A new report has found serious concerns about the state of global democracy as more countries slip in democratic performance.
In the report, 94 countries — or just over half of those surveyed — showed a decline in at least one of the key democracy indicators between 2019 and 2024, according to the report. In comparison, only a third made progress.
So, what do you think: Will democracy still exist in 100 years?
To get closer to an answer, a definition of democracy may help.
Here's a simple one:
Democracy means that people themselves set the rules for their coexistence.
Such rules for coexistence have existed throughout human history.
Only the justifications have changed.
Sometimes the justification came from God (the 10 Commandments), lay in human nature (sociobiology), followed regularity in history (Karl Marx), or had its roots in the human structure (the Frankfurt School).
The goal of these justifications was and is, as the economist Karl Homann wrote (in "Ökonomik - Eine Einführung"), "to force people's fickle opinions and desires under binding rules so that social order and the reliability of mutual behavioural expectations are maintained."
But in a pluralistic global society, are there still such justifications that people can agree on?
Religion, at least, has outlived its usefulness as a means of explanation and integration. Consequently, we can no longer rely on an external authority. Instead, we humans must determine for ourselves and together the rules by which we want to interact with one another.
However, I don't see why these rules shouldn't be found. I don't think anyone wants to give up control over the rules that govern how we interact with one another. And I also see no signs that the desire for a self-determined life will disappear.
On the contrary, the desire for fulfilment has perhaps never been greater. At least the opportunities to live such a life have never been more extensive.
In this respect, there's no need to worry about democracy.
The danger, however, lurks elsewhere. That a group succeeds in overriding the rules of such a self-determined society. Putin, for example, simply doesn't ask the people (any more) what they want (and very certainly not if they want him as ruler). He has abolished democracy in Russia by using the means of democracy.
So, the real danger is not that people lose their desire for a self-determined life. It is that too many underestimate how fragile democracy is. Authoritarians — from Putin to populists elsewhere — exploit democratic rules until they no longer need them. Whether democracy will still exist in 100 years will depend less on our wish for freedom, and more on our vigilance: on our ability to resist those who only pretend to play by the rules until they hold power.