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Democracy and distrust
Anna Unger
The past period in European politics has often been labelled the decade of
distrust, characterised by a growing dissatisfaction with democracy, rising
populism, the weakening of liberal democracy, and increasing illiberalism.
Many explain these turbulences with the impacts of the Great Recession of
2007-2008. However, in reality, present-day troubles can be traced back to
the practice of global capitalism and liberal democracy since the 1990s. This
chapter looks into the deeper reasons and dynamics behind the challenges that
European democracies are facing today. It comes to the conclusion that liberal
democracies are under the pressure of endogenous and exogenous problems
alike, and have to deal with both dimensions in parallel therefore. It also offers
the idea of a pluralist democracy, in which no actor, ideology, politician, or social
group can be in a hegemonic position, as an alternative conceptual approach.
Keywords: liberal democracy, distrust, populism, technocracy, political
polarisation
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that a citizen, let’s call her Politeia Republica, had fallen into a coma
somewhere in Europe, let’s say in the middle of the year 2008, and only woke
up thirteen years later. She probably did not notice dramatic political changes
at first sight. Politics had not changed that much: Angela Merkel was still the
Chancellor of Germany, Western European politicians led the most important
EU institutions, Vladimir Putin still ruled Russia, mass-shooting was still a
daily threat to security in the US, and China slowly but surely was becoming
an unavoidable actor in global politics and economy.
However, when she began reading European newspapers, she realised that
politics, both in Europe and around the world, had changed a lot indeed. From
her perspective, the world looked like this: dozens of unknown politicians, who
had been almost nowhere in 2008, were relevant actors and national leaders
now, leading a number of unknown parties and movements, while many
strong actors and parties of the millennium had disappeared from the news.
Politeia probably had to google a lot when following current news: words like