More than 1.5 billion people around the world voted last year in more than 100 elections that endorsed the appeal of democracy as an idea, if not always as a system of government.
The polls ran from the vast and complex, to tiny local affairs in which most voters knew each other and which might have seemed familiar to the Greek city-states that pioneered the idea of citizens choosing their own leaders more than two millennia ago.
On the Caribbean island of Montserrat, fewer than 3,000 people cast ballots for a new legislative assembly, but they represented almost three-quarters of eligible voters.
Photo: AFP
In India, by contrast, the presidential election was such a huge logistical challenge that it went on for weeks, allowing more than 500 million people to take part — a full two-thirds of citizens with the right to vote.
The highest turnout, perhaps unsurprisingly, was in authoritarian North Korea, where the government said almost no one missed the chance to vote. The enthusiasm in a system of ruthless control probably owes more to fear than any wish to express an opinion.
Such is the grip of democracy that only a handful of countries, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have no form of national-level vote. All others hold some kind of election, whether they be empty shows like Pyongyang’s ballot, fraudulent or at least partially compromised.
“Democracy has an appealing image of a system that gives people freedom and independence. So [countries such as] North Korea claim to be democratic republics to draw on this imagery,” said Russell Dalton, a political science professor at the University of California.
The relative success of countries that pioneered modern democracy have contributed to its popularity, said Pippa Norris, a professor with Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
“The good news is that the public does support democracy, but doesn’t always understand it in the way it is understood in the West,” Norris said. “They think of it as prosperity, peace, stability and an effective state.”
That enthusiasm can turn sour if governments struggle to make change. Elections imply accountability, but do not in themselves transform a nation’s finances or make its government more efficient.
“People build tremendous hope into democracy, but to be able to deliver you need an effective state, as well as an effective election system,” Norris said.
The failure of leaders hampered by a lack of funds or real power is one of the main reasons that new democracies falter, she said, adding that worldwide democracy was “somewhat in recession” last year — a view backed by the Washington-based think tank Freedom House.
“For the eighth consecutive year, [we] recorded more declines in democracy worldwide than gains,” the 41st annual edition of its Freedom in the World report found, warning of serious setbacks in “large politically influential countries” including Egypt, Russia, Turkey and Indonesia, as well as of the rise of “modern authoritarianism.”
Violence and disease also undermine democracy, the election data showed, with low turnouts in Afghanistan, which has been battling an insurgency for years, and Liberia, which is grappling with Ebola. In the latter, health precautions including the strict separation of voters did little to reassure voters and only one in four showed up.
Turnout was also low in many of the Western nations that pioneered the idea of ordinary people choosing their leaders. In the US, only one-third of eligible voters took part in mid-term elections for the houses of the US Congress.
This disengagement — and the asceticism that drives it — is often seen as damaging to democratic governments that claim authority based on popular support. However, it can also be read as the ultimate triumph of a system that aims to give ordinary people information and power, Dalton said.
“Nations with a skeptical public actually have a more effective and accountable government because citizens press government to be responsive and perform,” he said. “All this is lost in the tendency of academics and political commentators to lament the allegiant, deferential citizen of the past. Assertive citizens make democratic politics more difficult and stressful, but it also makes for better democratic politics.”
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