The Democratic Deficit in the West

[Celerity]

New polling across 9 countries finds citizens displeased with the state of democracy at home. But they support defending democracy in the world—and specifically in Ukraine—within limits.

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-democratic-deficit-in-the-west

Russia’s war on Ukraine has focused the world’s attention on the ideological battle between liberal democracy and totalitarianism—systems of government based on national sovereignty, freedom, the rule of law, and individual rights versus those based on military aggression, societal repression, one-party rule, and state control of people’s lives. President Biden and European leaders clearly understand the stakes in this conflict and so far, they have remained united in supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s criminal actions. As Biden stated in early May, “We either back the Ukrainian people as they defend their country or stand by as Russia continues its atrocities and aggression.” But as the war in Ukraine enters its fourth month, where do the people of western nations stand on defending liberal democracy and democratic freedoms—both at home and abroad?

To get at this and other fundamental questions about how democratic countries are performing today, Global Progress and YouGov conducted the most comprehensive multi-national survey to date examining public attitudes about democratic delivery at home and beliefs about the war in Ukraine. The survey was conducted in early May 2022 with more than 10,000 respondents in 9 western countries to allow for both in-country analysis and comparisons across national borders. TLP was fortunate to help with the design and analysis of this research, along with earlier waves of Global Progress research released ahead of the G7 meeting in Cornwall and the G20 summit in Rome. Combined, these research projects offer unique empirical findings about transnational attitudes on emerging global challenges from the economy and clean energy to immigration and security threats from Russia and China.



This current research offers a clear picture of an emerging democratic deficit in many western countries. Many citizens surveyed express serious concerns about the state of democracy in their home countries. Yet, on the whole, they continue to support democracy in principle and back actions to defend democracy abroad, specifically in Ukraine, within certain limits.

Many democratic nations are failing to deliver at home. The first batch of critical findings in this research involve attitudes about democracy at home. Respondents were asked, “In general, how well or badly do you think democracy (that is, having people elect politicians to make decisions) is working in your country?” Overall, across all 9 countries, 41 percent of citizens say that democracy is working either fairly badly or very badly in their country, with noticeable variations in beliefs that democracy is working well. For example, as seen in the chart below, roughly 60-70 percent of those in Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Norway believe that democracy is working well in their home countries compared to just 40 percent of those in the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain, France, and the United States.

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