Can we improve democracy?

An international survey shows that people want better leaders.

There’s been a lot of talk about a crisis or even a “twilight” of democracy, and a corresponding rise of authoritarianism.

In early January, President Joe Biden said that “democracy is on the ballot” in November’s general election. As if to amplify Biden’s warning, Donald Trump told a rally, “If we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country”. Elections in his world are only acceptable when he wins. Or was he asking Americans to believe that democracy depends on him?

What can be done to put an end to such nonsense? Pew Research asked people in 24 countries about “how to improve democracy”. Their report shows that, in most countries surveyed, the most common answer was:

“Democracy can be improved with better or different politicians. People want politicians who are more responsive to their needs and who are more competent and honest, among other factors.”

Many said that there are also things that citizens themselves can do to improve democracy. But the headline message was that people around the world want to see more competence, responsiveness and promise-keeping – or trustworthiness – in their political leaders. That’s great, but the survey drilled deeper and found that people’s opinions about what this means aren’t in unison. What looks like competent and honest political behaviour to one person may look like the opposite to their neighbour. For instance, many Americans regard Donald Trump as honest, while many others say he’s an egregious liar. And I’ll let you be the judge.

The qualities, qualifications and background experience that some people want more of in their elected representatives may be quite different from what others want. As we’re supposed to be talking about “democracy”, we can’t impose one general set of qualities for all aspiring candidates, like a person specification, as that would be “undemocratic”.

Here’s another question: are people asking for the present “political class” to pull their socks up and behave, or are they asking for a new “breed” of better-behaved people to take their place – or a bit of both? Some survey respondents wanted to dump them all and start again. But, if that happened, would the incentives and imperatives built into the political system incline the new lot to adopt the bad old ways?

Is “the system” broken, then? The Pew survey also showed that many people want to reform their countries’ governmental and electoral systems. Here it gets even trickier to summarise, because each country has its own constitution. (NZ wasn’t one of the countries surveyed.) But systemic reforms were relatively high on people’s priorities, after better politicians.

It’s heartening to see that people around the world understand the problems and want to see changes. If we wanted to make changes, then which countries would we look to for relatively good examples or models to follow?

Below is a chart I put together for my new book Government and Political Trust. It lists the “top 10” countries in a range of international leagues-tables of development, wellbeing and governance. A number of names, especially the Scandinavian countries, reappear across the table. The lists are dominated by small countries, mostly with proportional representation (PR) electoral systems.

Now, there are also small countries with PR elections that are well down these league-tables, so those features alone don’t guarantee success. But some of the larger countries that make the most noise in world media – such as the US and the UK – are conspicuously absent. They don’t set the best examples, if the kinds of outcomes evaluated in these league-tables are the measuring-sticks of success – not to mention the troubles the US and UK have had with some untrustworthy leaders.

On the other hand, those at the top of the tables have their problems too. The Scandinavians have far-right populist parties that get strong election results, causing problems in forming governments, as established centrist and leftist parties don’t want to work with them. In the Netherlands, government-formation is “mission impossible” following the electoral success of the far-right party led by Geert Wilders.

Getting back, then, to the main question: can we improve democracy? The problem may not be in democracy itself, but in a systemic lack or impairment of democracy. Are the systems of government, even those of the “top 10” countries, really all that democratic? A free and fair election is a good thing, but those who get elected are a tiny minority, and they may not do what the majority want or need. Representative government isn’t inherently democratic – although the universal franchise does help. It’s not surprising, then, that some people in the Pew survey were asking for more direct democracy and more referendums.

A controversial proposition is that “the people” aren’t even good judges of “what’s good for them”. Many may vote for poor leaders and daft policies. Do they “mispredict” what will make them better off? Do the people need to be better informed and educated, or should some appointed experts make the decisions for them? The latter is known as technocracy. Pew Research indicates that majorities in some countries that we’d call “democracies” (such as Spain and Germany) see technocracy as a good way to govern their countries. This support for rule by experts has risen since 2017, possibly due to the Covid-19 pandemic – notwithstanding the minority who despise the public-health measures taken at that time. Could a majority “democratically” relinquish government by elected officials in favour of government by experts?

Before anyone gets alarmed, I should add that representative and direct forms of democracy got approval from larger majorities than technocracy. It’s just that technocracy has gained approval recently, according to this survey.

Improving democracy – or improving on democracy – implies significant change. When people change things, however, they don’t always get what they want. Take Brexit, for example: that was a major change approved by a referendum, but it’s been messy, to say the least, and most Britons now regret it. Chileans had a go at completely overhauling their constitution, but then they rejected the proposed draft.

Is tinkering with the constitution a better way to go than major systemic change, then?

The problems of finding the best leaders and the best constitution are at least as old as Confucius and Socrates. Those two made some interesting recommendations – but not everyone agreed with them even at the time. Since their day, we may have invented sliced bread, nuclear power and the internet, but it seems we’re not much wiser when it comes to governing ourselves.

Restoring the Acropolis, Athens: