South Africa stands out as a country that strongly defends democracy. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
Celebrated annually on 15 September, the International Day of Democracy is an opportunity for us to reflect on what exactly is democracy and why it is not faring too well in today’s world.
At its most basic, democracy denotes rule by the people. The word is derived from the Greek demos, meaning people, and kratos, meaning rule. The practice of democracy traces its 2500-year-old history back to the political system of the ancient Greek city-states, notably Athens, and the various forms of collective decision-making that had followed in other parts of the world, including Africa.
Democracy is still understood as the rule of the people with elections as its central canon, but the wider conversation is now focused primarily on the democracy-autocracy dichotomy and on what has become known around the world as “democratic backsliding”.
The shifting sands of geopolitics have been settling down in a zig-zag manner dividing the world into democracies and autocracies in ways vastly different from the straightforward division of the Cold War era. Then it was all about democracy under the leadership of the United States, facing off communism under the aegis of the Soviet Union. And it was about a clash of the conflicting ideologies of capitalism and state-controlled economy.
Today’s bipolarity has a much more complex character. Protagonists of the autocracy network, notably Russia, China, Iran and their proxies, still have one common denominator: a disdain for democracy, which they try to disparage and undermine in a number of ways.
Democracies, on the other hand, neither present a united front nor articulate a clear shared vision. They are also internally weakened. Many — including the United States, the formerly preeminent model of democracy — are rent apart by polarisation and are threatened by the antidemocratic character of right-wing populism. The real or imagined fears of “the other” giving substance to divisive xenophobic narratives underlying populism have been with us forever; we are all tribal, after all. But what is new is that populist movements have now moved from the shadowy fringes to mainstream and exert ever growing political influence contributing to autocratisation.
The combined effect of the various factors on global democratic backsliding is well documented by data. The 2024 Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Report shows that in 2003, 11 countries were autocratising; this figure jumped to 42 in 2023. And whereas in 2003 about 50% of the world’s population lived in autocracies, in 2023 the percentage of people living under autocratic rule rose to 71%.
But, while external political influences and disruptive new technologies certainly play a role, backsliding is best understood through a primary focus on the domestic political actors both at the elite and citizens levels.
Democracy is an answer to the question of who rules and requires that the people be sovereign and able to choose their representatives in free and fair elections. In and by itself, this is not enough for the proper functioning of democracy. The missing element is liberalism, a word derived from Latin meaning free and referring to the limits of power incumbent upon those elected to office. These limits are designed to protect the rights and freedoms of the individual and oblige those in power to uphold the constitution and the rule of law. The door to autocracy often opens when these limits are ignored or eliminated by the elected representatives.
The inevitable bottom-up reaction comes from citizens once they start to perceive their democracy for the sham it has become. They get fed up with leaders who are not only unaccountable but who are often also corrupt and unable to provide jobs, assure personal security and offer a better quality of life for their people. Studies show that for most citizens, regardless of where on the planet they might reside, effective governance is more important than political participation rights. If democracy does not deliver the goods, a change of regime might appear to desperate people to be the only way in which to seek a better quality of daily life.
This has been amply demonstrated in Africa. In just four years, from 2020-23, seven countries had experienced regime change through military coups. And while the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States have condemned the coups, citizens in some of those countries cheered openly in the streets.
The concern is that military takeovers are part of a much broader political crisis of democracy on the continent as popular antidemocratic sentiments run beyond the coup belt. According to Afrobarometer data, the proportion of citizens rating their country as a democracy has dropped by three percentage points across 32 countries from 2014 to 2023.
Against this background, South Africa is one of a handful of countries that stand out as a beacon of hope on the continent. South Africans have also become deeply disappointed and disgruntled over state corruption with its associated service delivery failures across all the sectors and amidst unacceptably high levels of unemployment and crime. And yet, instead of resorting to arms to vent their anger, they went to the poles and were heard.
The resultant government of national unity (GNU) was formed against all odds in record time, especially in comparison with the marathon wait of several weeks or even months it takes some of the leading western democracies to reach agreements on coalition governments.
The GNU is still under probation, but the mood of the country has been perceptively lifted in the expectation of a better future for all. Let’s celebrate that promise.
Professor Ursula van Beek is the director of the Centre for Research on Democracy at Stellenbosch University.