Judge democracy on its results, not pretty-sounding ideas

As about half the world’s population goes to the polls this year, it’s worth asking exactly how democracy is delivering better than autocracies
Human rights and civil liberties are nice, but the true value of democratic politics must ultimately be judged by whether it delivers a full stomach

David Dodwell

Published: 9:30am, 2 Mar 2024

Why you can trust SCMP

In this busiest election year on record, with more than 60 countries accounting for about half the world’s population set to go to the polls, it is perhaps a good time to ask what the value of elections is if they don’t deliver competent leaders focused on making a better world?

The question has relevance when the US human rights organisation Freedom House warns of a “crucial test” for democracies in 2024, recording that democracy has suffered an aggregate decline in every one of the past 18 years. Its Freedom in the World Report 2024 records that political rights and civil liberties were diminished in 52 countries last year while only 21 countries experienced improvements.

Freedom House’s alarm is a matter of concern. “In every region of the world, democracy is under attack by populist leaders and groups that reject pluralism and demand unchecked power to advance the particular interests of their supporters, usually at the expense of minorities or other perceived foes.”

When they are talking about the coups in the Sahel region of Africa or travesties of the democratic process in countries such as Russia, North Korea or Pakistan, then so far so normal. But when we start to ask questions about the endangerment of the democratic process in Bangladesh, India or Israel, some serious problems have to be addressed.

In a recent Financial Times article, Robin Harding raised concerns about “elections without ideas, full of politics without policy and fierce debate over values but none over direction”. Many of the elections we will watch over the course of this year will suffer this malaise. We are not just talking about flawed elections marred by coups, violence or armed gangs, nor about manipulation or controls over electoral competition.

We are talking about political contests full of sound and fury focused on big-picture differences of vision, concepts of nationhood and preferences over the role of the state. But for voters who expect their leaders to focus on and deliver better lives for ordinary citizens, the electoral process has for some countries become an empty shell and a hollow echo chamber for polarised social media to fill.

Bangladeshi police try to stop a protest against the January 7 general election, which critics said was neither free nor fair, in front of the National Press Club in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on January 30. Photo: EPA-EFE

One is reminded of Winston Churchill’s famous comment on democracy: “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide and control the actions of ministers who are their servants and not their masters.”

Except that the current disarray makes one wonder whether it really is the worst save for all the others.

A democratic process that is unpopulated by people with the competence to deliver material results is more than just no better than populist autocracy – it might even be worse. For as much criticism as China’s autocratic governance structure faces, its capacity to populate policymaking with technocrats tasked to get things done has underpinned much of the country’s astonishing economic progress. For ordinary citizens, an autocratic China has delivered immensely better lives than a democratic India.

The irony that Harding identifies is that the world is as densely populated today with think-tankers and policy wonks as it has ever been. However, those policy wonks and boring career bureaucrats have little value if no one is listening, in particular our political leaders.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives to lead the opening of a temple dedicated to Hinduism’s Lord Ram in Ayodhya, India, on January 22. Just months before the country votes in a national election, support for Modi is on the rise after he opened the Hindu temple, fulfilling his party’s long-held Hindu nationalist pledge. Photo: AP

For any democracy, whatever its precise architecture, there needs to be people capable of filling the essential technocratic policy space with clear ideas about the boring, practical process of delivering results.

What is particularly troubling about developments in the United States is not simply that many political leaders seem uninterested in listening to those policy wonks, but that leaders such as Donald Trump take pride in actively despising career policy experts.

One tragic aspect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s annihilation of Gaza or the great power rivalry that has animated competition between the US and China is that not all “policy wonks” are now being ignored. As Harding notes, a “certain kind of wonk – the kind who runs war games and looks at satellite photos” has been empowered, with troubling consequences: “Conflict calls for defence spending, not schemes for a better society.”

Defence spending’s rising importance leaves Nato members in a dilemma

Calls for funding and policy support for challenges such as global warming or managing the next pandemic are falling on deaf ears. Practical life-enhancing needs are being squeezed by the defence spending imperative, as well as by debt-service costs that have soared as inflation has pushed interest rates higher.

Freedom House is correct that this year’s cascade of democratic elections is a crucial test. The assault from populist leaders who reject pluralism and demand unchecked power is a matter of grave concern, but so is the sacrifice of substantive policy at the altar of weaponised political theatre.

Whatever the architecture of our political systems, they can have no merit if they do not deliver better lives to their people. It is by this measure that we should audit this year’s elections. Human rights and civil liberties are nice, but the true value of democratic politics must ultimately be judged by whether it delivers a full stomach.

David Dodwell is CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, focused on developments and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific over the past four decades