In 2021, the second year of exercising pandemic suppressions of freedoms, the level of democracy that the average inhabitant of the planet enjoyed globally dropped to the level of 1989! In just two years, we lost 30 years of building that fragile layer of democracy and freedoms that we thought was a civilizational achievement made of graphene, until recently the strongest material on earth. One third of the world lived last year in some form of authoritarian system.
These are the data from the research center of the University of Gothenburg, which warns of further erosion of democracy through distrust in institutions. In liberal democratic states, of course. And then these same liberal states with diminished democracy accuse other states of autocracy (Hungary, for example), and in some cases even of fascism (Sweden increasingly).
So what is it then with democracy? Is there a correct and another one? Which democracy is the EU leadership defending by attacking the democracy of rogue countries?
Kristijan Kotarski from the Faculty of Political Science says that we need to distinguish between liberal democracy and populist democracy, where liberal implies a greater dispersion of power, the existence of independent institutions such as central banks, independent media, independent judiciary, and various ‘watchdogs’ that warn of potential abuse of power.
– That is the true essence of liberal democracy. In populist democracy, there are not as many checks and elements of oversight and verification. What distinguishes liberal democracy as the best model is also what analysts confirm, for example, when we talk about financial crises Calomiris and Haber clearly state that the probability of a financial crisis is significantly higher in populist democracies than in liberal ones.
