Democracies should protect liberal values

This year’s Athens Democracy Forum will be the fourth, and it will not be the last. It cannot be. Democratization is not accomplished or achieved. It is a process, as complex and changing as the world, forever in danger, forever evolving, forever in need of vigilance and repair.

Democracy is not irreversible. We see evidence again and again, as unscrupulous leaders take advantage of popular fears and insecurities to subvert democratic institutions, often with the loud support of a majority that feels threatened by a changing world and finds respite in demagoguery. Freedom of expression is often the first victim.

No democracy is immune. Even the most established are finding themselves under challenge from xenophobic politicians exploiting fears of migrants or economic crises to advance isolationist, reactionary ideologies.

And while most of the world’s governments call themselves democratic, many have redefined the concept almost beyond recognition.

Some claim that the Western forms of democracy are unsuitable for their societies, and that to argue otherwise is a form of cultural imperialism. Some claim that authoritarian rule is a more familiar and efficient form of “democracy” in less developed parts of the world. Some argue that democracy includes the right to maintain the purity of a national identity. In the most extreme challenge, an Islamist fringe perceives Western democracy as an evil that justifies the most repugnant violence.

But then democracy has always been in peril. It exists to give people control over those who wield power, and those who have power often want more. In recent months alone we have witnessed a deeply troubling American presidential campaign; the dubious impeachment of the president of Brazil; a vote in Britain to leave the European Union; and more.

This year, the forum focuses on four challenges to democracy: migration, the rise of the authoritarian leader, and the roles of business and of religion.

Largely because of the civil war in Syria, the flood of refugees from there, combined with a continuing flow of Africans fleeing poverty and strife, has become the defining challenge to Western democracy. Chancellor Angela Merkel threw down the gauntlet to Europe when she opened Germany’s doors wide to refugees a year ago. Other nations — particularly those of the former Soviet bloc — tried to shut their gates. In Britain, resentment of foreigners became a rallying cry in the vote against membership in the European Union. In the United States, the fate of undocumented immigrants has become a major issue, with Donald J. Trump demanding a wall with Mexico.

The attraction of the “big man” — the tough boss who stands up to perceived slights and threats, civil rights and democratic niceties be damned — is another challenge in urgent need of a response. The loud support for increasingly authoritarian rule in places like Russia and Turkey, and the rise of populist politicians in the United States and across Europe, have raised fundamental questions about the ability of democratic institutions to deal with economic or social turmoil. The interaction of an elected government and business is a hardy perennial in the evolution of democratic rule. The degree to which government should be a partner, regulator or defender of commercial interests is one question to which different democracies have devised different answers.

Another challenge is the growing ability of large multinationals to pick and choose where to do business. The suit against Apple by the European Union has raised a welter of issues about jurisdiction, taxation and national pride.

Then there is the religion question, raised in its most terrible guise in the violence of radical terrorists. The power of religion is also increasingly evident in less vicious but still essential social debates in all corners of the world, including the democracies that purport to separate church and state.

Same-sex marriage and abortion are only some of the most prominent issues in which religion plays a central role. The resistance to Muslim refugees in the United States and Europe is partly based on the notion that they are alien to the West’s Judeo-Christian identity.

The challenges are daunting. But so long as we can discuss the glitches, we can try to correct them. That’s why this will not be the last forum.

— The New York Times

The flood of refugees has become the defining challenge to Western democracy