What happened to democracy in 2020?

By Dilip -

There are some positive dimensions to the current situation. While we see democratic declines, including inside the EU, we also see very high levels of protests globally. These are motivated by all kinds of issues, but corruption remains an important factor. For me, what’s important here is that people are recognising and acquiring ownership of their power and are becoming important political players - reclaiming democratic processes of contestation, political conflict resolution. This parallel trend of protests, whether beautifully expressed in Belarus right now, or Armenia’s 2018 Velvet Revolution is important. Both of these cases demonstrate that there is significant grassroots capacity and willingness of people to demand participation.

The challenge is how to translate this mass-scale political activity through institutions. Essentially, what we're learning, once again, is that the ability of institutions to manage this democratic breakthrough, or people power, is key. We saw in the Arab Spring that you can remove a dictator, but the morning after is much, much harder. This only raises the significance of civil society actors to lock in those gains. I'm going to cite my father here in the context of Armenia’s democratic processes: “People have already learned the power of their voice.” Regardless what transpires, I think that's a really important argument to keep in mind: you cannot put the genie back into the bottle….

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/what-happened-democracy-2020-we-ask-our-contributors/

Dismantling democracy? Virus used as excuse to quell dissent...

Sam Kriss: 'Neoliberalism' isn't a left-wing insult but a monstrous system of inequality

Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance)

Book review: Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology

Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

George Monbiot: ‘Try to stop me’ – the mantra of our leaders who are now ruling with impunity


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