emocratic institutions risk decline if they fail to consistently deliver effective governance and maintain public faith. In the United States, federal democratic institutions have consistently failed, over recent decades, to achieve minimal governance goals like producing a budget on time—resulting in loss of faith in the democratic system. This lack of faith has eroded the resilience of the democracy to external attackers, which use domestic information channels, largely social media, to effectively enhance political divisions. Threats to democratic institutions are therefore manifesting both internally and externally and the resulting loss in public faith has a compounding negative effect, creating a downward cycle which is difficult to break.
Fortunately, the answer to both internal and external sources of danger to mature democracies like the U.S. lies in reforming the electoral system to create incentives for the kinds of cooperative behavior that would reverse the cycle of dysfunction and public disillusionment. The strength of a democracy lies in the ability of its citizens to reform the electoral system as the times require. Evidence of this change is apparent across the U.S., where individual states determine the manner of electing federal officials. The old system of partisan primaries, which over time has cemented incentives for elected officials to demonize rather than cooperate with members of opposing parties, is being cast aside by citizen action in many states. What started in places like Alaska, where voters replaced the partisan primary system with a unified non–partisan primary, is gaining momentum, with at least six more states voting this year on adopting similar reforms. These changes are designed to provide electoral incentives to officials, so they can cooperate with each other enough to do basic governing well and pass budgets on time—thereby earning back public faith in democratic institutions. This type of reform has the potential to create a virtuous cycle of increased faith and decreased tribal vitriol and mistrust; which ultimately leads to greater resilience to external efforts of sowing discord.
Pluralistic democracies inherently carry the risk of dysfunction driven by partisan tribalism and ineffective institutions. These systems must be carefully tended over time. Nascent democracies have the burden of establishing public trust in institutions; while mature democracies must consistently evaluate and reform their institutions to continue proper function. Complacency and descent into partisan division is their enemy. That said, with the right tending, democratic institutions can create the kind of resiliency needed to endure internal change and external threats.
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Democracies must reform to survive
Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash
August 7, 2024
As threats to our democratic institutions increase even as faith in those institutions decline, we are entering a difficult to break cycle of compounding negative effects. In mature democracies, the answer lies in reforming the electoral system, writes CPSC’s Rep. Glenn Nye.
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emocratic institutions risk decline if they fail to consistently deliver effective governance and maintain public faith. In the United States, federal democratic institutions have consistently failed, over recent decades, to achieve minimal governance goals like producing a budget on time—resulting in loss of faith in the democratic system. This lack of faith has eroded the resilience of the democracy to external attackers, which use domestic information channels, largely social media, to effectively enhance political divisions. Threats to democratic institutions are therefore manifesting both internally and externally and the resulting loss in public faith has a compounding negative effect, creating a downward cycle which is difficult to break.
Fortunately, the answer to both internal and external sources of danger to mature democracies like the U.S. lies in reforming the electoral system to create incentives for the kinds of cooperative behavior that would reverse the cycle of dysfunction and public disillusionment. The strength of a democracy lies in the ability of its citizens to reform the electoral system as the times require. Evidence of this change is apparent across the U.S., where individual states determine the manner of electing federal officials. The old system of partisan primaries, which over time has cemented incentives for elected officials to demonize rather than cooperate with members of opposing parties, is being cast aside by citizen action in many states. What started in places like Alaska, where voters replaced the partisan primary system with a unified non–partisan primary, is gaining momentum, with at least six more states voting this year on adopting similar reforms. These changes are designed to provide electoral incentives to officials, so they can cooperate with each other enough to do basic governing well and pass budgets on time—thereby earning back public faith in democratic institutions. This type of reform has the potential to create a virtuous cycle of increased faith and decreased tribal vitriol and mistrust; which ultimately leads to greater resilience to external efforts of sowing discord.
Pluralistic democracies inherently carry the risk of dysfunction driven by partisan tribalism and ineffective institutions. These systems must be carefully tended over time. Nascent democracies have the burden of establishing public trust in institutions; while mature democracies must consistently evaluate and reform their institutions to continue proper function. Complacency and descent into partisan division is their enemy. That said, with the right tending, democratic institutions can create the kind of resiliency needed to endure internal change and external threats.
