Is More Democracy Always Better Democracy?
Related:
Revenge of the Nation State
Yascha Mounk notes:
“Across the world,
party systems that seemed frozen a few decades ago have rapidly thawed, then
boiled. Populist insurgents have celebrated unprecedented victories by
promising to drain the swamp and send the political caste packing. In many
democracies that political scientists once considered stable and secure,
elected strongmen are putting immense pressure on the judiciary, restricting
the freedom of the press, and curtailing the rights of the opposition.
These countries
have vastly different institutions: some have the kinds of parliamentary
systems favored by Rosenbluth and Shapiro, others the system of proportional
representation that the two disdain. Yet populists have been able to gain
ground in all of them. The reason, it seems, lies less in the institutional
arrangements that divide these countries than in the larger cultural and
economic trends that they have in common—trends like migration, economic
discontent, and the rise of digital technology.”
Related:
Revenge of the Nation State