Is Democracy, as we know it, on its way out?

Is western democracy coming apart at the seams?
Let me re-phrase,
Is Democracy, as we know it, on its way out?
A decade ago, only paranoid alarmists would have posed that question.


Today, it is an expression of cold, brutal realism, and no more cynicism.

On both sides of the Atlantic -- from the fires that raged in large stretches of London, to the political chicanery that brought the U.S. economy to its knees in early August -- the institutional framework that came to define modern democracy in the 19th century is in deep trouble. 


The principal organs of financial oversight and management are in tatters. Ferociously xenophobic political movements now play important roles in nearly every European nation, as well as the United States. 



Faith in elected leaders and legislatures, the central and defining institutions of democracy, has never been lower.



According to the Pew Research Center, the proportion of the U.S. public expressing trust in the federal government has fallen from just under 80 per cent in the late 1960s to barely 20 per cent today. 


A European Union poll last September found that only 29 per cent of the voters in its 27 member-states trust their own national government. Less than 20 per cent believe that their elected representatives are capable of successful action "against the effects of the financial and economic crisis." 



A meagre seven per cent trust the United States, the West's political and economic giant, to address the crisis -- a resounding vote of no confidence a year before the disastrous U.S. Congressional budget struggle. 


These numbers, put bluntly, are staggering. 



Angry, violent civil disturbances, first in Paris and now in London, have revealed enormous tinderboxes of alienation. With the gap between rich and poor -- between philosophical democracy's matchless promise and contemporary democracies' transparent inequities -- expanding at a dizzying pace, more explosions are likely and perhaps inevitable. 



Again, in the Middle East and Central Asia, and at home in its urban streets, the Western Alliance is increasingly unable to maintain its values or defend them. 



Think about it..

Love,

Prof. Dr. Alex Abraham Odikandathil