Borders: Between democracies and non-democracies

The contrast between democracies and autocracies is certainly nothing new. In The Histories by Herodotus, Otanes defends isonomy (equality before the law), Megabizus defends oligarchy, and Darius defends monarchy. And Darius wins, with an argument that supporters of authoritarian regimes have been repeating for 2,500 years: the rule of a single person is swifter, more consistent and more secretive, whilst confusion and demagogues prevail in popular assemblies. In the dialogue between Xerxes and the exiled Spartan Demaratus, the latter asserts that the Greeks have no master but have the law, and fear it more than the Persians fear their king. In the form we recognise today – ‘democracies versus autocracies’ as the framework of international politics – this contrast emerged in the 1930s, with the opposition between liberal democracies and fascist and Nazi regimes, and was cemented in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech on the Four Freedoms in January 1941 and in the rhetoric of the ‘arsenal of democracy’. Today, however, the dividing line is more complex. New technologies, economic uncertainties and cross-bloc alliances are shifting the dividing line into uncharted territory.

According to international rankings such as those of Freedom House, over the last two decades the proportion of the globe governed by democracies has fallen from around 60 per cent to just over 40 per cent. This slow trend now risks accelerating. Because the world is no longer divided into distinct blocs, but into competing models of power everywhere. Necessity is a key factor. As Mario Draghi said: ‘There are dictators we need’.

But another factor at play is the disconnect between the pace dictated by cyberspace, AI and digitalisation and that of parliaments (which now seems anachronistic). In the days of the Greek polis, a shard of pottery (ostrakon) was used to banish politicians from the city; now the aim is to transform citizens into digital identities and governments into platforms. Ursula von der Leyen said as much in her first address to the European Union. Something is missing. Have parliaments been taken into account in this transformation?

In countries such as Turkey, India, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, what is lacking is dissent; on the other hand, where freedom is lacking, stability and tranquillity prevail. How is this contrast experienced? How is it fuelled by fake news? Authoritarian systems are pragmatic, swift and effective; democracies are legitimate, but slow, bogged down in bureaucracy and riddled with cracks that seem increasingly impossible to repair.

These are the topics covered in today’s episode of Confini, the programme from Sole 24 Ore TV and NextMed, airing tonight at 9 pm, as it does every Thursday, on channel 63 of digital terrestrial television. The topics were discussed alongside presenter Simone Spetia and Claudio Antonelli, deputy editor of 24Ore NextMed, Giuliano Noci, full professor of Economic and Management Engineering at the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano, the American journalist and political analyst Andrew Spannaus and Vera Capperucci, lecturer in Contemporary History and the Theory and History of Political Movements and Parties at the Department of Political Science at LUISS. A report from Ceuta by Giampaolo Musumeci documents the situation in the Spanish exclave on the African continent after tens of thousands of North Africans had flooded into the city by sea.