{"id":81447,"date":"2025-07-17T07:43:54","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T05:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-els-espais-perduts-de-la-democracia\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T11:53:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T09:53:16","slug":"idees-dactualitat-els-espais-perduts-de-la-democracia","status":"publish","type":"newspaper","link":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-els-espais-perduts-de-la-democracia\/","title":{"rendered":"Idees d’actualitat – Democracy’s lost spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The data provided by the Democracy Report 2025<\/a> published by the V-Dem Institute reveal that the prospects for democracy in the world are the worst in the last 25 years: the trend of the third wave of autocratization is deepening and spreading. This leads to the erosion of democracy in some consolidated liberal political systems, the breakdown of democracy in countries that were democratic for most of the 20th century, as well as the deepening of autocracy in already authoritarian states. Although the democratic decline of the last 25 years has a global scope, its decline is uneven between regions. Eastern Europe, including the Balkans and the Caucasus, was much more democratic 25 years ago, but today autocracy has been consolidated in countries such as Belarus, Hungary, Russia, and Serbia. South and Central Asia have recently lost two democracies: India and Mongolia, while autocracy has hardened and become substantially more severe in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the same time, democratic weakening is also taking place in some liberal democracies in Latin America, Western Europe, and North America, including the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, according to a survey<\/a> by the YouGov Institute for the Tui Foundation among young Europeans, although a majority of Gen Z (57%) prefer democracy to any other form of government, the level of support varies significantly, from 48% in Poland to 71% in Germany, while only half of young people in France and Spain consider it to be the best form of government. More than one in five (21%) would support an authoritarian government in certain unspecified circumstances. The survey also reveals that increasing polarisation is pushing young Europeans towards ideological extremes, in a process that leads to a notable gender divide where girls and young women are more supportive of reproductive rights and are more sensitive to issues such as the environment, wealth redistribution and the role of the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these troubled times of policrisis, very often the narrative revolves around the apparently neutral concept of unity<\/em>, which appears in government speeches, articles in the media and all kinds of public statements. A narrative that asks to sideline the conflict, ignore contradictions, and accept a version of harmony that, at the end, serves the interests of those who are governing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, two notions of “we” are opposed to a politically powerful \u2013 and democratically necessary \u2013 vision of politics as a game of opposing interests: the national-ethnic “we” of the right, and the universal “we” of the liberals. The ethnic “we” is based on Lebensraum <\/em>in the broad sense, racial inequality, and the thesis that within a nation everyone shares the same interests. This idea ignores not only internal material differences, but also cultural divisions between town and country, between regions and religions, generations, social environments, and worldviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The liberal “we,” which presents itself as an inclusive alternative, does not think in terms of race and essence, but refers to a universal “we” that also ignores differences in power and interests and thus reinforces a false sense of unity. By belittling social, cultural, and economic divisions in favour of an abstract shared interest, the liberal “we” also refers to a narrative where citizens repress their own interests in favour of a sense of responsibility toward a “we” that, insofar as the discourse proclaims that everyone is in the same boat, also refers to the concept of community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Marxism and Enlighted liberalism have pointed out that where there is authority, there is a conflict between those who exercise it and those who are subject to it. Democracy consists precisely in recognizing this conflict. If politics is the set of interests that are expressed and concur in the public space, what characterizes democratic politics is not to produce harmony between these interests, but to manage and negotiate them in a participatory and open way, generating a collective commitment that overcomes possible dissent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The urge of a new era marked by technological acceleration and economic uncertainties is generating a collective fear that erodes democratic foundations. This systemic fear leads to accepting, almost uncritically, exceptional measures that undermine pluralism. For example, laws that justify increased surveillance on security grounds replace public debate with opaque protocols, while strengthening the position of those who rely on authoritarianism as a quick response. The fear of instability thus acts as a catalyst for exceptional measures: it restricts freedoms, legitimizes control mechanisms, and fosters leaderships that exploit worries instead of mitigating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the lack of a coherent blueprint for the future strengthens this perverse dynamic. Without clear objectives of social justice and without a vision that involves the middle and disadvantaged strata, the public debate shatters into particular interests and simplistic discourses. In a feedback loop, fear exacerbates the search for immediate solutions, while the lack of a collective project prevents the articulation of structural responses. This leads to an erosion of citizen participation: the vote is not an expression of hope anymore and becomes an instrument of identity defence against internal enemies, real or imaginary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is in this fertile ground for emotional manipulation that lies and simplistic slogans substitute facts, and dismantle democratic epistemology based on informed deliberation. Facing this double threat requires recovering the narrative of a shared future, where technological and economic progress is accompanied by systems of control and regulation, and tools for effective participation. Only in this way can mutual trust be strengthened, consensus rebuilt and the balance between freedom and equality restored, pillars without which democracy becomes the scene of irrational conflicts and growing inequalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democracy survives and develops when a collective vision of progress is maintained, capable of inspiring energies towards common goals. The lack of a long-term agenda, however, drags the political system into the realm of day-to-day management and quick solutions. This reductive vision prevents the effective redistribution mechanisms: the concentration of wealth is aggravated, while public discourse limits itself to condemning the symptoms without attacking the structural causes. Because of the strategic vacuum, civic space is fragmented into identity bubbles, where each one fights for immediate advantages, without the ability to interact in an inclusive project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Populist rhetoric takes advantage of this by presenting itself as the great alternative narrative capable of saving the country, when in fact it is nothing more than a catalogue of vague promises and rhetoric of rupture that, once in power, do not produce substantial reforms. The result is a collective sense of disillusionment and impotence that undermines voter turnout, weakens traditional parties, and opens the way to political experiments of unpredictable outlines. In turn, to avoid a transparent accountability that shows their real performance in the face of the problems they claimed to attack, these populisms will try to sustain and increase the character of urgency and exception that their arrival in power had, curtailing the freedoms and guarantees of liberal democratic systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, overcoming the trivialization of the democratic project requires more than rational arguments: it calls for actions that help rebuild trust, and policies that prove that democracy actually can serve and be useful for the many, not just for the few. The time for illusions about the compatibility between techno-financial elites and democracy is over. Remains to be decided which project for the future we want: that of resignation to fear or that of courage to rehumanise politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photography: A group of people on the Ithaca Commons, participating in a protest. February 7, 2025. Daniel Goldhorn. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Fari\u00f1a, trainee at the CETC, has participated in this issue of Idees d’actualitat<\/em>.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The data provided by the Democracy Report 2025 published by the V-Dem Institute reveal that the prospects for democracy in the world are the worst in the last 25 years: the trend of the third wave of autocratization is deepening and spreading. This leads to the erosion of democracy in some consolidated liberal political systems, the breakdown of democracy in countries that were democratic for most of the 20th century, as well as the deepening of autocracy in already authoritarian states. Although the democratic decline of the last 25 years has a global scope, its decline is uneven between regions.\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":81280,"template":"","category_newspaper":[634],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-81447","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-634"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIdees d'actualitat - Democracy's lost spaces – 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-espais-perduts-de-la-democracia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idees d'actualitat - Democracy's lost spaces – IDEES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The data provided by the Democracy Report 2025 published by the V-Dem Institute reveal that the prospects for democracy in the world are the worst in the last 25 years: the trend of the third wave of autocratization is deepening and spreading. 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