Last Days of Democracy?

With the number of liberal democracies in the world now stagnating; with many third wave democracies deteriorating in their actual democratic performance; with human rights abuses persistent and even increasing, it is time to introspect. 

Why did democracy fail?

Did democracy fail? Well, the evidence in the affirmative appears to be mounting. If we look beyond the form of democracy—a form that is increasingly expected by world culture and organizations—we see erosion and stagnation offsetting liberalization and consolidation. Liberal democracy has stopped expanding in the world, and so has political freedom more generally. If we take the liberal content of democracy seriously, it seems that the third wave of democratic expansion has come to a halt and probably to an end. 

We may or may not see in the coming years the emergence of a few new electoral democracies, but a further sizable increase seems unlikely, given that democratization has already occurred in the countries where conditions are most favorable. In the coming years movement to electoral democracy also seems likely to be offset by movement away from it, as some fledgling electoral democracies in Africa and elsewhere are either blatantly overthrown (as in Gambia and Niger), squelched just before birth (as in Nigeria), or strangled (more or less slowly) by deterioration in the fairness of contest and the toleration of opposition (as in Peru, Cambodia, and some of the former Communist states). Even in established democracies like USA, India, or UK, undemocratic deviations are being tolerated widely. In these circumstances more and more countries may seek to satisfy ritually the expectation of ‘democracy’ through its most hollow form, some type of pseudo-democracy.

When expansion in the number of democracies and the overall level of democratic-ness in the world halts for a sustained period (say, five to ten years), it seems reasonable to conclude that the democratic wave has come to an end. At least, this marks the end of a ‘short wave’ of democratization. 

Why?

I think we all need to look at the decisions, or conclusions we drew in the past. On all matters that can be examined objectively, namely, physical science, medicine, etc., each one of the principles, theorems, or explanations, we used to hold is high esteem, are turning out to be incorrect. Why can't we think that on all other matters we are not able to observe such ambiguities only because we are not able to make an objective assessment? Had we been able to, we would have found, just like the erroneous notions of physical entities, which we are now correcting often, we are holding on to wrong ideas in other areas of life, like governance, which we now need to set right.

When governments fail, or when unsuitable leaders take over control of countries or issues, rather than pointing to certain specific causes like external interference, or an internal one like a temple, we need to understand those things as another sign of the imminent failure of democracy.

It is known, the presence of many nonmagnetic atoms (even the strongest magnet won't have 100% atoms, magnetic), cannot prevent the magnet from acting as one.