Western Democracies vantage themselves to be the only liberal democratic, rule-of-law system in the world. However, their democracies are not in such good shape and cannot be propagated in such terms.
The state of American democracy
The American judicial system is difficult to fit within the standards of liberal democracy and respect for human rights. The French Frédéric Pierucci, a former executive of Alstom, had firsthand experience as he was a victim of the extraterritorial system of American laws, which, for him, was “a typical imperialist system.” For the author, the judicial system is based on negotiations and deals, some obscure and lacking material evidence. “This penal system is completely delusional and entirely perverted”, asserted Pierucci in his book “The American Trap.” The extremely high costs of lawyers and procedures mean that the majority do not have a proper defence (public defence usually aligns with the prosecutor’s deal offer), which is why 98.5% are found guilty, similar to the Ceausescu regime, according to Pierrucci.
Furthermore, according to a Yale study, American representatives at the national congress spend about 70% of their time with donors matters, including lobbyists, and only 30% with their voters. The American people want better infrastructure, healthcare, education, housing, accessible justice and more, but the political system seems focused on maintaining its imperialistic stance and its over 800 bases around the world. This approach sacrifices citizens’ basic needs while prioritising the war machine’s and imperialistic interests. The result is that the U.S. is the only Western nation, one could include the whole world, where life expectancy is reducing, extreme poverty is increasing at the fastest pace and inequality is also increasing, according to Emmanuel Todd in his book “La Défaite de l’Occident” (in English, The Defeat of the West).
Moreover, American democracy faces some basic issues, such as accurately counting votes. Often the judiciary is the one that determines who has won the elections. Due to the design of the political system, the indirect election process does not reflect the voters’ choices: often the most voted candidate is not necessarily the winner.
Additionally, there are thousands of different voting systems, since each county organizes its own. Only a few states have a standardized voting system. There is little control over mail-in votes, and in many counties, voters can submit their ballots multiple times by visiting different polling stations, as there is no strict control on who is voting. If one compares it with the efficient Brazilian voting system, the American looks quite primitive.
The State of South Korean Democracy
True also of South Korea, a plutocracy with the outward appearance of electoral democracy. The most powerful force in the country is the huge industrial conglomerates “chaebol” (Samsung, Hyundai etc.) Given their economic strength, they can exercise political power because this allows them to regulate access to policy decisions and the regulatory framework.
In South Korea, chaebols have been implicated in many political corruption scandals that often involve bribery and illicit campaign contributions for favourable treatment or government contracts. These relationships have occasionally fostered a ‘revolving door’ between government and powerful business sectors, with former officials exchanging high-level chaebol positions or vice versa.
Reforms have been made to curb corruption, even a former president got impeached for that matter, but as far as I know, they punish only politicians and not businessmen.
The justification is that they do not want to ‘disturb’ the Korean economy. Nonetheless, in a democracy, bribery and corruption are treated as a two-way street, and both sides should be punished. The chaebols still manage to influence political outcomes in their favour, that’s the reason for the plutocracy label.
The State of Japanese Democracy
Japan, for its part, has been ruled by one party, with just two brief exceptions, since 1955: the Liberal Democratic Party. There is basically no alternation of political parties in power. Surprisingly, due to Japan’s “Asia NATO” project enthusiastically supported by the prime minister, the ruling party lost the last elections. The message was clear: the Japanese people want peace, not war, nor further vassalage to the U.S.
The Communist Party of China (CPC), usually referred to as one ruling party, is the ruling and dominant party in the country. It’s true, but the political system in the present government does include a coalition with eight other minor parties.
The State of Democracy in Europe
In France, President Emmanuel Macron recently refused to accept the results of the ballots and appointed a prime minister, Michel Barnier, from the right, representing his centre-right bloc. This is even though the Left coalition, the New Popular Front, came in first place in terms of seats in Parliament. As a result, the new government can face a no-confidence vote at any time, and to gain some stability, it has to present policies that are friendly to Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN).
In Germany, there is increasing mistrust in political parties. In the state of Saxony, for example, where the far-right AfD party lost the state elections to the CDU (the conservative Christian Democratic Union) by one seat, a January 2024 Dimap poll showed that trust in democracy and its institutions is very low: only 10 per cent of the state population trust political parties, 15 per cent trust the media, 18 per cent trust the federal government, and 59 per cent are unhappy with the way democracy works in Germany.
German voters do not like to feel alienated from the political process and no longer accept their leaders making statements such as “no matter what my German voters think,” as was said at the Forum 2000 Conference in Prague by Annalena Baerbock, the Green Foreign Affairs Minister in the current ruling coalition, regarding the government’s unconditional support for Ukraine. This is particularly significant given that the majority of Germans (56% in June 2024) favour a negotiated end to the conflict.
As a consequence, the popularity of right-wing populist, anti-establishment parties in Germany, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), is rising.
Germany imprisons pro-Palestinian protestors on its soil and disrupts meetings, such as the one organised by the progressive collective DiEM25, and Palestinian, and Jewish Voice for Peace on April 12th, 2024. The venue was dismantled and labelled as an “Islamist” event by the Interior Ministry. These events raise questions about a perceived deficit in democracy and racism often attributed to far-right supporters.
In its blind and historically guilty support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Germany has made itself complicit in genocide – which democracies do not do – by increasing in tenfold the deliveries of arms to Israel, although condemned by the Global South and even embargoed by some European nations, such as Italy, Spain and France. Germany has also committed hundreds of offences against free speech, expression, and the right to manifestation. Being critical of Israel, in Germany became a crime, even for a child holding a Palestinian flag. These scenes are shocking, and typical of a totalitarian regime.
Many personalities were prohibited from landing in Germany to address the Israel genocide in Gaza issue, such as the former Greek Finance Minister Jannis Varoufakis and a well-known British Palestinian surgeon, Ghassan Abu-Sitta, who volunteered in Gaza hospitals during the genocide was denied entry to Germany. He was supposed to give a firsthand account of what was happening on the ground. Later, because of the German interdiction in the Schengen area, he could not enter France to speak at a French Senate meeting by invitation of that Senate.
The European press is free, but it does not translate this freedom, as it is not a critical press. Particularly, the public press in the Netherlands and Germany—and certainly in other countries as well—is a pro-government press, aligned with the government agenda, without being critical. The result is that people are ill-informed.
Finally, German and Dutch scholars complain about the fascistic approach surrounding the protection of the right of Israel to commit genocide in Gaza without being questioned by Governments, especially in Germany, and in university activities, particularly in Dutch universities. Democracies and universities should not protect genocides. I will explore this issue in the coming days.
Ricardo Martins ‒PhD in Sociology, specializing in policies, European and world politics and geopolitics, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
