Why Democracy Matters
It should go without saying that the need to safeguard and strengthen democracy is, without question, one of the most urgent tasks facing humanity today.
We live in tumultuous times. Around the world, states are taking a hammer to the core institutions of democracy such as the rule of law. Driven by cronyism, apathy and cynicism, we are seeing an alarming turn towards populist authoritarianism coupled with extreme political ideology that seek to shrink democratic spaces, limit civic engagement and suppress dissenting voices. We are witnessing an unprecedented onslaught on citizenship and human rights alongside the rejection of secular, democratic values established in the aftermath of the Second World War. And this is happening, not just in the west, but also in the nations and countries of those who struggled around the world against colonialism and imperlaism. Citizens have become distrustful of and alienated from democratic institutions and processes that they believe are corrupted and have failed in their promise to deliver security, justice and freedom. Together with the rise of austerity, neo-liberalism and the destruction of the environment, these developments have combined to create lethal spaces in which intolerance, bigotry and violence are flourishing and becoming normalized through mainstream politics.
The UK has not been immune from these developments: we only have to look at our increasingly inward-looking and divisive politics that also seeks to distance itself from international human rights norms and standards. It is painfully clear that there is something badly wrong with the way Britain is governed, and the public can see that. On the one hand, there is a profound crisis of trust in state institutions; on the other, an increasing fragmentation of the public sphere as a common space for evidence based public debate and good. This democratic backsliding has given rise to some of the greatest attacks on our civil liberties that we have seen in recent years. It has resulted in immensely discriminatory, unequal and even life-threatening outcomes for the most marginalised and poorest in our society. This state of affairs calls into question whether the UK is a properly functioning democratic state for all its citizens.
Democracy matters because its absence results in tyranny, despotism and dictatorship. The challenge we face is two-fold: we need to defend our hard-won democratic institutions and principles, but at the same time we also need to re-imagine those institutions and principles for the 21st century in ways that ensure that the state is held to higher democratic standards, compelled to uphold human rights and deliver equality for all, not just now but also in the future.