If democracy retreats, what will it be replaced by?
A lot of the time, people assume a natural dichotomy between democracy and authoritative regimes. While this is certainly a useful shorthand when looking at history, I think it is likely to be misleading when thinking about the future.
This “false dichotomy” between democracy and authoritative regimes often contrasts “my values and needs are adequately taken into account” (<> democracy) with “my values and needs basically don’t matter” (<>authoritative regimes). By putting these things into the same bucket, we might overlook ways in which these connections might come apart.
For example, I might not inherently care about whether I will be able to directly or indirectly choose my political leader, but I definitely care about how well my values and needs will be taken into account in this process that steers my society into alternative futures.
Relatedly, discussions about democracy are often just as much about “democratic values″ (e.g. liberty, equality, justice) as they are about “the process of choosing our own leaders”.
I’d be curious whether your prediction about whether democracy will still be around in one thousand years largely overlaps with your prediction about, say, “will an average person in a thousand years from now feel like their values and needs are adequately taken into account by whoever or whatever is making decisions about how their society is being governed?”. (Of course, other operationalizations might be interesting, too).
The latter is much harder to predict, and democracy as you defined it might be the correct way of approaching the latter question. That said, understanding more about how lieky they are to come apart, and if so how seems potentially interesting.
If democracy retreats, what will it be replaced by?
A lot of the time, people assume a natural dichotomy between democracy and authoritative regimes. While this is certainly a useful shorthand when looking at history, I think it is likely to be misleading when thinking about the future.
This “false dichotomy” between democracy and authoritative regimes often contrasts “my values and needs are adequately taken into account” (<> democracy) with “my values and needs basically don’t matter” (<>authoritative regimes). By putting these things into the same bucket, we might overlook ways in which these connections might come apart.
For example, I might not inherently care about whether I will be able to directly or indirectly choose my political leader, but I definitely care about how well my values and needs will be taken into account in this process that steers my society into alternative futures.
Relatedly, discussions about democracy are often just as much about “democratic values″ (e.g. liberty, equality, justice) as they are about “the process of choosing our own leaders”.
I’d be curious whether your prediction about whether democracy will still be around in one thousand years largely overlaps with your prediction about, say, “will an average person in a thousand years from now feel like their values and needs are adequately taken into account by whoever or whatever is making decisions about how their society is being governed?”. (Of course, other operationalizations might be interesting, too).
The latter is much harder to predict, and democracy as you defined it might be the correct way of approaching the latter question. That said, understanding more about how lieky they are to come apart, and if so how seems potentially interesting.