SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST?
Survival of the fittest?
Panellists at The Democracy Forum’s latest roundtable discussion pondered whether democracy can endure amidst America’s inward shift and rising voices from the Global South
US President Trump’s promotion of his ‘America First’ policy has sparked global debate on the future of democracy in a changing world order. To discuss the shifting power dynamics and their impact on democratic principles, The Democracy Forum convened a panel of experts for its latest virtual seminar, ‘Can democracy survive the changing world order amidst the US’ America First policy?’
TDF President Lord Bruce opened up the roundtable by highlighting that, under Trump, the United States, rather than supporting the international status quo, is instead poised to become the leading geopolitical disrupter, undermining global norms, supporting more autocratic regimes – for example, those in Israel, Hungary, and Turkey – and encouraging authoritarian behaviour globally. Quoting a warning from Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, Lord Bruce concluded: ‘You’d have to have your eyes fully closed not to be deeply concerned and outraged about the vacuum that Trump is operating now. At this moment the idea of an accountable representative system, as the framers of the constitution wrote… is no longer present’.
Answering the central question posed by the seminar with an unequivocal ‘yes’ was Richard Youngs, Senior Fellow on the Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program at Carnegie Europe. Democracy can survive and it can prosper, he believed, although it will not be easy, as the challengesit faces are multiple, persistentand profound, and have been gathering force over many years. Yet the presence of global civic activism and new democratic experimentssuggest there is hope for the continuance of democracy, as we live in a time of democratic action, not apathy. We shouldn’t forget, added Youngs, that autocracies are also suffering problems, as leaders begin along autocratic paths, then simply don’t have the institutional capacity to follow through those autocratic projects and so face democratic backlash from their own populations.
For Giselle Bosse, Full Professor in EU External Democracy Promotion & Jean Monnet Chair in EU International Relations at Maastricht University, the focus was on the European Union’s role in supporting democracy,both in its closer neighbourhood and through enlargement policy. She underscored the EU’s internal-external democracy paradox, highlighting how internal backsliding weakens its external democratic influence, andemphasising how democratic resilience lies in transparency and civic engagement. Bosse also pointed to intense geopolitical pressures facing democratic reforms,such as the Russian federation’s conventional and hybrid warfare and disinformation campaigns, China’s ‘alternative development’ models, and populist leadership and illiberal reforms within EU accession countries themselves.
America is poised to become the leading geopolitical disrupter, undermining global norms
Fortunately, despite Trump’s violations of, and challenges to, the rule of law, there is a lot of pushback in the US from courts and the public, argued Dawn Brancati, Senior Lecturer in International and Public Affairs at the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs at Brown University. As for democracy abroad, it will survive the US’s‘America First’ policy, because US foreign policy has always been primarily driven by America’s national interests, regardless of the party or president that has been in power. As a result, sometimes the US has supported democracy abroad and sometimes it has supported non-democratic powers that are geopolitically important to the United States. What is new, added Brancati,is that, under Trump, we do not have an ‘America First’ policy but rather a ‘Trump First’ policy; therefore the US will support democracy or democratic countries where it is in Trump’s personal interest, to do so, and non-democracies where that is in his personal interest.
‘India is the only country that believes in both a multipolar Asia and a multipolar world’
The longer a country is a democracy, the better the democratic dividend
Considering the performance of democracies and authoritarian states, Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountabilityand Representation (CEDAR), said that the latest round of cross-national analysis tells us that democracies actually grow more than authoritarian states and a lot of the research on parts of the world that might need to grow the most, like sub-Saharan Africa,shows that not only do democracies out-perform authoritarian states on factors such as economic growth, but the longer a country is a democracy, the better that democratic dividend is. He also warned of the growing influence of authoritarian middle powers such as the UAE and Turkey, and underscoredthe use of cross-border repression and corruption as tools that weaken global democracy and affect even UK institutions.
In awider discussion, the panellists consideredthe real-world effects of current US policies under Trump. For instance, recent US aid cuts have harmed democracies like Malawi, while the decline in support affected election quality and civic institutions, although internal democratic resilience did still persist. While it was noted that autocratic regimes such as China and Russia can ‘deliver’ for their populations, democracies offer better long-term governance. From the panel there were calls for democratic alliances and an understanding of the erosion of democracy as a security risk, as well as suggestions that the EU should amplify democratic promotion without neocolonial undertones. Ultimately, true change comes from grassroots civic agency, not from top-down interventions.
In conclusion,there was a general consensus among the panel that democracy as a means of governance is inherently a struggle. In response to the central question posed during the seminar, the speakers believed it can and will survive if civic agency and institutions hold. Even though the quality of democracies will fluctuate, the existence of protest movements and court rulings illustrate that democracy is resilient.
MJ Akbar is the author of several books, including Doolally Sahib and the Black Zamindar: Racism and Revenge in the British Raj, and Gandhi: A Life in Three Campaigns
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