New World Disorder: By the time Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full\u002Don war of conquest in Ukraine last February, democracy was already in the…
On that much, the institutions and agencies that track the health of democracy worldwide all agree. The Pew Research Center, Freedom House, Cambridge University’s Centre for the Future of Democracy, the University of Gothenburg’s Varieties of Democracy Institute and so on, all say the same.Sign up to receive daily headline news from Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
According to the Varieties of Democracy Institute, however, the withering has been underway for much longer, more like three decades — almost from the moment the Cold War ended. That’s when globalized free trade really started to take off. “Since 1992,” the V-Dem Institute found, “an unprecedented 36 democratic regimes have broken down and autocratization processes have been set in motion in more countries than ever before.
Democracies are losing every advantage earned by the sacrifices of earlier generations. The advantages the autocracies have gained — unburdened by the restraints of democratic accountability, human rights laws or even prohibitions against slave labour — include access to western markets, western capital, luxury real-estate boltholes for their most privileged kleptocrats and circles of power and influence in London, Rome, Washington and Ottawa.
As for Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can’t quite be situated as a “sunny ways” version of Orban or Erdogan, but a deeper diplomatic and trade relationship with China has been the Trudeau government’s undiminished foreign policy preoccupation. Even after the 1,019-day captivity of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, old habits die hard.
While recent surveys show that most Canadians tend to be quite satisfied with the way democracy is functioning in this country, Canada is by no means immune to wealth-gap alienation. Over the past seven years, house prices have risen more than 40 per cent faster than incomes. Of the 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada has the second-highest house price to income ratio. Inflation has just reached a 40-year high.
Two years ago, the Cambridge Centre found that public confidence in democracy was at its lowest point in the United States, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and western Europe. Last year, a Pew Foundation survey of 17 advanced economies recorded a median of 56 per cent of respondents saying their political system needs major changes or complete reformation.
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