When we speak about democracy we can refer to various aspects of the democratic experience. Nonetheless, this does not mean that we cannot define the concept.
🎙 What do we usually focus on when we speak about democracy in EU external relations (e.g. elections, functioning of the Parliament, etc.), and why?
When we speak about democracy in EU external action, we predominantly refer to elections but it is much more than just that. There are two documents of reference that structure the EU's activities in this field: the 2009 Council Conclusion on democracy support and the 2019 Council Conclusion on democracy. They define the areas that the EU and Member States consider to be part of the work on democracy and the institutions of democracy, such as parliaments, political parties, media institutions, electoral management bodies, ombudspersons. In its funding, the EU has traditionally linked democracy to human rights, through thematic programmes in external relations and assistance to third countries through bilateral support to elections, democratic good governance and anti-corruption.
There is no agreed-upon European definition of democracy per se, but there have been discussions about how to define it: the conclusion has always been that different Member States have different interpretations of what makes an ideal democracy. Some will resort to referenda, some others to more deliberations; in some countries, the relation between the parliament and the executive will be different. Nevertheless, there are many indices around the world that do look at different varieties of democracy. All of them are relevant and it is not for the EU to determine what democracy should be.
There are some principles that everyone would agree to when speaking about democracy: accountability, transparency, participation and deliberation should all be weaved within the political system. There should be balance of power between, on the one hand, the different branches of government and, on the other, the entities that can hold the executive - or other parts of the government - to account.
🎙 Should we include other elements? If so, which ones?
The EU has also traditionally supported civil society, media organisations and what we can call independent institutions, such as ombudspersons or certain judicial bodies. Historically, the EU has moved away, over time, from the more institutional focus, towards an increase in funding for non-governmental actors. This was partly due to the recognition of the fact that sometimes institutional actors are not acting in good faith and/or with a desire for democratic reform. In general, the trend has been to focus more on those non-governmental organisations that the EU views as its allies in terms of its objectives. But it should be noted that such NGOs, CSOs and media actors receive far less funding than institutional partners.
🎙 What is the impact of AI (artificial intelligence) on democracy?
AI in itself is not positive or negative; it is agnostic as to what democracy is. Unlike the start of the tech revolution or the social media revolution where optimism ruled, many people currently think the opposite about AI: that it will be detrimental to democracy. I would argue that this is broadly the case, but we don’t know if this will hold in the future. In addition to its disruptive impact on the economy, social structures etc., for democracy the key issues are linked to the way AI can supercharge covert disinformation campaigns, or the fact that it has proved to be susceptible to inherent bias towards certain population groups. This raises significant human rights concerns. Probably one of the most important ones for democracy analysts is that it is not transparent: you do not know what goes into the black box. In addition, it is controlled by private companies while having incredibly important bearing on our public sphere. Many of the things that are discussed in our public agenda are dictated or amplified by algorithms that are controlled by AI applications, for example. And we need to remember that AI is a very broad term: it includes systems such as DeepMind and many of the precursors to the new Large Language Models (LLM). The supercharging by LLMs is highly significant for democracy and is what most people think about today when speaking about AI. The pace of change is incredible! Every two weeks there is something drastically new. AI will continue to challenge democratic institutions, which need to have an oversight function over technologies that play such an important role in our societies.
🎙 Sustainable Development Goal 16 includes the target to 'ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels', and includes commitments to promote the rule of law. Nonetheless, it does not refer to democracy. How is democracy linked to this target?
SDG 16 does not have democracy in its text. This is due to the fact that, at the time of the discussions at the United Nations after the Millennium Development Goals, China refused to have any language related to democracy in the SDGs. This is why it was removed during the drafting process. SDG 16 has some targets of participatory governance, justice for all and accountability. The democracy, rule of law and human rights community has used this SDG and certain targets within the text as a vehicle for discussing democracy with various governments around the world.
🎙 Our societies are more and more complex and, as a result, so are our political systems and policies. Are our democracies able to cope with this complexity?
Democracy is imperfect and complex. So are authoritarian regimes: they are very convoluted and difficult to manage. But one of the enduring advantages of democracy is that it is able to adapt and to take up information from citizens to make corrections, whether the correction is via elections, manifestations, policy indicators, consultations, deliberations or internal political party structures that get rid of a leader. It is able to handle some of the complexities of humans living together. However, one of the core arguments against authoritarian governments is that they can never solve the issue of changing leadership or renewal. On the contrary, China, for example, has gone in the opposite direction, from a single party with some degree of renewal of its leadership, to what we can define as a dictatorship.
What it has improved on, through AI and technology, is finding out what citizens think in a much better way than any authoritarian regime was able to before. If you imagine China during the Cultural Revolution, the people in a particular district or region would just tell the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) what the CCP wanted to hear, despite massive poverty, for instance. Now, the central nodes can get information directly from online monitoring. Of course, democracies are able to do this inherently within the system, more transparently and more effectively, but authoritarian regimes are improving in this regard. We can see that democracies in Europe are increasingly challenged on issues such as growth or the capacity to deliver the social security that citizens demand. If you look at growth or development figures, some authoritarian regimes can do well, but they are far more likely to have hyperinflation, and zero or negative growth if compare to democracies. And we forget that, particularly as citizens in Europe. Democracies are complex, but authoritarian regimes are just as messy if not more. We just do not see what happens with the same degree of transparency.
Concluding thoughts
While a widely uniform and agreed-upon definition of democracy is still missing, accountability, transparency, citizens’ participations and balance of power are amongst its most fundamental pillars, at least within the EU. In external action, European institutions have continuously lent support towards democratic processes, and have also increased engagement with institutional actors, civil society and NGOs.
New challenges are however emerging, particularly with the rise of AI, which is quickly reshaping the environment and amplifying the risk of disinformation and bias. And while we need to keep track of these dramatic changes, democracies do retain an intrinsic capacity to adapt to changes and criticism, which is however something that authoritarian regimes, who are increasingly relying on the use of deep learning and artificial intelligence to control citizens, still lack.
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