How can we understand that in Panama, the percentage of people willing to justify a coup d’état to establish an authoritarian order has increased from 11% to 38% in a decade? I use the example of a Latin American country that, according to various studies measuring the quality of democracy, has ranked among the half-dozen nations with the highest levels for years. Similarly, when analyzing the attitudes of young people in Spain, a recent study by the Sociological Research Center (CIS) found that 37.6% of those aged 18 to 24—five percentage points more than those aged 25 to 34—agree with the statement: “I wouldn’t mind living in a less democratic country if it guaranteed me a better quality of life.” The national average is 26.8%.
What does this outlook foresee?
The democracy that, at the end of the last century, was assumed—using Juan J. Linz’s famous phrase—to be “the only casino in town” is now up for auction. It is becoming less and less dystopian to consider scenarios where democratic practice is sidelined when defining new rules of power and different levels of public empowerment. However, fundamental questions remain: Who governs, under what authority, and for what purpose? Likewise, it is crucial to clarify the principles that define relationships among individuals, their rights, how their differences are settled, and how their conflicts are resolved.
For a long time there has been a widespread reflection on the limits of the democratizing strategy based exclusively on regular elections and their formal structure without having become aware of a very severe structural shortcoming regarding the weakness, and in many cases absence, of the state as a complex institutional whole. The social and cultural bases on which the different political regimes are anchored have also been neglected. These are particularly sensitive aspects for Latin America.
Democracies have abounded in which the state has been conspicuously absent, allowing three types of situations: the lack of the state’s monopoly on violence with the consequent profusion of citizen insecurity, the abandonment of the protection of public space, and the fact that the products of politics in the form of public policies do not reach the people or do not address their most urgent and immediate concerns. All of this makes politics alien. The democracy that comes to be its reflection is the loser.
The subsequent result is the capture of the state, or of its functions, by different types of elites and their perpetuation in power. In the end, democratic mechanisms are not only dispensable, they are also dysfunctional in a scenario in which new ways of doing politics must be proposed in angry, dissatisfied and semi-informed societies where, in addition, intermediation is topsy-turvy and the fiscal crisis is a widespread endemic evil. On the other hand, the current era dominated by social networks and affective polarization has blurred the line between truth and conspiracy theory and, at the same time, has segmented the population into ephemeral communities structured by weak ties. The situation reflects a social fabric that is fraying while public space is emptying in a scandalous situation of deteriorating public services.
Likewise, patterns of extreme inequality, informality, and the exclusion of broad sectors of society have persisted. The prevailing cultural values have fostered forms of behavior alien to tolerance, close to patriarchy, and weak in the accumulation of social capital.
The new scenario also accommodates a conjunction of situations whose effect subverts the traditional patterns of democratic functioning in a rather unedifying manner. The Trumpist disruption, due to its global multiplier effect, serves as an incentive for the masses to distance themselves from democracy. So too do the erratic behaviors that have become common among the political class, ranging from the unchecked practice of exchanging messages devoid of respect and moderation between heads of state—leading to the trivialization of their office—to the confrontation between state powers through non-institutional mechanisms. The most recent example of the former is the unseemly interference of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in matters related to Mexico’s security policy, while an example of the latter is Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves’ call for a popular march against the attorney general.
Under these circumstances, the question that heads this article may be meaningful to broad sectors of society. Although the legitimacy-efficiency binomial remains the foundation of any political regime, the profound transformations brought about by the digital revolution have had a significant impact, disrupting this foundation. The exponential development of artificial intelligence opens a scenario in which understanding the preferences of citizens is no longer a pipe dream. Today, comprehending Rousseau’s general will is feasible. Moreover, I am aware that a large sector of legislative and governmental advisory teams has been using artificial intelligence for months to produce reports, analyses, and proposals.
In addition to all this, the primary functions of political parties—aggregating and prioritizing preferences—have become obsolete. This coincides with the deterioration of their role as intermediaries and their decreasing influence in selecting individuals who will pursue a political career. If politics is reduced to electing individuals with increasingly less experience, who are now expected to manage decision-making processes shaped by sophisticated programs, might the method of random selection be considered as a way to address electronic democracy, as Isaac Asimov envisioned seventy years ago in his story “Franchise”?
Democracy is also a way of life, one that is currently under particular threat. From the supply side, it is endangered by the unrestricted power of large technology corporations allied with political power, and from the demand side, by digitally alienated masses whose recent literacy demands new forms of political expression that are still largely unknown. Only a widespread proactive awareness of these phenomena can halt the senseless path that has been opening up for some time.
*Machine translation proofread by Janaína da Silva.
Autor
Director of CIEPS - International Center for Political and Social Studies, AIP-Panama. Professor Emeritus at the University of Salamanca and UPB (Medellín). Latest books: "The profession of politician" (Tecnos Madrid, 2020) and "Traces of a tired democracy" (Océano Atlántico Editores, 2024).
