{"id":77092,"date":"2024-10-09T06:36:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T04:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-els-populismes-i-la-perdua-de-legitimitat-democratica\/"},"modified":"2024-10-11T13:45:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T11:45:24","slug":"idees-dactualitat-els-populismes-i-la-perdua-de-legitimitat-democratica","status":"publish","type":"newspaper","link":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-els-populismes-i-la-perdua-de-legitimitat-democratica\/","title":{"rendered":"Idees d’actualitat – Populism and the loss of democratic legitimacy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2024 is an important year for democracy, since it will set a record for elections and voters throughout the past twelve months. However, what somehow could have been considered a triumph of democracy is being questioned by the fact that the quality of the democratic system and the electoral processes has significantly decreased in many countries during the past years. Thereby, the annual report<\/a> of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) about the state of democracy around the world discloses that electoral legitimacy criticism has become a global phenomenon, with an increase in allegations of fraud and mistrust in electoral systems. Some examples are the misleading statements by Donald Trump in 2020 and by Jair Bolsonaro in 2022, which culminated in the United States Capitol attack and the Congress, Presidential Palace and Supreme Federal Court attacks in Brazil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report identifies four main causes for this loss of confidence: increase of inequality, corruption, democracies\u2019 inability to manage rapid social changes and a more tolerant international environment towards authoritarian regimes. In turn, these elements promote an extreme political polarization, enhanced by social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, we are living in a time of great uncertainty. New and numerous challenges threaten the patterns of stability and growth to which we were used to. In this context, parties and both populist and far-right movements are becoming more popular and occupying positions of power in democratic societies. Far-right parties are using the migration challenge in order to get more votes, sometimes thanks to the diffusion of a distorted image of the immigrants and refugees that has not a lot to do with reality. The radical right-wingers have also specialised in using social media to spread and misrepresent all sorts of incidents that allow them to ascribe acts of violence to immigrants, thereby fuelling racism and xenophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this situation, we must point out that traditional political parties have not managed to build a narrative that allows them to counterbalance this speech, which is becoming increasingly pervasive in large sectors of Western societies. Instead, they often end up imitating or making the speech of the far-right as their own and suggesting harsh measures that attract the electorate. However, for a few years and election after election, it has been seen that this tactic has been unsuccessful in breaking the dynamics of far-right parties. Europe is getting old, and even though immigrants have an important role in economy and society \u2013 that nowadays is irreplaceable and will surely be even more so \u2013 there is an integration and perception problem that democracies cannot ignore. Finding answers is not easy, but it seems evident that copying xenophobes or repeating statements of purely economic rationality do not look like statements that allow voters to move away from the extremes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A relevant factor is the significant increase in support for radical right-wing options among younger sectors of the population in almost all European countries, especially among young men. Young voters have changed their support from mainstream parties to far-right parties. They are driven by their concerns such as high inflation rates, wars, and the lack of affordable housing, rather than their fear of immigration, which is the general trend among older generations. As a matter of fact, this generation has grown in a chronical crisis context \u2013 economics, politics, migration, climate, pandemic, inflation… They have never known another reality, and many of them have reached adulthood with no expectations of neither professional nor financial stability. Therefore, many young people no longer believe in a dominant political system, which they consider outdated, corrupt, ineffective, and unable to meet their needs and increasingly disconnected from their interests and values. Consequently, this feeling of exclusion has lead a significant part of the youth to a strong political disconnection and the research for alternative forms of participation in which they can act from their alleged legitimate frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also needed to admit that everyone has to take some responsibility in the phenomenon of erosion of democracy. Maybe we were overly optimist and took by granted that democracy came here to stay, that after the end of the Cold War there could only be one road to an indefinite progress and improvement of democracy. Some people even advertised the end of History, but had to rectify themselves a few years later. Probably, we have not looked out enough for warning signs, such as the increase of inequalities and broken promises. Finally, the rise of illiberalism has shaken our certainty, as well as polycrisis \u2013 triggered by political, social, economic, climatic, technologic and medical clashes \u2013 has affected our societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, we need to think about the risks that our democracies face beyond physical violence. We are no longer living in the time when Soviet tanks drove around Prague or Budapest, or when the army bombed the presidential palace of Santiago, Chile. Current risks are more related to dysfunction, inefficiency and imbalance. In other words, degradation is more subtle and pernicious. Thereupon, it is necessary to be extremely alert and strengthen the emotional bond that connects us with democracy, because the threat to democracy often comes from the lack of commitment of its supporters, rather than from the attacks of its enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the far-right attacks against democracy force us to ask ourselves a set of key questions in order to combat this phenomenon. Where does this situation come from? How is it possible to explain its uninterrupted rise? How have they achieved to have a huge amount of their ideas and proposals taking central positions in the agenda of mainstream parties? Could we even be talking about some trivialisation of their ideas? An explanation is required, for example, to the contrast between the UE\u2019s lack of response to the recent victory of a far-right party in Austria and its strong reaction to a similar scenario in 1999, when diplomatic sanctions were imposed after the FP\u00d6\u2019s entry to the government. What is the role of social media in the rise of political movements that increasingly attract young people, who follow disruptive politicians as if they were pop stars? How is it possible to explain the emergence of far-left populisms that share some of the far-right ideas? What tools does democracy have available to deal with it? How is it possible to go against an opponent that no longer questions democracy with violent methods, but within the system?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answers to these questions will determine not only the future of democracy, but also its quality and its penetration of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photography: “Being outside democracy is unconstitutional”. Elke Wetzig. Creative Commons – Share Alike 4.0<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2024 is an important year for democracy, since it will set a record for elections and voters throughout the past twelve months. However, what somehow could have been considered a triumph of democracy is being questioned by the fact that the quality of the democratic system and the electoral processes has significantly decreased in many countries during the past years. Thereby, the annual report of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) about the state of democracy around the world discloses that electoral legitimacy criticism has become a global phenomenon, with an increase in allegations of fraud\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":76987,"template":"","category_newspaper":[584],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-77092","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-584"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIdees d'actualitat - Populism and the loss of democratic legitimacy – IDEES<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-els-populismes-i-la-perdua-de-legitimitat-democratica\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idees d'actualitat - Populism and the loss of democratic legitimacy – IDEES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"2024 is an important year for democracy, since it will set a record for elections and voters throughout the past twelve months. 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