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Democracy & Governance

Liberal democracies are stuck in the middle of geopolitical divergence

COVID-19 is precipitating the emergence of a new world order, characterised by waning American leadership and a shift of power towards China. In this context, Western democracies will be challenged on cooperation and unity.

Nobody was expecting this decade to begin with such domestic and international disruption. Currently, three billion people wait to be released from their homes, hoping for a short-lived quarantine. Regardless, the socio-political impact will be much longer lasting. COVID-19 has uncovered deficiencies of the post-industrial world order, showing that globalisation constantly hangs by a thread. In particular, the doubtful response from some international institutions has pushed certain economies and governments towards more isolationism. As countries envision their role in the post-COVID-19 world, the international stage is readjusting.

Multilateral world order

For the past fifty years, much of the world has tended towards a Western model of multilateralism and integration. International organisations and laws have become an integral part of the governance system, limiting warfare and improving living standards in many parts of the world. The economic and military dominance of the United States has made it a suitable example to follow in the pursuit of growing trade networks, intensive farming, nuclear dissuasion, and political liberalisation.

Withering leadership

Even before the current crisis, there were already signs of this world order dwindling. The digital revolution has challenged institutions’ legitimacy and distributed power into the hands of new actors. It has changed the way we work, trade, and learn. Such economic transformation has complemented the rise of China-centred Asia into a powerhouse of innovation and investment, which comes as the primary challenge to American leadership.

US President Donald Trump has tended towards an isolationist strategy rather than cooperation, pulling out of international alliances and institutions, most notably the Iran Nuclear Deal and Trans-Pacific Partnership, creating a vacuum for other nations to exert influence in strategic regions. Even if the upcoming American election were to turn the tide, four years of refusing multilateralism has deteriorated American leadership.

Opportunity for influence

These changes look set to be exacerbated by COVID-19. Trump’s EU travel ban and failed acquisition of vaccine patents will not be forgotten in Europe anytime soon. Political scientist Joseph Nye has been amongst those to criticise the Trump administration’s ‘America First’ position, which appears to focus more on competition with China than addressing the spread of the disease.

Alongside this, others have played a leadership-like role. In March this year, Europe emerged as the pandemic’s epicentre. In response, China sent aid and Russia deployed personnel to Italy before any EU member state. China has also made an effort to present itself as a reliable partner, increasing its involvement in international institutions and exporting masks and medical kits around the world.

China sees the pandemic as an opportunity to extend its influence and power. President Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan drew eyes to the efficiency of his state governance in fighting the virus. The CPC has found an opening to diffuse its propaganda, in the hope that its political system will come out strong. Nonetheless, China is already facing a resurgence in cases, and the resulting economic blow will be tough. Lack of certain medicines in Europe has sparked debate on Chinese overreliance. Industries are relocating closer to home or to other parts of Asia. It remains to be seen whether China can continue to dominate supply chains.

The place of Europe

In Europe, individual member state action and a sluggish initial response from Brussels prompted leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and former European Commission President Jacques Delors to warn that lack of solidarity would have profound effects on the European project after the end of the crisis.

‘Westlessness’ was the slogan at the Munich Security Conference this year, or the decades long shift of power balance away from the old continent. The EU must use the period after the COVID-19 pandemic to provide momentum for finding a new purpose on the global stage, taking leadership on matters of climate change and data regulation. This can only be done as a united bloc. Current emergency measures should be used to reduce internal fragility.

A more independent Europe should increase collaboration with countries traditionally alienated by the US. In particular, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for more alignment with Russia and Turkey, who are reemerging as neighbouring poles of influence in their own right. The UK would also be best placed aligning with European allies, given Trump increasingly views Britain, much like the rest of the old continent, as a battleground against his Chinese rival.

Barnabé Colin is a graduate student at the LSE’s Department of Government.

Technology and policy – can democracy keep up with technological advancements?

Blockchain. Cryptocurrencies. Artificial intelligence. Algorithms. People are abuzz with technological advancements that are impacting our relationship with people, politics, and consumer culture. But can democratic policymaking keep up with the never-ending waves of new developments

Technology and policy

The 21st Century has been rife with issues and scandals arising from technological advancements. From the labour conditions issue with Foxconn in 2010, to the more recent Cambridge Analytica scandal involving the exploitation of users’ data for political purposes in 2018, technology has multiple implications and cautionary tales that could hinder progress. Yet, despite these disruptions and challenges, technology continues to evolve. With the speed at which advancements continue – which demonstrate even more implications for people and society – can policy keep up?

At first glance, it appears that democratic policy-making is struggling. The rate at which new technologies are being rolled out, tested and deployed is exponentially faster than the rate at which governments and policymakers are able to understand and implement measures with which to reduce the consequences that arise. For instance, we can look at the implications of algorithms which are currently being used in various public services and policing, and the various, though inadvertent, biases that may and have already arisen.

Furthermore, there are multiple disruptive, yet necessary, technologies which do not have the proper foundation and support in policy for them to be invested in and deployed where currently needed in vital public services, identifying another pace at which policy and democracy is failing to keep up.

AI and policymaking

A key emerging technology that has significant potential, as well as risks, is the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) in the UK compared to the rest of Europe. AI has become an exciting buzzword for policymakers and politicians, who herald it as the most important innovation for the next-generation economy. However, AI is also a competitive race in which multiple countries are engaged, many pushing to be a world-leader in the integration of technology into industry. This includes the UK, which released their AI Sector Deal in 2019, aiming to scale up investment and industrial opportunities to achieve goals such as green growth and mobility.

According to consultancy McKinsey & Company, the integration of AI into industrial and commercial sectors could deliver an economic boost of 22% by 2030 if it overcomes the challenges of making it commercially successful. In contrast, the EU is at a more complicated stage, given that member states have different levels of readiness for its integration. However, there still remains an underlying issue surrounding policy – particularly around the issues of regulation and ethics.

MPs on both sides of the chamber have raised concerns over the use of advanced AI and algorithms in facial recognition technology, citing not only that it is a dangerous miscarriage of individual privacy, but also that it can be influenced by various biases. However, the current disputes are granted the loophole of legality given the absence of pre-existing policy and laws surrounding the use of such technology. The EU has already begun to consider stricter regulations given these immediate issues, even going so far as proposing a potential 5-year ban on the use of such technologies.

In 2018, the EU published multiple frameworks for AI, from guidelines on ethics in AI to the High Level Working Group on Artificial Intelligence. The UK, by contrast, has identified the flaws and key policy areas on AI by the House of Lords with particular focus on industrial strategy. Nevertheless, there remain gaps between these two publications that must be filled both independently and as a result of Brexit, which widens the discrepancy between technological advancements and policy and regulation.

Making policy work

We are well within an era defined by technological advancements, where innovation is key in industrial, social, political, economic, and environmental sectors. Policy needs to be established and must keep pace with the progress that is happening at such a rapid pace.

Democracy has already come under threat from technology, with further scandals such as interference in the US elections, skewed algorithms for political content, and even enabling the spread of fake news. As such, governments should be able to adapt and evolve with such scientific advancements, as well as secure accountability for citizens in a growing technological era. Otherwise there may be dangerous implications for democracy as we know it.

Micheil Page is Head of Agora’s Energy & Climate Programme.

Reforming democracy: the revolution of citizens’ assemblies

Citizens’ assemblies seem like the epitome of good democracy, allowing ordinary citizens to have their say on major policy issues. The recent climate change citizens’ assemblies in France and Britain provided valuable insights for the future potential of deliberative democracy.

What are citizens’ assemblies?

Citizens’ assemblies aim to strengthen the deliberative nature of the decision-making process in policy-making. Deliberative democracy is strengthened when citizens have the opportunity to debate issues before decisions are made on them. In the UK, there have been three notable examples of citizens’ assemblies: Democracy Matters in Autumn 2015, Brexit in 2017, and climate change in January 2020. Citizens’ assemblies have taken place in many countries, including France, Belgium, United States, Australia, and Poland.

In these examples, the assemblies brought together citizens and policy-makers in a sphere where citizens can directly voice their views. Through this process, the public is able to debate key issues with politicians and regional leaders, which brings the issues closer to local communities by giving them the opportunity to share their knowledge and experiences. In theory, this leads to more effective outcomes, with more informed citizens and more legitimised decisions.

In this way, citizens’ assemblies try to address a democratic deficit by adopting a more democratic model. Ordinarily, this opportunity for people to have their voices heard on pertinent issues is limited. In an ideal democracy, this should exist by default. But, in democracies where the integrity of parliaments is questioned and representation is limited on high levels, there is a need for a platform that can fill these gaps. Citizens’ assemblies aim to achieve this by developing the principles of random selection and deliberation through inviting a group of representative people to share their views.

People-shaped solutions to global issues

The use of citizens’ assemblies in both France and the UK in January 2020 provide an opportunity to learn about the role of these fora in solving global issues.

A downfall of the Brexit citizens’ assembly in 2017 was that it was poorly publicised; in fact, many politicians called for such an initiative on Brexit afterwards, unaware that one had been held already. It was strongly implied that any outcome of this citizens’ assembly would be dismissed unless it offered a recommendation that politicians wanted to hear. This gives the impression of hypocrisy: are citizens’ assemblies only effective when they offer what politicians want?

But the latest climate change assemblies provide hope. In 2020, 110 randomly selected citizens became members of the UK Climate Change Citizens’ Assembly, and in France 150 citizens were randomly selected by sortition.

This citizens’ assembly was called for in response to one of the three core demands of the climate activist group, Extinction Rebellion. Although climate change is an international problem, Extinction Rebellion saw value in engaging citizens on a local level to have their views heard by local leaders. This allowed the issue to transcend traditional partisan party lines that can lead to divisive policies, and alleviated the risk that people’s experiences could be forgotten in central policy-making.

In the UK, members tried to inform Parliament on how policies can be redefined to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The members learned about climate change from experts before forming their decisions. In France, members also discussed measures to fight against climate change, and both assemblies raised challenging questions to leaders, spanning from how homes should be heated to how businesses and governments should tackle climate change together. One goal of these assemblies was to put pressure on politicians to act faster; this is especially important since climate change is a pressing issue that cannot wait for a typical five-year term length.

The future of citizens’ assemblies

The presence of climate assemblies across borders, whilst debating the same issue, suggests there is an important role that citizens’ assemblies can adopt. This comes at a time when the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy found that 57.5% of people surveyed were dissatisfied with democracy in 2019 (compared to 47.5% in the mid-1990s).

If democratic institutions are not meeting the needs or expectations of people, then one way to address this could be by establishing more legitimacy and bringing democracy closer to people with citizens’ assemblies. The examples from the UK and France helped to bring together ordinary people to debate global issues. The long-term outcomes of these climate assemblies is yet to be seen, but for the future, it could lead to a more interactive democracy, where citizens’ assemblies are seen as a normal feature of government decision-making.

Preeti Pasricha is co-Head of Agora’s Democracy & Governance Programme

Climate change could transform the way we think about democracy

Though it is mainly seen as an environmental catastrophe today, climate change will fundamentally alter our political and economic institutions, including popular rule. For democracy to survive, we need to expand it in definition and practice as part of the response to climate change.

When historians review the 21st century, they may well conclude that climate change ran through all the historical, political, and economic shifts of the era. As environmental collapses destabilise economic systems through resource scarcity, alter societies through mass migration, and jeopardise national security through environmental hazards, global political institutions will fundamentally shift.

One of these institutions we hold dear more than most is democracy, defined by US President Abraham Lincoln as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Although we focus on the populist election victories in the West since 2016 as the key challenge to democracy today, there may be a greater one hidden around the corner: what will the impact of climate change be?

A quick prognosis will not yield positive results. The short-term orientation of democratic term limits do not lend themselves to the long-term solutions climate change requires, and the unpalatability of the necessary reforms mean it is safer for democratic politicians to appeal to the rhetoric of climate change, rather than make real progress.

This was seen in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s proposition that Canada should declare a climate emergency, shortly before he approved the construction of a trans-mountain oil pipeline. For re-election, the bad publicity was preferable to rising fuel costs.

Additionally, solutions must be on a global scale to have a realistic chance of success at fighting climate change. Treaties such as the 2015 Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal, proposed in May 2019 by the incoming European Commission, are an effective way to make sure every country takes action against climate change. In a world were these solutions have to be increasingly globalised, is there any room for the voice of small communities?

These arguments obscure the fact that climate change opposition can empower democratic institutions. For one thing, the notion that elected representatives try to avoid long-term climate policies is only really the case in majoritarian democracies such the UK; adherence to climate change policies is higher in more proportional democracies. This includes the many continental European nations with popular green parties, such as the Dutch GroenLinks who found popularity in elections in 2017.

Moreover, climate change activism is galvanizing young people to more participation in, not disenchantment with, democratic politics. This has led to increased support for presidential candidates in the US with strong climate change policies, and the global school strikes for the climate (we might also expect politicians to respond faster to climate change if the franchise were extended to 16-year-olds).

Additionally, viewing international agreements as globalisation out of the control of the masses is misleading when it comes to climate agreements. They are not imposed on citizens unfairly through unrepresentative organisations, rather people are encouraging states to abide by commitments though the international arena. This is through both traditional political participation and through activism taken to an enormous scale, such as the six to seven million people protesting in late September in a global climate strike. The decision for dozens of US cities to continue adhering to the Paris Climate Agreement, after the American refusal to abide by it in 2017, also reflects the support of communities beyond the state for these arrangements.

From here, we can see democratic principles beginning to shift. States currently employing majoritarian systems of democracy may have to make them more representative if they want to avoid climate disaster, and popular protests play an ever-increasing role in influencing policy makers. Yet while protests are traditionally national affairs in support of state aims, these new climate protests challenge the state system by organising worldwide for common goals and demanding that states adhere to international agreements. These emerging patterns point the way to a future where popular rule does not conform to traditional two-party power structures, nor even to state borders.

Lincoln gave his famous definition during the American Civil War, claiming that Union soldiers died so that democracy “shall not perish from the earth”. Soon we will find ourselves in a similar position, but the people shall no longer be of one nation, but of one, dying, earth. Maintaining democracy in the face of global challenges is far from inevitable, in fact it is unlikely. But maintaining democracy has always been a challenge, and in continuing its maintenance we must widen and deepen the idea of what it could mean to a broader, more global, and fundamentally fairer process.

Ross Twinn is a history student at the London School of Economics.