Author: Pravar Petkar, Head of Strengthening Democracy Desk
In one of his first statements to Parliament as the new Prime Minister of the UK, Sir Keir Starmer referenced the lack of confidence in contemporary British politics, stating that “the need to restore trust should weigh heavily on every Member here, new and returning alike.” This is an ongoing issue: recent surveys by the Pew Research Center suggest that satisfaction with democracy in the UK has declined from 60% in 2021 to only 39% in 2024; the US has seen a fall from 41% to 31%, whilst France has dropped from 44% to 35%. Across the Channel, following gains for the far-right in the 2024 EU elections, some commentators have pointed to a divide between pro-democracy and anti-democracy factions in Europe. We are confronted by an urgent need to restore trust in our politicians and the very democratic systems in which they operate. Revitalising and regenerating contemporary democracies, I believe, must be underpinned by three central principles: accountability, participation and civic education.
Accountability
There is a worrying trend the world over in leaders seeking to evade the checks and balances on power. Recently, a British Prime Minister was found to have misled Parliament on the upholding of COVID-19 regulations. The former UK government’s ‘Rwanda Scheme’ for asylum seekers was pushed forward in reckless disregard of international law, as upheld by the UK Supreme Court itself. The Election Commission of India appears to have been politicised, judging by its lax responses to religiously divisive rhetoric from PM Modi during the recent election campaign, whilst Poland’s former ruling dispensation (the Law and Justice Party) enacted a series of reforms politicising the judiciary before losing power in late 2023. Few will forget the events of 6 January 2021, when supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol to halt the peaceful transfer of power following President Biden’s confirmation.
Any successful and sustainable democracy needs robust checks and balances on power. The UK’s historical reliance on norms of good conduct – the ‘good chaps’ theory of government – has proven unable to stem the tide; stronger restrictions are required, whether enforced by the courts or other independent bodies. These checks and balances have a dual role: to ensure citizens’ survival and so that they can have genuine influence over the state. The state must uphold those fundamental human rights necessary for the people it governs to harmoniously coexist, and which provide the essential conditions for democratic government to continue, including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly within reasonable limits. International human rights law cannot be seen simply as a needless check on power; it instead guarantees the conditions for the state to fulfil its purpose, making a culture of respect for international law – one which has been lacking recently in the UK – essential to ensure government is held to account.
Moreover, our electoral systems must reflect citizens’ policy preferences as closely and proportionately as possible: government is, after all, ‘for the people’. Citizens should, periodically, be able to have a say on how their society is structured and governed: models such as the US Constitution, under which change is so difficult as to be virtually impossible, are no longer sustainable. Rights to protest and assemble must always be available as a last resort to push elected officials towards change, but we cannot fall back on these options too often: our democratic systems must ensure citizens have regular opportunities to hold politicians to account.
Participation
Today, government is supposed to be for the people and is certainly framed as being ‘of the people’, but it is rarely by the people. The extent of most citizens’ democratic engagement is limited to the election of representatives at local, regional and national levels every few years. Yet the tide is now starting to turn. There is increasing experimentation with new mechanisms of participation such as citizens’ assemblies, the most well-known of which is perhaps that held in Ireland on abortion in 2018. There have been notable referendums, including the 2016 EU referendum in the UK, and even the crowdsourcing of new constitutional proposals in Iceland in 2012. Our world is starting to think beyond the representative democratic paradigm that has dominated our politics for the last 75 years.
If our democracies are to sustain themselves into the future, there must be more opportunities for citizen participation on a range of issues, from both difficult and controversial moral problems to local challenges. This is not a call for elected representatives to abdicate their responsibilities – we will still need elected politicians to stand up for our interests on common national and international issues. Yet it is becoming clearer that on a range of issues, giving the people more of a voice has great benefits. These range from enhancing policy debate by crystallising consensus on reform, to developing citizen awareness on key issues such as climate change and cultivating a sense of civic responsibility and social welfare. Our contemporary toolkit is no longer limited to in-person gatherings across weekends. Citizens’ panels and assemblies were moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst Estonia and Taiwan have led the way in creating online platforms where citizens can make and vote on policy proposals. The future is one of distributed networks for proposing and voting on legislative amendments, online participatory communities to review executive decision-making and even novel deliberative systems on bespoke online platforms, using the latest developments in generative AI to facilitate discussions, aggregate preferences and more. Whilst standing on a busy main road with a placard will not lose its significance overnight, the future of democratic participation is increasingly likely to be a digital one.
Civic Education
If people are to be well equipped to participate in public debate on key policy issues, our education systems must be in good working order. We are beset by misinformation – not only through clever political advertising and the use of ‘deepfake’ technology, but also on the social media platforms that increasingly shape our daily lives, as seen in the recent civil unrest in the UK. Even with a full set of facts before us, we must be able to deliberate with others who have had very different life experiences and might hold ideologically opposing views – to recognise a common civic identity with the others who share our towns, cities and countries. Cutting against this is the religious polarisation seen both in the UK and India, from Indian PM Modi’s election speech demonising Muslims, to the faith-based manifestos issued by community organisations in the UK General Election campaign.
As citizens, we must be able to sort fact from fiction, deploy reason to critically evaluate the different ideas we are faced with and be comfortable in bringing our unique perspectives to bear through discussion with others. We must have the knowledge base we need to actively engage in how our society is shaped. This requires programmes of civic education at all levels, from the earliest years of school through to university. Many have championed a liberal arts education within universities so that students might engage in robust and respectful discussion from different perspectives and viewpoints. Social media and digital literacy training are essential for a young generation whose social lives are increasingly conducted online. Students at both school and university should have the opportunity to volunteer and build links with the communities around them, through ‘service learning’ programmes. The collective benefit of these educational programmes must be underpinned by political literacy, of the sort advocated for by British political theorist Bernard Crick. This is not a call for voting to be limited to the well-read or intellectually enlightened. Rather, it is essential for the future of our democracies that individuals are enabled by the education system to fully participate in civic and democratic life. The state must ensure there is a framework for this, yet we ought not to put all our eggs in the state’s basket; the ability of state institutions to manipulate the education system for their own political ends – as Governor Ron DeSantis has done in respect of Florida’s race education – instead means there must be space for civic society and private institutions to innovate without interference.
The road to restoring trust in democratic politics will not be an easy one; rather, it is one that will unfold over time with successive waves of policy reform and constitutional changes at the confluence of the principles of accountability, participation and civic education. The future of our democracies lies both in stronger checks and balances and an empowered citizenry with full opportunity to participate in democratic decision-making.
