The West's Broken Democracy

Western democracy doesn't work in the eyes of its people, a new study revealed Saturday. 

A September survey of Western countries showed that satisfaction with the electoral model was below 50% in most of them. This contrasts with separate studies of Asian nations such as China and Singapore, where citizens are enthusiastic about their model of democracy, with 80 to 93% approval. 

Ipsos, a European survey firm, questioned 9,800 voters in the US, UK, Croatia, France, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. In all except Poland and Sweden, there were deep concerns about the western electoral model. 

Gideon Skinner, senior director of UK politics at Ipsos, told Politico that “there is widespread concern about the way democracy is working, with people feeling unrepresented particularly by their national governments. In most countries, there is a desire for radical change”. 

Only a minority of respondents said they felt satisfied with how democracy was working in their country – 18% in Croatia, 19% in France, 20% in the US, 26% in the UK, 27% in Spain and 29% in Italy. Majorities in all countries except Sweden expected things to be worse in five years. 

A good case in point is the US itself, which has always prided itself a leading and influential democracy. Even so, Donald Trump in his first ten months has purged career civil servants viewed as disloyal, publicly urged his attorney general to prosecute political opponents, deployed troops to US cities, attacked judges who ruled against him, threatened universities because of the pro-Palestinian protests on campuses, and expanded his use of executive power through unilateral decrees and emergency authorities. 

In October, Trump’s justice department indicted Letitia James, the New York attorney general who successfully sued him for fraud, and separately charged the former FBI director James Comey, a longtime political adversary. He has also called for jailing the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and the Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, both Democrats who opposed his deployment of federal troops there.