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Democracy weakened in half of the world’s democratic countries last year, according to a recent report that suggests social contracts may need to be revised.
Two democracies – Myanmar and Tunisia – were lost in 2021, and over two-thirds of the world’s population live in dictatorships or democracies in decline. This is shown by a recent report from the intergovernmental organization Idea, where the authors write that in some countries it may be necessary to “renegotiate” social contracts in connection with populists gaining ground and fewer people believing that democracy is the answer to various problems.
The United States is one of the countries where, according to the report, there are threats to democracy.
War and conflict, and the consequences they cause, coincide today with a decline in public confidence in the value of democracy. This can make it more difficult for democracies to meet citizens’ expectations of what is to be provided under the social contracts, which in many places no longer work as before, according to the report.
Increased distrust of political parties and their leaders, candidates who refuse to admit defeat after losing legitimate elections, and a growing far-right are cited as factors weakening democracy globally.
“We do not move forward and backward along a single line of development, but explore different possible political outcomes,” writes Secretary General Kevin Vasas-Zamora in the report’s foreword.
In Europe, which mostly consists of democratically governed countries, 17 of the democracies have “eroded” in the past five years, according to the report’s authors.