Democracies don’t die at the hands of military despots anymore. Now, elected autocrats use a new template to smother democracy: changing the rules of the game. Stephen Levitsky, professor of government at Harvard University, says that “capturing the referees” and “changing the playing field” are ways to stifle democracy. Democracy now dies at the ballot box, literally.

Globally, democracy is going through an intense phase of regression. Democracy finds itself in distress and is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. India’s democratic success, despite massive poverty and illiteracy, confounded legions of naysayers. Eminent British journalist and writer Bernard Levin went so far as to say, “If democracy dies in India, the end of democracy itself will be in sight.”

Long lauded for bearing the torch of democracy, India today exemplifies the global democratic recession. Today, the world’s largest democracy is increasingly viewed as a “flawed democracy” and an “electoral autocracy”. Oxford professor Maya Tudor argues that India’s recent downgrade “to a hybrid regime is a major influence on the world’s autocratisation”.

Is The Romance With Democracy Over

When hawks were hawks and doves were doves, American democracy theorists used to say that democracies don’t fight each other. Democracy’s long run has ended. Today, public dissatisfaction with democracy outweighs satisfaction across 12 high-income countries that the Pew Research Centre has surveyed consistently since 2017.

As British academic Catherine Rowett argues, democracy survives on lies. Plato, in The Republic, famously said that a noble lie binds society together. Modern democracy also depends on a democratic myth: equal votes and equal capacity. Plato’s ideal state has become a........

© Free Press Journal