, reboot and reprogramme” the Treasury, the Bank of England, quangos, the civil service and the NHS – everything.

Badenoch’s project includes overhauling pillars of the contract between the state and its citizens: the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, judicial reviews or, as she calls it, “judicial activism”. In plain English, pesky judges who won’t let the executive do what it wants.

Badenoch is a politician with big ideas or, at any rate, big ambitions. But for all her apparent radicalism, which sets the Tory heart racing (who does that remind you of?), there’s something oddly predictable about her rhetoric. 

It’s partly because hers is the politics of grievance. Of not liking things the way they are and offering a tantalising vision of what might be without being specific. But it’s also a kind of politics by numbers: if it’s not right-wing it can’t be well-founded.

This is not to say that the impulse to shake things up is a bad thing. On the contrary. The democratic process has taken a precipitous fall in confidence. This has led to an extreme polarisation of political dispositions not seen since the 1930s.

It’s time to take a long overdue look under the bonnet of our institutions most of which have remained largely unchanged since the birth of western democracy.

The first past the post electoral system should be top of the to-do list. It delivers huge swings in direction while disenfranchising vast swathes of voters on the losing side. That was fine up to the 1990s which was a better time for democracy. But repeated catastrophes such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 financial cataclysm,  the 2015 refugee crisis and the pandemic have tested the system to breaking point.

America is now so divided (and will be for the foreseeable future) that whoever wins the presidency, half the population will inevitably feel alienated or perhaps even under threat. Some voters are telling reporters that they will vote for Trump because they worry about what will happen if he loses. Really. 

Kamala Harris could alleviate this by appointing some Republicans to her cabinet should she win. She probably will. But the mindset of a nation at odds with itself is deeply ingrained.  

Immigration is a deep, running wound that adds to the dissatisfaction with the democratic process. Democratic institutions have failed in finding a balance between controlling immigration and slamming shut the door to people economies need to boost growth as well as those refugees deserving of our help.

The crisis in democratic legitimacy goes beyond these real but limited issues. Democracy isn’t dying, as Vladimir Putin would have us believe. But it is assailed by very real grievances, some more real than others.

Brexit was the result of grievances both real and imagined. But it has also since contributed to this deepening sense of alienation and division in Britain.

Since the end of World War II liberals have taken for granted that progress is linear. And that the gradual loss of national sovereignty that inevitably accompanies a more joined up world would be seen as a common good, not just by those who benefit from it but also those who don’t.

This sense of alienation is not confined to Europe and the US. In Latin America the perception among voters in some countries is that elected governments have failed to solve society’s problems. This has encouraged a certain nostalgia for a return to military rule. It’s unlikely to happen in most countries but the growing influence of the military, like the rise of figures like Victor Orban in Hungary, is a direct result of democracy’s failure to deliver.

The common thread that binds all these situations is a sense of alienation and a lack of authenticity on the part of the political class. Too much politics and not enough policy. Both Kamala Harris and Starmer are guilty. 

A fear that opening up the debate about the future to a wider community – for example by devolving power or setting up citizens’ assemblies to air big and contentious issues like immigration — somehow threatens good outcomes. In reality all it threatens is those with a vested interest in the status quo.

Populism also thrives on a sense of injustice, the belief that there’s one rule for them and one for the rest of us. 

Politicians who can’t understand why allowing rich donors buy them clothes and designer glasses riles people struggling to make ends meet. The collapse in support for the Tory party was due to sleaze just as much as a chaotic institution at the end of its tether. 

Then there’s unfairness dressed up as tradition. The revelation by Channel 4 and the Sunday Times that the King and the Prince of Wales own two duchies with growing assets now worth nearly £2 billion – bridges, pubs, gas pipelines, wind turbines – drawing millions in annual revenue reinforces the image of Britain stuck in the past.

Starmer plans to “modernise” the House of Lords by phasing out hereditary peers. He is an incrementalist, so perhaps this is just a first step towards its replacement with something more modern. But replacing hereditary peers with yet more placemen, many of whom have literally paid for the right to wear ermine, feels like a cop-out. 

Representative democracy, not just at the ballot box, but in all its liberating forms has played a key role in making us happier, safer and better off. If we value democracy we need to get serious about making it work. That means putting fairness at the heart of it, giving people a real voice and letting go of old shibboleths.

A Message from TheArticle

We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.