Democratic societies facing a legitimacy crisis

[Ganbare!]

The 2000 US election in which more than 50% of votes failed to elect Al Gore as President, the rejection of the EU Constitution treaty in the 2005 referendum by Holland that still managed get-around against voters will via parliamentary ratification as well as countless weekly affairs all lead me to believe democratic societies are undergoing a severe legitimacy crisis.

Politicians and some high ranking public servants act like a mixture of a new mobility (lack of popular control mechanisms/use of power for personal gain) and celebrities because of mediatic overexposure and the increasing weight of private lives instead of political programs in major elections: think of Obama's victory through clever storytelling.

What do you think? Any solutions?

[betahat]

Dictatorship by me.

Seriously, democracy is sometimes overrated. There are good governments that are fairly authoritarian and undemocratic, and bad ones that are fully democratic. Democracies tend to be more responsive to serious problems- preventing serious catastrophes, the most blatant corruption, the very worst outcomes - but not so good at taking pre-emptive action or investing in the future. And then the outcome of any democracy depends a lot on the details - how easy it is for a minority to gain absolute control and thereby enact an ambitious agenda.

I think you can do a few things to make democracy better
-full public financing of campaigns
-mandatory voting (with a fine for violation)
-more civics in school, good public television aimed at informing people
but there will still be lots of problems.

[Ganbare!]

I agree that dictatorship can sometimes serve the public's interest better than democracy but it often implies there will be voiceless minority since it is unrepresented, the same problem exists to a lesser extent in democracies nonetheless.

Paradoxically, I should support mandatory voting because that would suppose more people voting liberal since democrats of modest social backgrounds vote less than the rest of the population. But I don't, really, I don't, a population with little understanding of politics can become a threat to democracy by voting for populist personalities in times of crisis. I agree with your suggestion of increasing civics in school but it won't solve the current generation's lack of education and even a significant fringe of the future generations.

The lack of control or participatory mechanisms in representative democracy roughly allow politicians to do a half-ass job during 90% of their tenure then months prior to the election date promise stuff again to be reelected and if they don't it doesn't matter, the only option citizens have most of the time is to vote for another slacker but from a different party!

Democracy is generally by far the least undesirable system as it strikes a good balance between risky dictatorship and potentially chaotic direct democracy but it is not desirable in its current form e.g representative, instead I suggest it shifts to deliberative democracy in which people have their say in the policy/decision-making process.

[quiapo]

Australia has mandatory voting, with fines for those not voting; I am not sure the outcome is any different, since options are limited to the policies of the major parties.
It is difficult to ascertain where power lies in a democracy; lobby groups, the media, idealogy of a dominant elite, are part of a complexity in which perhaps the elected government acts as a weather vane, the resultant of various forces pushing in several directions.