Thoughts on Decolonising Democracy

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This paper examines the disturbing and potentially ruinous effects of our crumbling global order on the spirit and substance of democracy, not only within the heartlands of the declining American empire but also in Canada, Germany, South Africa, the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, South Korea and other small and medium-sized outlier democracies which were once its loyal allies. Some gloomy spectators speak of the terminally catastrophic breakdown of the post-1945 rules-based international order and degeneration into economic rivalries, lawlessness and unending savage wars, or perhaps a nuclear war to end all wars. Others say we are returning to a mostly benign era of ‘sovereign’ nation state bargaining and rivalry or instead predict the birth of a new world order variously described as ‘multi-polar’, ‘heteropolar’ or a ‘new medievalism’. In all of this, thoughtful reflection on democracy is of enormous political importance.