Diplomat with The NYT/ World Review 2020

Global Affairs New Models of Democracy

April 2020

Opportunities and Challenges to European Unity

ISSN 2449-3007

9

772449

300003

s t n e t

n o C 4

A Europe United by Values, Focused on Results

6

Unity in a Post-Brexit World

8

TANAP: A Catalyst for Regional Peace and Development

10

The Slow Death of Europe

14

Restoring Democracy for All

17

Technology and Politics: A Tricky Balance

20

Artificial Intelligence Reshaping the Future of Democracy

22

A Strong Democracy Is a Digital Democracy

25

Anand Giridharadas: Stop Spreading the Plutocrats’ Phony Religion

32

Post-Truth Politics Afflicts the Global South, Too

34

Make Voting Mandatory in the U.S.

37

Self-Reliance – Optimal Tool for Assisting Developing and Emerging Countries

38

The Case for Populism

41

In Sudan, Women Showed the World How It’s Done

44

Lessons from Nigeria’s Militarized Democratic Experiment

46

Empower and Educate Afghanistan’s Youth to Ensure a Peaceful Future

48

At Athens Democracy Forum, Division Is at Center of Debate

50

The Free World at 30

53

New Models of Democracy

Observer Media Group

შიო მღვიმელის ქ. #15 საქართველო, თბილისი 0179

Observer / Diplomat / Parliament

გენერალური დირექტორი ნინო შარაშიძე

გამოწერა და რეკლამის განთავსება Subscription & Advertising sales@observer.com.ge

Managing Director Nino Sharashidze

რედაქტორთა კოლეგია Editorial Commitette editor@observer.com.ge

nino.sharashidze@observer.com.ge

დაიბეჭდა შპს „ფორმა“-ში. www.forma.ge

15 Shio Mghvimeli Str. Tbilisi 0179, Georgia

info@observer.com.ge TEL: +995 558 519 519

* The authors pictured above are listed below from Left to Right, and Top to Bottom.

RIK DAEMS President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe MARGRETHE VESTAGER Danish social liberal politician, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age since 1 December 2019 and European Commissioner for Competition from 2014 ALEKSI ALEKSISHVILI Chairman and CEO at Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG), former Minister of Finance of Georgia

MICHAEL HIGGINS President of Ireland IRAKLI BERIDZE Head of the Centre for AI and Robotics of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) DAMBISA MOYO An economist and the author of "Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth — and How to Fix It." ROBERT MENASSE Austrian novelist and cultural critic whose writings in recent years have centered on the European Union and globalization

BORUT PAHOR President of the Republic of Slovenia

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN President of Turkey

AUDREY TANG The digital minister of Taiwan and an active contributor to g0v

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS American writer, former columnist for The New York Times

MARIA SCHMIDT An author and historian whose research focuses on 20th-century dictatorships in Europe, the director general of the House of Terror museum in Budapest, a former adviser to the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban

ROYA MAHBOOB Afghan serial entrepreneur, the CEO and president of Digital Citizen Fund, a nonprofit devoted to helping girls and women in developing countries gain access to technology

ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF The former president of Liberia (2006-2018) and a joint recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize

WOLE SOYINKA Nigerian author, the Nobel Prize for Literature laureate in 1986

GEORGE PAPANDREOU Greece’s foreign minister from 1999 to 2004 and its prime minister from 2009 to 2011. He is currently the president of Socialist International, a worldwide organization of social democratic, socialist and labor parties LAURA CHINCHILLA Vice president of the Club of Madrid and chair of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. Former president of Costa Rica ROGER COHEN A columnist for The Times

A Europe United by Values, Focused on Results It’s time for a legal right to a healthy environment he first-ever elected President of the Parliamentary Assembly was Paul-Henri Spaak, one of Belgium’s finest statesmen and also one of the founding fathers of the Council of Europe and, in due course, the EU.

T

He once said: “If I have to choose between a perfect Europe and a better Europe, I will choose the better Europe, because the perfect Europe does not exist, but the better Europe we can create ourselves.”

70 years on, the body he helped to create – and which I now represent – speaks for 830 million Europeans in 47 nations. Yet many of them are disappointed by

4

politicians, and what they see as our failure to get to grips with the real problems they are facing.

It’s time for us to get down to business – and, following Spaak’s advice, I have some very practical suggestions for where we should begin.

RIK DAEMS President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

...

Keeping our planet healthy is one of the great challenges of our times. Every single one of us, wherever we come from, is directly affected by the environment – it is an issue which, almost by definition, transcends borders.

Our Assembly inspired the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 70 years ago, and has been a driving force for

updating it ever since. It is time for us to do so again.

The ECHR already guarantees “the right to life”, but to me that clearly implies the right to live in an environment which sustains life. I believe the time has come to create a legally enforceable “right to a healthy environment” by drafting a protocol to the ECHR. As we have seen recently in the Netherlands, in France or in the UK, national courts are already beginning to make rulings in this area – but there is a risk that this takes place piece-meal, with the case-law diverging in different countries.

A new protocol would enable Europeans to hold their

governments to account over the environment on the basis of a clearly defined principle, agreed by consensus, interpreted consistently across the continent, and with a tried and tested enforcement mechanism – the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

This will be controversial, but we need to do it. Our citizens – and especially our young people – have made clear they have had enough of governments backsliding on this vital issue. They have had enough of talk, and now they want action.

Our Assembly has already called for the drafting of such a protocol three times – and I am convinced that, as parliamentarians, we have an opportunity to kickstart practical work on this by working together with governments.

I know that Rome is not built

in a day, but we must start somewhere. The first step might be a recommendation from governments on human rights and the environment – a set of non-binding guidelines to be followed

by States in shaping their internal policies. This could be followed by the drafting of a new convention on the environment which would lay down common standards, leading eventually to a full protocol to the ECHR.

where I believe we can make a difference as parliamentarians is on gender equality.

This “road-map” may sound bureaucratic but, as the Belgian writer Willem Elsschot once said, only laws and practical problems separate dreams from reality.

Changing our laws to give ordinary citizens the power to demand – and enforce in law – a healthy environment is a practical step which could help to make the dream a reality.

Our Assembly can work with national parliaments to press for further ratifications so that these vital laws will be on the books across the continent.

The Council of Europe’s ground-breaking Istanbul Convention sets out measures that all governments can take to prevent violence against women, protect victims and prosecute the perpetrators.

But it is currently in force in only 34 of the Council of Europe’s 47 member states.

...

In our own Assembly, we have come a long way on gender equality since 1949, when the Assembly’s very first session was attended by more than a hundred male representatives, and only two women.

The second area

Since 2010 we have insisted

that every national delegation to our Assembly includes at least one member of “the under-represented sex”, and today women make up over a third of the Assembly. But we need to do more. I want to see true equality in our ranks, so that our Assembly is seen to be leading the way on the international scene.

I want to see a gender balance of fifty-fifty. ...

The members of the Parliamentary Assembly come from 47 nations.

Yet, for all our political and cultural differences, we are all signed up to the same set of values, enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.

And, while national interests may create divisions, I believe that values will always unite, for they are universal. This the huge strength of an Assembly such as ours.

5

Unity in a Post-Brexit World What does a new form of european unity look like for the EU?

MICHAEL HIGGINS President of Ireland

SEEKING AN INCLUSIVE EUROPEAN UNITY We are living with the simultaneous occurrence of deep challenges — of environmental survival; of human need, in terms of the most basic essentials for full citizenship and participation; and of deepening inequality with an ever more unregulated and unaccountable concentration of wealth at the global level.

A meaningful European unity must not only deliver cohesiveness within and between its member states, but also recognize our global interdependence, and be emancipatory in offering to a diversity of peoples a renewed sense of “belonging”; a “belonging” that is intergenerational, culturally pluralist and that recognizes both the rational and spiritual sources of human rights.

It is my belief that there is an urgent need in both

6

scholarship and a diplomacy that at present is trapped in a narrow theory of interests, to change by making new connections between economics, ecology and ethics; thus forging a new path on which we can travel together, in the interests not only of all the people of Europe, but of humanity itself.

Our Europe, together with other unions, must bring under control what is currently unaccountable, what is undermining public trust in democracy and what defines us as simply insatiable, individualistic consumers.

To achieve this vision requires a paradigm shift in theory, policy and practice: It demands no less than an interrogation and a departure from many of our assumptions regarding what is appropriate for achieving the economic, social and environmental well-being of our citizens. The role of the state in enhancing the lives of citizens needs to be articulated anew, and the concept of sovereignty redefined, in such a way that it is defined and understood as something that can be shared, can flow for the benefit of citizens beyond borders within a framework of diverse but shared values.

The Europe in which we will achieve unity must be one in which our shared ambitions are pursued with

openness and a recognition that social and environmental considerations can no longer be subordinated to the narrow metrics of extreme market ideology.

We must do this not just for our benefit, but for the future generations to whom we, surely, have a responsibility to create a peaceful, harmonious world that is supported by a sustainable vision of economy and society, and enriched by a diversity of cultures.

Because of this gridlock and the various criticisms of the European Union, the call to abandon further integration between the member states resulting in a return to full national independence is today heard more frequently than ever before.

I remain a devout federalist, but even those of us who favor a more integrated Europe cannot be pleased with the current deadlock and the organization’s general lack of development and efficiency. When we advocate a stronger European Union, we do not do so in support of the current woeful situation, but wish to bring about a renaissance of the European idea, and embrace new concepts for its further growth.

The European Union is a project designed with the idealistic intent of bringing peace, security and prosperity to our shared continent.

Since we lack the necessary ingenuity and cogency, it is understandable that people retreat to their national frameworks and seek answers to all questions within those familiar settings.

But this is not a step forward. Returning to the old European geopolitics is not a solution for the future, but reminds us of a lesson that should not need repeating — divisions do not empower us, but cause disunity among people who should be striving for a common goal.

Since the founding of the European Union, the idea of European integration has encountered mixed reactions and results. We have experienced both excitement and disappointment. But lately, a serious obstacle to its purpose has arisen.

The European idea is founded on conciliation and fundamental democratic values. At this point, the achievements of the European Union may not be the most illustrious, but the idea remains powerful and inspiring.

The current standstill is illustrated in part by the reduced efficiency of the European Union, and has subsequently deepened the disappointment of Europeans regarding the organization.

The idea of European integration is one of humankind’s finest concepts, and I am willing to stake everything on it so that our future generations can benefit.

BORUT PAHOR President of the Republic of Slovenia

RENAISSANCE OF THE EUROPEAN IDEA

© 2020 The New York Times Company, Michael D. Higgins and Borut Pahor

T

he European Union was founded as a way to promote peace, security and unity. But what happens to the role of the EU when European nations rethink their membership, and start to focus on nationalistic interests? Recently, the role of the EU has come under fire as nations question its benefits. Britain passed Brexit, will other nations follow their lead? We asked European presidents to examine what the new European unity could look like post-Brexit.

7

TANAP: A Catalyst for Regional Peace and Development The Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP), one of the most outstanding indicators of the unifying role of energy, is a regional peace project. TANAP is a concrete example of the excellent relations between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia based on mutual trust, and a symbol of the deeply rooted friendship between our countries. TANAP constitutes the backbone of the Southern Gas Corridor, which aims to deliver natural gas from the Caspian Region to Europe, through Georgia and Turkey. Thus, it forms the most important part of this corridor, with a length of around 3,500 kilometres.

The change and transformation that Turkey has experienced over the past eighteen years also paved the way, in a sense, for the transmission of the region’s energy resources to Turkey and Europe. Thanks to our cooperation with Azerbaijan and Georgia, the BakuTbilisi-Ceyhan Crude Oil Pipeline was launched and commissioned in 2006. Later, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum Natural Gas Pipeline was put into operation in 2007, to transport the natural gas produced at Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz Field to Georgia and Turkey. The will to improve this trilateral cooperation has brought TANAP into life.

The first steps for TANAP were taken with an Intergovernmental Agreement

8

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOĞAN President of Turkey

signed on 25 October 2011

by Turkey and Azerbaijan.

As a result of subsequent negotiations and thanks to the support of both Georgia’s and Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz Field partners, the Intergovernmental Agreement and the Host Government Agreement of TANAP were signed on 26 June 2012

by Turkey and Azerbaijan.

Following the final investment decision taken by Shah Deniz Field partners for Phase 2 of the project in December 2013, works on the extension of the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum Natural Gas Pipeline, passing through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey, and on the construction of TANAP were

accelerated. TANAP was built in a short time span of three years, after the laying of its foundation on 17 March 2015 and it began carrying gas to Turkey on 12 June 2018.

In addition, the European connection of TANAP was inaugurated with a ceremony held on 30 November 2019.

Turkey has given political and commercial support at all stages of the natural gas supply chain starting from Azerbaijan, passing through Georgia and Turkey, and extending to Europe. Turkish Petroleum, with its 19 % share, is the second largest investor in Shah Deniz Field and the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum Natural Gas Pipeline, and

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan puts his hand over his heart in a gesture of hello prior to a meeting with European Council President Charles Michel.

CREDIT: Virginia Mayo/The Associated Press.

CREDIT: Serhat Cagdas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images BOTAŞ, with its 30 % share, is the second largest investor in TANAP. Turkey has a key position in the value chain of approximately 45 billion dollars, consisting of the Shah Deniz Phase 2 Project, the Baku-TbilisiErzurum Natural Gas Pipeline Extension Project, TANAP and Trans-Adriatic Natural Gas Pipeline (TAP). Turkish pipe manufacturers and construction contractors have played an important role in TANAP, which was launched with an investment of approximately 6.5 billion dollars.

TANAP, with an annual capacity of 16 billion cubic meters of natural gas transmission, starting from the Georgia-Turkey border and passing through 20 provinces, 67 districts, and 600 villages, will make a significant contribution to the energy supply security of Turkey and the rest of Europe. By the end of 2019, Turkey has received

3.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas through TANAP. This amount will gradually increase and reach 6 billion cubic meters per year, and, upon the completion of the Trans Adriatic Gas Pipeline in 2020, 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas will be supplied to Europe. In the coming years, it is planned to increase the capacity of TANAP to 24 billion cubic meters first, and then to 32 billion cubic meters - which is the maximum technical capacity.

70 % of the world’s proven natural gas reserves are located in the nearby geography of Turkey. Besides being the world’s 18th largest natural gas market, Turkey is in a position adjacent to Europe which is the second largest market. In this context, TANAP has significant potential, in terms of delivery to Turkey and Europe of the natural gas to be produced at other natural gas fields in Azerbaijan, other Caspian

resources as well as other countries of the region.

Beyond its contributions to energy supply security, TANAP also symbolizes the contributions of energy to regional peace - which has become a serious global issue today, due to increasing populations and growing economies. Today, the world’s energy map is in transition; new actors and new cooperation models are emerging. In the last two centuries, great wars have been fought for control over energy resources. They have had major impacts particularly on the geography where Turkey and Georgia are located. Despite not being rich in hydrocarbon resources, both countries have felt these impacts. From this point of view, TANAP is the best response given in peace and cooperation to the environment of conflict provoked by some actors over energy resources. Turkey

and Georgia have used their geographical location - that is the junction point of energy producing and consuming countries - to promote an environment of peace and cooperation rather than encourage conflicts. Both countries have set an example for the entire world by making the necessary efforts to put energy resources at the disposal of humanity at a time when regional tensions and instability are growing every day. TANAP is the ‘silk road’ of energy.

Besides its strong and sustainable economy, peace-oriented foreign policy, and stable administration approach, Turkey also neighbours rich natural gas and oil reserves due to its geographic location. So far, Turkey has acted as a secure bridge between the source countries and the consumer markets and it will continue to do so in the future.

9

The Slow Death of Europe The european union, in turning its back on imperialism, has been ahead of its time for decades — and for that it risks fading into obsolescence.

W

hat is the Old World? What is the New World? Until recently, the answer to both questions has been obvious.

The United States is the New World, the “land of the free,” settled and founded by people who left a Europe full of political repression, economic backwardness and cultural decadence. In comparison, Europe is the Old World — an entire continent that divided and destroyed itself during two world wars.

Initially, the relationship

between the two provided fodder for a few jokes. Henry James, the American literary giant who relocated to Europe, wrote in his 1878 novel “The Europeans” about an encounter between dynamic, nouveau riche Americans and culturally wealthy, ossified Europeans, which leads to some amusing situations.

In the novel, James didn’t just portray the differences between the Old and the New, he also anticipated the transAtlantic alliance.

Since then, however, the world has turned. The New has

grown old and the Old has reinvented itself.

ROBERT MENASSE Austrian novelist and cultural critic whose writings in recent years have centered on the European Union and globalization CREDIT: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters

CREDIT: Joel Saget/Agence FrancePresse - Getty Images

10

The idea of the European unification project, which led to the European Union of today, is the New — the politically sui generis. It is a logical yet radical conclusion drawn from historical experience, and it makes possible (or would make possible) a future of freedom and peace instead of cyclical suffering.

The rooting of this idea in the soil of Europe more than 60 years ago has proved to be a greater leap for mankind than the moon landing.

What made the European project revolutionary was that for the first time Europe wasn’t seeking to Europeanize the world, but rather itself. In so doing, it could become — as an experimental project with a foundation of enlightenment — the avant-garde for a peaceful world. The “could,” though, is the problem. The difference between idea and implementation in Europe has become just as large as the gap between the beauty of the United States Constitution and the extensive hardship

Protesters with British and European Union flags painted on their faces ahead of a 2019 European Union summit in Brussels.

CREDIT: Yves Herman/Reuters

and suffering of the American reality under President Trump.

To understand the “selfEuropeanization of Europe,” it helps to compare today’s European project to the old European project: the United States, which has in many ways not moved beyond the Old World ideals that contributed to its founding and formative years.

Back then, European colonialists used violence to capture the territory that would become the United States.

Their successors kept that territory united by waging a bloody civil war, helping to create and sustain a nation that would eventually go on to enforce the interests of its elites around the world, with military means if necessary.

Today, the new European project, the European Union, takes the opposite approach: It enlarges its territory by way of voluntary accession, unites it through treaties aimed at the establishment of shared legal standards, seeks to overcome nationalism and, being a project for peace, is unwilling to enforce its interests with

military means.

The founders of the European Union wanted to put a stop to the unending violence and aggression that had scarred Europe’s long history.

And after 1945, it was clear where the greatest danger lay: nationalism. Competition among so-called national interests for markets, resources and spheres of influence always leads to national conflict, whether in the form of trade wars or direct military confrontation.

As these wars have persisted, peace agreements have proved useless, as have international organizations such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. That was the painful lesson of the generation that, from the end of the 19th century to 1945, lived through nationalism, the German wars of unification and the two world wars, the last of which nearly destroyed civilization and gave rise to the worst crimes against humanity the world has ever seen, including the horrors of Auschwitz.

All that was to be made

obsolete, a hope that gave rise to the idea of trying something completely new, namely the introduction of a postnational order, which, in practice, would evolve without the political presuppositions of the Old World, to which the United States now belongs.

Every thinking person in Western Europe is grateful for the enormous contribution of the United States to the liberation of Europe from fascism. But was America’s involvement in the war really just about liberating nations from fascism? The United States, after all, didn’t have much of a problem with Spanish or Portuguese fascism. Francisco Franco in Spain and the Portuguese strongman António de Oliveira Salazar were American allies right up until their deaths in the 1970s. (These countries were eventually liberated and democratized by the European Union.) In Chile, the democratically elected president of a sovereign nation was overthrown by the C.I.A. and replaced by a fascist dictatorship. The

proud and wealthy country of Argentina was plunged into bankruptcy and misery by a fascist regime supported by the United States.

Those policies and the dozens of other military interventions initiated by the United States in the years since 1945 made clear to Europeans that such an aggressive, self-interested approach was outmoded and could never lead to sustainable peace, only to more generations robbed of their futures.

As a result, the European Union they created is decidedly and unequivocally antifascist, and not only in instances in which fascism lies in contradiction to the bloc’s economic interests, but also in situations where fascism could perhaps be expedient for the pursuit of the union’s own political interests.

The formerly Stalinist states of Eastern Europe profited enormously from joining the European Union following the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Their membership ensured that their regained freedom would result not in chaos,

11

A JOURNEY TO SUCCESS MADE MEANINGFUL

BY HELPING OTHERS

www.bdo.ge 12

The United States has never ratified the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights — a very Old World stance. In Europe, meanwhile, the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights is a legally binding addendum to the Treaty of Lisbon, which functions like a constitution for the bloc. On this point, I can imagine every enlightened American saying: I want to be European, a citizen of the New World.

The idea pursued by the founders of the European peace project was as simple as it was brilliant: to interlink the economies of European nation-states and submit them to joint rules and controls to such an extent that no member could pursue selfish interests against another without harmful consequences. The aim was to subsume nationalism to practiced mutuality, with the resulting community of nations making Europe’s smaller countries more powerful than they would be on their own.

As mentioned, this idea was born as a consequence of historical experience, but it soon became clear that in the face of new and approaching challenges it was the most sensible concept for a free world. Certainly one of these challenges is steering the dynamic of globalization.

And ultimately, globalization

means nothing more than the demolition of national borders and the annulment of national sovereignty.

In this context, the European idea of a postnational political organization is the only one that has kept up with the times. In comparison, the national superpower approach practiced by the United States looks old-fashioned. That’s why it would be completely nonsensical to construct a newly unified Europe as a neo-imperial superpower in imitation of the United States.

The idea of the European project’s founding generation has — small step by small step — made astonishing progress: a shared market, a shared currency, shared laws, a shared administration and a shared bureaucracy. And it has led to what for Europe is

an unusually long period of peace.

Yet the European project hasn’t yet led to a truly shared democracy. We have a supranational European Parliament, but we can only vote for national parties. And our Parliament has no right to initiate legislation. We also have a supranational executive in the form of the European Commission, but within the framework of European institutions, the Lisbon Treaty has transformed it into a sorrowful secretariat of the national heads of state and government.

Our most powerful institution is the European Council, where the national heads of state and government and the national ministers of certain portfolios make decisions that are sold as compromises between the

member states, but which are, in reality, hurdles to a joint European policy.

The European political project, whose founding idea remains far ahead of global politics, is essentially trapped in an unproductive contradiction between postnational development and a re-emergent nationalism, between shared politics and the national selfishness of the member states.

There can be no compromise, just as there can be no middle ground between being pregnant and not being pregnant. For a long time, I thought that Europe was pregnant with the future. But the symptoms have become increasingly obvious: Europe is infected with a disease of history. The disease of nationalism.

This will lead to the death of the union. The United States continues to wrestle for global dominance with other world powers, and will do so militarily if required.

Meanwhile, progressive Europe, which turned its back on imperialism and redefined itself as a project for peace, risks becoming a continent of helpless countries, a collection of bread crumbs on the table of global power. There will be significant misery and dismay in Europe — so much, in fact, that even “never again” could happen again. And everything would have to start over from the beginning.

A pro-Europe demonstration in Cologne, Germany, in May 2019, one week before European elections. The crowd also protested rising nationalism throughout the Continent.

CREDIT: Roberto Pfeil/DPA, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

We won’t be able to save the planet if we can’t save the New World. And I have now begun to suffer from my love for the New World. For Europe.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Robert Menasse

but in growing prosperity and a transition to the rule of law — even as the United States repeatedly sought to play Eastern and Western European countries against each other.

13

Restoring Democracy for All A new, citizen-driven branch of government is the best way to combat corruption and the power of the global elite.

In

ancient times, politics was born of the belief that we can be masters of our own fate, and democracy became an ongoing, innovative project to guarantee people a say in public decisions.

Today, however, we live in a paradox. Humanity has created vast wealth and technological know-how that could contribute to solutions

for the global common good, yet immense numbers of people are disempowered, marginalized and suffering from a deep sense of insecurity. Working together, we have the ability to reshape the world as we know it.

Unfortunately, that power rests in the hands of only a few.

GEORGE PAPANDREOU Greece’s foreign minister from 1999 to 2004 and its prime minister from 2009 to 2011. He is currently the president of Socialist International, a worldwide organization of social democratic, socialist and labor parties

A full moon rises behind the Temple of Poseidon, near Athens, before a lunar eclipse in July.

CREDIT: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters

14

The marginalization we see today is rooted in the globalization promoted by policy models such as the

In August 2019, protesters in Hong Kong took to the streets to demand political reforms and voice their opposition to a bill that would allow suspects to be extradited from Hong Kong to mainland China.

CREDIT: Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Washington Consensus, which distanced politics and governance from economic power. Companies in the financial, pharmaceutical, agricultural, oil and tech industries are no longer governed by the laws of a single state — they live in a separate global stratosphere, one regulated to suit their interests.

The consequences of all this are huge disparities in wealth and power.

There is, for example, an overconcentration of money in media and politics, due to lobbying and outright corruption.

And in many countries, democratic institutions have been captured and the will of the people has been compromised.

As Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen argue in their 2019 book “Renovating Democracy,” the social and technological change wrought by globalization “is so enormous that individuals and communities alike feel they are drowning in the swell of seemingly anonymous forces.”

Serving as prime minister of Greece from 2009 to 2011, I attempted to improve tax collection in order to cut the huge debt and deficit I inherited. But the efforts of my government fell far short of collecting what was owed.

Investors took advantage of the global financial system to move capital beyond Greece’s borders, draining the country of money at its most vulnerable moment.

This arbitrary power of

globalized companies violates a basic concept of democracy that the ancient Greeks called “isonomia,” or the equality of all before the law.

Uncontrolled global power has fueled nationalist slogans such as the Brexit movement’s “take back control.” Yet as Joseph Stiglitz writes in his new book, “People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent,” “the populist response, namely a retreat from globalized trade through the protection of markets, is a red herring. … The real conflict is elsewhere. On the one side [you have] workers and consumers — the 99 percent — in both developing and developed countries, versus corporate interests on the other.” For the new global

economy to succeed, he says, we must build new institutions.

We have a choice to make.

On the one hand, we can embrace reactive politics, elect authoritarian leaders, build walls and promote isolationism and racism. This path offers a simple yet illusory way to “take back control,” but in fact accomplishes the opposite: It gives up control to power-hungry demagogues who divide us, weaken civil society and feed us dead-end solutions.

Rather than embrace those false promises, let us instead reinvent and deepen democratic institutions, in order to empower people, tame global capitalism, eliminate inequality and assert control over our international

15

techno-society.

From my experience, an important step toward these goals would be to create a fourth branch of government.

This new deliberative branch, in which all citizens — the “demos” — could participate, would sit alongside the executive, legislative and judicial branches. All laws and decisions would first go through an e-deliberation process before being debated in our city halls, parliaments or congresses.

Inspired by the agora of ideas and debate in ancient Athens, I set up as prime minister a rudimentary “wikilaw” process for deliberating issues online before laws are voted on. Trusting collective wisdom brought insightful and invaluable responses.

To facilitate debate, forums of professionals could give informed opinions on issues of the day. Public television, newspapers, radio and podcasts could enlighten the conversation. Schools would be encouraged to participate. So-called deliberative polling (again inspired by ancient Athens and developed for modern

16

In March 2019, European Union supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participated in the “People's Vote” rally in central London.

CREDIT: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

society by James Fishkin at Stanford University) could improve decision-making by leveraging sustained dialogue among polling participants and experts to produce moreinformed public opinion. The concept was used by the Citizens’ Assembly in Ireland from 2016 to 2018, a riveting exercise in deliberative democracy that produced breakthroughs on seemingly intractable issues such as abortion.

Today we are on the verge of momentous global changes, in robotics, A.I., the climate and more. The world’s citizens must debate

the ethical implications of our increasingly godlike technological powers.

At the same time, the threat of global warming is an opportunity for us to overcome our nationalistic divisions and unite in a fight for survival and just, sustainable development.

We must nurture the citizen-driven core of this new deliberative branch at the local level, with an overhaul of our education systems. Today’s schools have severed learning from civic participation, critical debate and empathy for our fellow human beings.

To transcend our ethnic, racial and socioeconomic differences, we need classrooms to produce global citizens — not globetrotting elites, but students who grasp humanity’s challenges and can deliberate beyond borders.

Our newfound powers can be used to abuse and hurt — the ancients called this “hubris.” Or they can be used to heal, and to include others in a democratic culture that supports the public and planetary good.

This is the democratic challenge of today.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and George Papandreou

In contrast to how social media works today, a similar platform could develop transparent algorithms that use artificial intelligence to promote wholesome debate and informed dialogue while fairly aggregating citizens’ positions to promote consensus building. All who participate in this public e-agora would appear under their true identities — real voices, not bots. Eponymous, not anonymous.

Technology and Politics: A Tricky Balance Social media allows for new oxygen in democracy’s bloodstream. It also allows for poison.

But for that to work, you need to be able to manage your conflict. You need to speak a language that other people can understand. You need to be able to moderate yourself, because you want to engage as a citizen even when you have a very conflictual point of view.

In my language, Danish, we use the same word for “vote” and “voice.” That’s the point: When you vote, you have a voice. You participate. Without that voice, there are no democratic states. And now we have new opportunities for making our voices heard.

In the days before social media, one of the most important jobs as a citizen was to vote. But most people would also have a democratic life between elections. We would sit over a cup of coffee or a beer and talk about how the government didn’t work.

We would engage. And these discussions often stayed private. Between elections, politicians would lead our democratic culture. This is what has changed now.

we’re being presented.

Digitization, social media, has changed it.

In the digital age, just as much as before, we feel most comfortable with people who think the same things that we do. We may forgive the odd uncle over Christmas lunch, but we don’t really want to engage in a hardcore political discussion; we want to be comfortable. The debates we have over Twitter and Facebook are different, because now they are networked. They are part of a political debate, one in which anyone can take part.

In that respect, I find that our democracy is enriched.

It becomes better when more people can participate.

Because otherwise, what kind of democracy do we have? Groups who were once marginalized can take part. People who felt isolated, forgotten, can take part.

Take the example of The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.

Their articles provided the spark that launched #MeToo. But it was social media that turned the stories into a movement that made them powerful, that made them a change agent. Today, it’s not about your position, or about being invited to speak on a panel. It’s about the story you have to tell. If that story is strong, it will be influential.

Technology gives us more control over our own lives. The

MARGRETHE VESTAGER Danish social liberal politician, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age since 1 December 2019 and European Commissioner for Competition from 2014 risk is that it gives other people a channel to control our lives as well. It’s a two-way street.

The necessity is to make sure we listen to one another, and here language is indeed part of the key.

What you hear more and more often these days is that women refrain from seeking public office because of the digital harassment it attracts.

The openness makes it easy not only for hostile language to spread, but also for hostile ideas to spread. Social media allows for new oxygen in our bloodstream. But if poison enters our system, social media allows it to flood the entire system.

That’s the challenge. Just as digitization opens up the debate, and any voice and principle can be heard, it undermines control over what

We have at least two things to figure out. One relates to language: How do we express ourselves so it’s clear that we do listen to other people and that we want them to listen to us, not fear us? The other is to make sure that what we are exposed to is transparent, and that we as citizens can trust what we’re exposed to and recognize unreliable information.

We want to take control of technology so that it serves humans. And in doing that, the most important tool is democracy. This is not about social media or technology being an enemy to democracy; it’s about seeing how can we make the best use of technology to enhance democracy so we’re able to deal with challenges that we should have dealt with a long time ago.

In Copenhagen this year, at the C40 World Mayors Summit regarding climate change, former Vice President Al Gore said something I find very inspiring. “Political will is itself a renewable resource,” he said. If we can agree to use this renewable resource of political will, then we can turn social media and technology into the necessary means to enrich our democracy and solve the longstanding problems of inequality, lack of gender balance and a planet that is threatened.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Margrethe Vestager

D

iscussions about democracy in the digital age often begin with the assumption that democracy is under threat. Conflict is not a threat to democracy; democracy is conflict. It’s only when you have a conflict that you can actually shift your position.

17

TAPIS ROUGE VIP BOUTIQUE HOTEL a 5 star testament to batumi’s touristic appeal

18

B

atumi, known as the “Pearl of the Black Sea,� and the port city capital of Adjara, is one of the most visited tourist locations in Georgia. Batumi houses both old and new architectural designs and structures that tell the story of Georgia through different lenses.

The ancient town of Batumi is a fascinating city by default but the thrills and frills that Batumi has got to offer cannot be fully appreciated without a comfortable rest point. Therefore, as a tourist, who is visiting Batumi, you should think of no other place than the Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique.

Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique is a 5-star hotel located in the very heart of Batumi, 200 meters away from the Black Sea. Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique is a sight to behold as it combines age-long Georgian architecture with modern age interior design and decoration to give her visitors a deluxe experience without having to break the bank.

The Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique is located in a prime location that affords its guests easy access to the Black Sea coast. It is also surrounded by the Neptun Fountain, Medea Monument and Europe Square, with only 5-minutes walking distance from Ali and Nino Monument, Miracles Park and Adjara Art Museum. The Tapis Rouge Hotel is a great choice for travelers interested in food, shopping, museums and business affairs.

You will find the best Georgian restaurants right in front of the Tapis Rouge Hotel.

The bathroom is equipped with the Villeroy & Boch and Vitra accessories, and there are lots of details ensured to guarantee comfortable rest for visitors.

Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique has several room dimensions which makes it a suitable hotel destination for individuals, families, and groups visiting Batumi. In fact, several guests who have been at the Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique testifies to the modern and spacious nature of the cozy rooms on offer. They also spoke in high spirits about the complimentary buffet breakfast that is available for all rooms.

The view from each room at the Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique is amazing and it allows visitors capture the full essence of the illustrious town of Batumi.

The hotel welcomes several interesting highprofile guests, including the representatives of diplomatic corps all year round. With a conference room for 20-30 people, it is ideal place for business meetings.

The Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique is a warm and ambient hotel facility which resonates with the truest spirits of Batumi.

The hotel has large, contemporary rooms with individual designs and modern amenities, including a flat-screen TV, air-conditioning, large desk, minibar, free Wi-Fi, a safe box as well as non-standard (30 cm) top quality mattresses and linen. There is 24-hour room service available.

Some rooms enjoy a splendid city view alongside spacious and classic interior that makes the Tapis Rouge VIP Boutique a comfortable place even for a long stay.

19

Artificial Intelligence Reshaping the Future of Democracy cientific progress is yielding new technological tools that can deliver great benefits for society.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in particular, is having a worldwide impact on many sectors and, if harnessed appropriately, it could even help us to achieve the 17 ambitious global goals world leaders set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Great care and effort are required however if this is to be the case.

S

Technology by itself is, of course, politically neutral and the way it will shape societies

20

IRAKLI BERIDZE Head of the Centre for AI and Robotics of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI)

and political organizations very much depends on its implementation by both the public and private sector, and its adaption through citizens.

If we do not tread this path with great caution, it may raise very real and serious human rights concerns. This can be extremely damaging and undermine the trust placed in government by communities.

Human rights, civil liberties and even the fundamental principles of law may be unacceptably exposed, or even irreparably damaged.

Yet, AI can also strengthen and preserve the democratic values of liberty and equality.

Global connectivity has brought undoubted benefits and convenience and has enriched the societal discourse through new forms of communication.

The traditional unilateral communication instruments wielded by established media have been disrupted into multilateral digital communication and social media platforms. Standard social hierarchies are mutating into flat structures where anybody is approachable by a direct message. This closer interface between people and government promotes citizens involvement into the political

concerns, for instance by threatening elections and undermining diplomacy, public discourse, and journalism.

The technology is there and has been ‘democratized’, becoming easier to use through numerous applications, that enable individuals with little technical know-how, to create their own deepfakes.

landscape. Additionally, AI applications can understand individual preferences and help, for example, voters make more informed decisions, and, by extension, increase participation.

Recently we have observed the proliferation of apps to help voters chose their favourite party by answering political questions. While this politics gamification can boost election participation, they may also influence to tilt political preferences when the apps are not developed by neutral entities. These kind of recommender systems – similar to those of Amazon, Netflix or Spotify –can certainly have negative implications and need to be closer examined and regulated. Initially conceived to help users navigate in the flood of information,

recommender systems, and the personalization of internet in general, can have negative side effects. This personalization algorithms can actually make people segregate into information bubbles, where their own beliefs are reinforced, and they are not exposed to opposite views. This may restrict people to a certain ideological frameworks leading to biases and a distorted outlook on the world.

Information bubbles can fuel political polarization and may contribute to radicalization.

This unprecedented exchange of information has indeed amplified the spread of fake news and misinformation. In this regard, so called “deepfakes” are an example that pose farreaching challenges that can even raise national security

Apart from information bubbles and misinformation, advances in AI-based surveillance technology, such as facial recognition, together with a web of surveillance cameras in public places, raise serious concerns regarding the possibility of governments, law enforcement and security services infringing citizens’ rights of privacy. While Surveillance infrastructure can be used to increase security, safety and traffic control, and are useful tools for the law enforcement agencies, there are far-reaching concerns of it giving rise to Orwellian police states.

At the same time, acknowledging the reality that AI is in fact increasingly being integrated into law enforcement, we must dive into the most critical aspect: using AI in a trustworthy and lawful manner. The use of AI by law enforcement agencies should endeavour to adhere to general principles, such as the respect for human rights, democracy, justice and the rule of law.

To meet these principles, the development, deployment and use of AI should seek to adopt the requirements of fairness, accountability, transparency and explainability throughout the entire lifecycle of the system.

Regulation, in some shape

or form, may be necessary to reduce the public risks that AI may pose and governments are increasingly being challenged to update national policies in order to fulfil the new needs and requirements of the global digital economy. Although there are some early deliberations on national or even international regulations, we are still far from creating real international governance mechanisms.

On the other hand, technological advances are happening faster than our ability to respond and, if governments cannot keep pace, we risk falling into a practice of prohibiting or banning in an event to minimise the risk that come with the use of AI. However, these approaches may restrict technology development and stifle innovation. There is no quick fix single solution for this problem. Dealing with such fastchanging technologies requires holistic solutions that monitor the technological advances and stay ahead of the foreseen problems proposing more advanced solutions. This is a process that requires a crossdiscipline and cross-national cooperation to discuss the legal and ethical implications of the large-scale use of AI. Promoting relationship-building and knowledge-sharing with stakeholders throughout the public sector, industry, academia is an essential next step.

The positive power and potential of AI are real, however, to access this, we must work towards ensuring its use is responsible and contributes to the sustainable development of society.

21

A Strong Democracy Is a Digital Democracy In taiwan, online platforms powered by artificial intelligence are giving citizens a chance to have their say — while keeping the trolls at bay.

D

emocracy improves as more people participate. And digital technology remains one of the best ways to improve participation — as long as the focus is on finding common ground and creating consensus, not division.

These are lessons Taiwan has taken to heart in recent years, with the government and the tech community partnering to create online platforms and other digital initiatives that allow everyday citizens to propose and express their opinion on policy reforms. Today, Taiwan is crowdsourcing democracy to create a more responsive government.

Fittingly, this movement, which today aims to increase government transparency, was born in a moment of national outrage over a lack of openness and accountability in politics.

On March 18, 2014, hundreds of young activists, most of them college students, occupied Taiwan’s legislature to express their profound opposition to a new trade pact with Beijing then under

22

consideration, as well as the secretive manner in which it was being pushed through Parliament by the Kuomintang, the ruling party.

AUDREY TANG The digital minister of Taiwan and an active contributor to g0v

Catalyzing what came to be known as the Sunflower Movement, the protesters demanded that the pact be scrapped and that the government institute a more transparent ratification process.

The occupation, which drew widespread public support, ended a little more than three weeks later, after the government promised greater legislative oversight of the trade pact. (To this day, the pact has yet to be approved

by Taiwan’s legislature.)

A poll released after the occupation, however, showed that 76 percent of the nation remained dissatisfied with the Kuomintang government, illustrating the crisis of trust caused by the trade deal dispute.

To heal this rift and communicate better with everyday citizens, the administration reached out to a group of civic-minded hackers and coders, known as g0v

(pronounced “gov-zero”), who had been seeking to improve government transparency through the creation of opensource tools. The organization had come to the attention of the government during the Sunflower occupation, when g0v hackers had worked closely with the protesters.

In December 2014, Jaclyn Tsai, a government minister focused on digital technology, attended a g0v-sponsored hackathon and proposed the establishment of a neutral platform where various online communities could exchange policy ideas.

Several contributors from g0v responded by partnering with the government to start the vTaiwan platform in 2015. VTaiwan (which stands for “virtual Taiwan”) brings together representatives from the public, private and social sectors to debate policy solutions to problems primarily related to the digital economy. Since it began, vTaiwan has tackled 30 issues, relying on a mix of online debate and face-to-face discussions with stakeholders.

Though the government is not

People line up to cast their votes in local elections and a referendum on same-sex marriage in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on Nov. 24, 2018. Online platforms powered by artificial intelligence, such as vTaiwan, are giving everyday Taiwanese citizens more say in determining public policy.

CREDIT: Tyrone Siu/Reuters obligated to follow vTaiwan’s recommendations (a policy that may soon change), the group’s work often leads to concrete action.

VTaiwan partly relies on a unique digital tool known as Pol.is to ensure its crowdsourced policy debates remain civil and reach consensus. Using Pol.is, any vTaiwan participant can post a comment about the topic or policy being discussed.

Crucially, other users cannot directly reply to these statements, which reduces the likelihood of trolling and abuse. Instead, they can click “agree,” “disagree” or “pass/ unsure” on each comment.

Using real-time machine learning, Pol.is analyzes all

the votes on the comments to produce an interactive map that groups like-minded participants together in relation to other, differently minded users. The map lays bare the gaps between various groups — as well as any areas of agreement. Ideally, this incentivizes people to post comments that attract more supporters, creating a path toward consensus.

VTaiwan has been used to solve a number of particularly thorny digital policy problems.

In 2015, it helped break an impasse over how best to regulate Uber, which had arrived in Taiwan two years earlier prompting opposition from taxi drivers.

In 2016, hundreds of

ordinary citizens using the platform managed within a few weeks to come up with new regulations for online liquor sales, after multiyear discussions among business and social groups had broken down. And in 2018, vTaiwan helped to create new regulations for the platform economy.

Taiwan also relies on another civic engagement platform called Join, this one maintained entirely by the government. Though similar to vTaiwan in that it uses Pol.is to create consensus, Join tackles matters beyond the digital economy, such as vacancy taxes and drug prescriptions for animals. Compared to the hundreds of thousands

who have debated issues on vTaiwan, Join’s website has hosted 10.6 million unique visitors — almost half of Taiwan’s population — since it began in 2015.

Together, vTaiwan and Join are opening up more direct lines of communication between Taiwan’s government and its citizens, producing tremendous benefits for the former. Officials are exposed to new ideas and ways of thinking, while identifying core public service demands.

The Presidential Hackathon is yet another tech initiative bringing Taiwan’s public, private and social sectors together to solve urgent problems. At the event, the first of which was held last

23

year, teams of hackers — composed of either private citizens or government workers — compete to design the most innovative improvements to the nation’s public services. Instead of prize money, the best teams receive a promise from the government that it will apply their ideas.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen stands by a section of the Berlin Wall at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, in August 2018. Ms. Tsai has been a major supporter of Taiwan’s digital democracy initiatives.

CREDIT: Ringo Chiu/Reuters

One of the top teams in this year’s hackathon included officials from the Judicial Yuan, the judicial branch of the Taiwanese government. The team developed two digital tools to make the nation’s judicial system more legible and transparent for everyday Taiwanese.

One of the digital tools developed by the Judicial Yuan team addresses this confusion by giving the public a better sense of why punishments can differ for the same crime. Any user can simply enter in the relevant data for a hypothetical drunken-driving offense, such as blood alcohol concentration and the type of vehicle involved. The application then lists the appropriate penalties for the case, while also showing sentences from real-world drunken-driving cases that are similar to the one described. (The team analyzed over 50,000 verdicts from previous drunken-driving offenses to create the tool.)

24

In this way, users get a better understanding of how slight changes in, for example, blood alcohol concentration can lead to radically different penalties.

In the closing speech of this year’s Presidential Hackathon,

President Tsai Ing-wen encouraged government officials to embrace a hacker spirit as they work to meet the public’s needs. “Do it bravely; dare to make mistakes,” she said. In Taiwan, digital

technology is boosting civic dialogue and infusing government with the spirit of social innovation. By giving everyone a voice, Taiwan is strengthening its democracy for the future.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Audrey Tang

Drunken driving is an issue of broad public concern in Taiwan. And in recent years, the differing sentences handed out to drivers involved in highprofile accidents have led to public confusion about why some punishments can be so light compared with others.

Anand Giridharadas: Stop Spreading the Plutocrats’ Phony Religion Don’t believe the hype — wealthy global elites won’t solve the world’s problems, says the author of ‘winners take all.’

We

talk a lot here about what we should be doing more of,” Anand Giridharadas said during a speech in Colorado back in 2015. “We don’t talk about what we should be doing less of.”

“

Mr. Giridharadas, a writer who had participated in a fellowship at the Aspen Institute, was addressing a gathering of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists — capitalism’s “winners,” essentially — who were participating in the institute’s Action Forum, which encourages attendees to work on ways that they might change the world, preferably through win-win endeavors.

The privileged and powerful, Mr. Giridharadas posited in his speech, are great at creating foundations and giving away money to good causes.

The problem: These elites are also fiercely protective of their own interests, which often makes them resistant to the kinds of sacrifices that would create real change.

For instance, they’re happy to donate money to a few schools (and be celebrated for their generosity), but they will lobby aggressively against a corporate tax increase that could mean more funding for tens of thousands of schools.

suggests that government action, not the generosity of the global elite, is the best solution to some of our most deep-seated problems and warns that the widening gap between the rich and the poor is a threat to democracy itself.

The speech surprised the guests in attendance, angering some and inspiring others. Later, the talk was widely viewed online, and it essentially set Mr. Giridharadas on his current path.

A repeated comment I’ve heard about your book is that people wish there was a solutions chapter at the end, which you did not include. Was that intentional — not offering your views on how to fix things?

Last year Mr. Giridharadas, a former columnist and correspondent for The New York Times, published the searing and provocative “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.” In it, Mr. Giridharadas

We spoke to Mr. Giridharadas about his book and his views on the state of American democracy. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS American writer, former columnist for The New York Times CREDIT: Mackenzie Stroh

If you ever go to a doctor and the doctor pokes around for a couple minutes and immediately brings out a knife or starts to give you pills, you should run. Diagnosis is a prerequisite for prescription.

25

An activist wearing a mask depicting Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, demonstrates during a 2018 meeting of European Union finance ministers in Brussels.

CREDIT: Yves Herman/Reuters

The theory of the book is that we are in a moment of extreme inequality, of political stasis, of democratic erosion, because our common culture has been infected by a phony religion. And that phony religion tells us that the best society is achieved by unleashing people to make money, as much as possible, in every way possible, cutting every corner they can, exploiting people, underpaying taxes, degrading the environment, evading regulation, manipulating government, and then donating some of the spoils of that, or repurposing some side part of their businesses, and claiming to save the world.

Before we get to solutions, before the doctor gives you pills or brings out the knife,

26

we have to have a clear diagnosis of what’s going on, and we have to understand who did this, and how they did it.

I often feel that the desire for an instant solution among some of the more businessminded folks who read the book is actually a desire for premature absolution. I think they want to skip the whodunit part. I think they want to get straight to the things we can do because they don’t want to deal with the fact that, if I’m right in this story that I tell, there’s a whole lot of complicity that needs to be dealt with first.

I don’t think you can deal with a problem like white supremacy without understanding first what happened, who did it and how — you don’t jump

straight to the solution. I don’t think you can deal with the problem of patriarchy without first understanding who did it, how it works, what’s the situation, how it operates.

And likewise, I don’t think you can understand the problem that I call “capital supremacy” without going into depth — the depths of how it functions, how it works.

My theory of change is simple: I believe if you can begin to dethrone the phony religion, you can clear away the brush obscuring the path to fixing these problems the real way, which is democratically.

In an interview earlier this year, you said that Facebook is arguably “the biggest and most dangerous monopoly in our time.” Speak about that a

bit.

One of the things I talk about in the book is the rhetoric of the mid-90s when these tech companies were starting to really push into our lives.

They were going to be forces of a democratic leveling.

They were going to empower people. They were going to flatten the hierarchies of the physical world. They were going to decentralize power.

And we’ve ended up in a world in which we have basically one social network, one online store, one company for all information retrieval.

We used to worry 100 years ago about the kind of monopolies you had in steel and railroads and things like that. Not to minimize the early 20th century, but I would argue that was child’s

I don’t mean to suggest that people with steel monopolies weren’t dangerous, but I think that on the scale of Facebook, they were a 2, and Facebook is a 10.

Facebook could probably have the power to tip an election result — that is just the kind of power that needs to be regulated. I have little kids. Do you know how regulated our car seats are?

How are these car seats so much more regulated? How do they come with so many more warning labels than Facebook?

You’ve previously pointed out that people who are anxious about

their economic future or skeptical that their government can solve society’s problems tend to look for rich saviors.

It wasn’t always this way. Why do you think that so many in Western democracies today equate wealth with intelligence, or look to the rich to solve problems?

This is a very good question, because it broadens the circle of complicity beyond the plutocrats themselves.

I think it’s very important to remember that the plutocrats would not be able to pull this off alone — they need us to cooperate with them. And we cooperate with them by participating and spreading a culture that views them as saviors.

I spend a certain amount of time in Europe, and when I go to Europe one thing that strikes me is that very few people seem to think of someone like Mark Zuckerberg as a big savior or hero. In most European contexts that I’ve

been in, they talk about Mark Zuckerberg the way they talk about a guy who manufactures drill bits — that he’s trying to make money, buy for a dollar, sell for two, just trying to do his hustle. He does his thing, but we’ve got to make sure we regulate and keep him in check.

But in America, we allowed this savior halo to develop around him. He didn’t put that savior halo on himself.

That halo is a product of our beliefs, our media, the way journalists cover people like that, the way our president invites people like that into the White House to become sages and opiners on the future.

If we denude these plutocrats of their moral glow, I think it would actually become much harder for them to rule us.

The first step is to safely stop believing their hype.

What do you say to people in the United States, Britain and other countries faced with a rising tide of populism who say that this is what you get when you

ignore the problems of working-class voters?

I think they’re right. I think one of the arguments that happened after Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump was about whether this was about economic anxiety, or whether it was racism.

I think the importance of racial resentment and the desire of white people and men to stay on top was overwhelming. That said, if America was working for more people, and there was less of a sense of scarcity, and more of a sense of fairness, and more of a sense of the game being open and reasonable, I do think someone like Donald Trump would have way less oxygen.

The kind of politics you see in Trump and in Brexit is a politics that gains life when people begin to feel like the system is rigged. And while I may disagree with people on where they take that politically, I think people are absolutely correct: The system is rigged.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

play compared to the kind of monopolies you have with an exclusive social network that is a portal into more than a billion minds, and that is a primary platform for political discourse, and that owns Instagram and WhatsApp — WhatsApp in particular being a source of rapid and often dangerous information in developing countries that has led to violence in the past.

Ginia Bellafante and Anand Giridharadas at The New York Times’s 2018 “Cities for Tomorrow” conference in New Orleans. CREDIT: Mike Cohen for The New York Times

27

Exploring the Fine Details of the Wonderful World of

Château Mukhrani

hâteau Mukhrani is Georgia’s first royal Château. It is situated in the most serene environment 35 minutes’ away from Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. Château Mukhrani offers a beautiful ambiance akin to 19th century palaces with its spectacular arrangement of cellars and the aesthetic delight of its gardens, vineyards, and winery.

C

Château Mukhrani embodies an iconic part of the Georgian history and heritage, first as an ancestral home of Prince Ivane Mukhranbatoni, a renowned member of the Bagrationi Royal family of Georgia and now as the home of Georgia’s finest wines. Château Mukhrani was built in the 19th century, and its palace and surrounding gardens were designed by brilliant French architects. Today, the grandiose Château Mukhrani is a befitting cultural center for both Georgian and foreign elites, and remains a cynosure of all eyes.

In Autumn of 2020, the splendid 19th century palace will open up its park, French gardens and pristine vineyards to guests as an upscale and diverse event venue, offering top-class services, and establishing its

“landmark” status in Georgian hospitality and event culture.

Château Mukhrani has so much in store waiting to be discovered all season long. All experiences and memories created in this grand palace are sure to last a lifetime.

When we asked, Juan Pablo Molyneux, the internationally acclaimed designer who holds the credits for the amazing interior design of Château Mukhrani and several other famous luxurious interiors around the world about his work at Château Mukhrani, he noted that Château Mukhrani is a source of cosmopolitan architectural expressions which continues to capture the attention of every visitor. Molyneux embarked on a retrospective drive to highlight the monumental status of Château Mukhrani.

“It was designed by French architects for the Prince Ivane Mukhranbatoni. In 1875 began the construction of the castle that took 12 years to complete. Both castle and grounds captured visitors’ attentions. The huge venue was a cultural center for the Georgian

elite. Prince Ivane Mukhranbatoni hosted many guests including famous Georgian public figures counting writers and poets such as Ilia Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli, along with the Russian Emperor of the time. The castle was famous for its Italian gilded furniture together with the first European parquet in Georgia. The castle’s first floor housed an amphitheater for 150 people, and on other floors, there were a variety of salons.

The Bagrationi royal family had strong liaisons with the other European Royalties and the Prince Ivane Mukhranbatoni’s interest in farming was greatly enhanced on his trip to France in 1873-1875 where he learned more about the fine art of winemaking of the Bordeaux and Champagne regions. On his return home, he decided to start producing wonderful Georgian wines on his forefathers’ Mukhrani estate land. Abandoning a brilliant military career, he created a superb vineyard and built a 1 200 000-bottle capacity Winery. The winery was a bravely implemented innovation that was unique throughout the Caucasus.

The great reputation of Mukhrani wines made these Georgian vineyards famous. The demand for Mukhrani wines was growing steadily and they were successfully marketed in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw and the Baltic countries, Paris, Vienna and even in cities as far away as the US.” While attesting to the cultural import behind the design of Château Mukhrani, Molyneux explained that “The neoclassical spirit presided over the conception and design of Mukhrani Palace and its garden. The culture that gave rise to this monument is European, while mingling the French, Italian and Russian elements of the 18th and 19th centuries.”

Molyneux drew inspiration for his brilliant work from the amazing merge of cultures he noticed in the design of Château Mukhrani and its rich vineyards.

“I have based my project on this European eclecticism, unified by

the neo-classicism dominant in the 19th century. Naturally, the theme of wine and vineyards have also inspired me. Some salons, like the Turkish salon I imagined, refer to the exotic fashion that existed in the aristocratic homes of the 19th century. The spirit of grandeur of the house will be restored by precious materials such as marble, stone, mahogany woodwork, glass, stucco etc.”

Molyneux set an incredible personal goal for himself on this task as he has done for the many beautiful palaces around the world tied to his name.

“Mukhrani Palace is set to become one of the most beautiful houses in Georgia. It is, in any case, the goal that I have set myself.” While the Georgian and foreign public may be proud of the spectacular ambience at Château Mukhrani, none of them can be as proud as the man behind the palace’s brilliant display.

Beyond working on the interior design for the Château Mukhrani, an interesting look into Molyneux’s style, experiences, major projects, and his achievements proves a trail of successes that are testament to Molyneux’s smart craftsmanship.

“My favorite projects are not necessarily the ones you might think. Of course, I am very proud of my palaces in Canada, Russia or Qatar but I also enjoy the challenge of my interventions in historical monuments in France, Italy, Austria or the United Kingdom. My own houses are also very dear to my heart. And some reasonable size apartments that I have done in London or Paris as a “pied-a-terre” for my international clients, always delight me, every time I go to visit.”

Interestingly, Molyneux prides his work on the many opportunities he sees in “the diversity of the world, the richness of traditions and different forms of arts and civilizations. I believe that the world would have lost a lot if this current & universal minimalism will have triumphed.”

“For me, it is important to return to eclecticism, diversity of cultures.

large dining room and the reception rooms at the Cercle de l’Union Interalliée, one of the most private club near the Elysée Palace.”

Château Mukhrani remains one of Molyneux’s brilliant projects and he is delighted to be able to preserve the unique history of the palace for the teeming guests that will grace the palace once it is opened.

“Château Mukhrani was built for a member of the royal family of Georgia (one of the oldest royal dynasties in the World - the Bagrationi).

Today, it is Château Mukhrani vineyard headquarters.

When I intervene in places full of history, my intention has been neither to reconstruct "historical" interiors, nor to reproduce lost architectural interiors. I am more concerned with evoking an atmosphere and regaining the spirit of grandeur and refinement that once governed their architecture and design.

My work is a celebration of the richness of the world, cultures, history and decorative styles that requires Excellence. This excellence is something I find in the unique know-how of the best craftsmen in the world.”

In fact, some of the things considered as a problem in most parts of the world such as language barrier is one of the driving forces behind Molyneux’s successes.

“So many languages are spoken in my project sites - - the craftsmen I work with are from all over the world. I look for the best in their respective fields, whatever their country of origin. Often, these artisans collaborate in major restoration projects of the most important historical monuments of the world. Many are French but also Italian, Russian, English, Indians ... Excellence has no borders.

I was very proud and honored to be asked for this prestigious restoration project. When you are in charge of a project like this, you must be humble. I am working with the existing building, not against it.

The current priority is to strengthen the structure of the palace that had suffered the passage of time. This strengthening works were undertaken only where it was strictly necessary and after some very fine surveys had been carried out.”

The specific details of Molyneux’s work sounds like a brilliant plan that can only be birthed through his creative masterpiece.

“Only one exterior modification was necessary to provide a passage

I am also a member of the governing bodies of major private heritage organizations such as The World Monuments Fund, The French Heritage Society and The American Friends of Versailles. We raise funds to finance restoration campaigns of many historic monuments in France and all around the world.

I work with the same craftsmen as part of this personal commitment to the heritage on my sites. Through my New York branch, I opened the American market to many of them who have thus been able to have satellite ateliers in the United States.”

Some of Molyneux’s most exciting projects include several institutional and hospitality projects as well as – “the decorative renovation of the Russian Salon, at the Palais des Nations, in Geneva, on behalf of the Russian Federation. Previously, for the Russian State, I designed the Pavilion of Treaties near St. Petersburg, an official building reserved for the signing of international agreements. In Paris, I renovated the

between the ground floor and the cellar. This addition consists in a gallery linking the great nave to an existing projecting part of the palace.

Inside the castle, nothing was left of the original interior decorations.

Everything was to be done. It's a real challenge and an unexpected chance as well for a decorator. It was as if the palace offered itself like a large blank page. But what a pressure!”

Unfazed by the grand scale of the work in Château Mukhrani, Molyneux understands the challenge and is sure that his capacity will be more than enough.

“The program is very ambitious. It includes a Grand vestibule d’Honneur, a large ballroom, an almost 50-seats restaurant with its professional kitchen, a main bar, a lounge, a library, a large meeting room, a Museum, some prestige rooms for official events & receptions, one luxury master suite, offices, services areas, cloakrooms.”

Dimensions are not Molyneux’s biggest specifics as he believes each project must be approached with a detailed approach to solve its unique problems. No two projects can be said to feature similar designs and in the words of this brilliant artisan, he believes his work is indispensable

and special in every sense.

“If I dared to use a comparison with the world of fashion, my work could be compared to “Haute couture”, not “prêt-à-porter” (ready-towear in French).”

We also spoke to Patrick Honnef, Chief Winemaker and CEO of Château Mukhrani. To him, the cultural heritage embedded in Château Mukhrani makes it significant as – “one of the few remaining palaces of Georgia and witness of the great history of Georgia and its long raining family, the Bragationis. It is a symbol of the Georgian Aristocracy and their efforts at developing the Georgian Wine Culture in the 19th century in Kartli. It represents elegance, nobility and culture. Today we are in the Renaissance of Georgian Culture. Our wine culture is part of this Renaissance, to remember about our varietal richness and about quality that we can produce in this beautiful country, made for winemaking by nature. Château Mukhrani is part of the Georgian pride and it is our motivation to give this palace its meaning again. It is a cultural heritage for all Georgians and it is a beautiful landmark to represent Georgia in the international context. It stands out Georgian history and culture on the national and international level to all Georgians and our guests.”

gardens and pristine vineyards will be offering to our guests unique and extraordinary locations for cultural events, business meetings, corporate gatherings, private occasions, ceremonies and gala dinners.

The palace ballroom, an iconic space with stunning architecture and separated reception area will provide majestic backdrop for different kind of events. At palace restaurant our guests will have opportunity to taste international high quality cuisine lead by French recipes, with a touch of local flavors and aromas, serving the wines from Chateau Mukhrani production and an international wine collection.

The Meeting Room will be the best place for small corporate retreats, VIP board meetings and video conferences. Winter Garden, Gallery Area and Turkish Lounge located on the first floor of the palace will be the ideal event venues for cocktail receptions, corporate gatherings, exhibitions and presentations. And from the highest point on the palace Terrace, guests will have possibility to enjoy picturesque views on the whole estate, starting from Chateau Mukhrani vineyards to XIX Century Park and surrounded by mountains.”

Patrick Honnef also gave us appreciable insights into the spate of the ongoing reconstruction at Château Mukhrani.

“We are in the middle of the reconstruction works on the palace today.

All massive demolition and reconstruction works are finished and works are concentrated on MEP works. Soon the decorative works will begin and we will finish most of the interior works in September 2020. Not only the palace interior will be reconstructed but the landscaping around the palace will be changed as well, and we hope in October 2020 we will open the palace in full beauty.”

The reconstruction of Château Mukhrani is on everyone’s lips. While the public is waiting to be wowed, Teona Talakhadze, the Brand Manager of Château Mukhrani helped us to understand the significance of this current project.

“We expect from this project that we bring back shine to an important cultural heritage of Georgia. We expect to make all Georgians proud about this project. For sure we expect as well to increase the attractiveness of Château Mukhrani for our national and international guests. To visit this beautiful place, spend good moments in our park, restaurants and relish our wines. We will open up our visitors to a new category of upscale hospitality.”

Tamar Buadze, the Château Mukhrani’s Head of Tourism gave us a clear picture of the planned functionalities for the palace when opened to the public.

“Our splendid XIX Century Palace surrounded by a forest, French

On what the future holds, Patrick Honnef does not shy away from the challenges but believes that motivation to make Château Mukhrani a world renowned Georgian heritage site will not wane.

“We have still a lot of objectives in Château Mukhrani. The renovation of the palace is one milestone on this way. Still we have other areas of our territory to restore. We plan to create a new parking area, renovate other buildings and create a visitor reception and exhibition area. Apart from wine and hospitality we have a strong cultural connotation that we want to develop and perhaps creating a new dimension of activities that for me is in a logic of this place. Château Mukhrani shall become a must to see and must to be place for all Georgians and our guests. It is our motivation to be among the best Georgian wine producers, standing on international level for the great wine potential of this country. It is to become a synonym of Georgian nobility and elegance.”

Post-Truth Politics Afflicts the Global South, Too The peer-to-peer messaging platforms popular in Africa, Latin America and many Asian countries can make monitoring virtually impossible.

C

enturies before the age of social media, in his “Politics,” Aristotle explicitly outlined the vital trait that sustains modern democratic coexistence, separates us from other species and makes us, in his famous words, a “political animal”: the faculty of speech, or, in the Greek, “logos,” meaning not only speech but reason. This reasoned speech, Aristotle said, is the ability that “serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful and hence also the just and unjust … and partnership in these things is what makes a household and a city.”

It is our capacity for reasoned communication that makes elections possible and allows our representative political systems to function and adapt. Freedom to speak empowers citizens, individually or collectively, to advance their interests and shape the institutions whose decisions impact their lives.

LAURA CHINCHILLA Vice president of the Club of Madrid and chair of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. Former president of Costa Rica.

CREDIT: Mauricio A. Ureña

Yet today we are deeply concerned about the very survival of democracy and the rule of law. These civic guarantees make possible our coexistence, particularly at a time when bogus information rapidly spreads through social media, radical political content explodes across digital channels and public debates increasingly veer toward extremism. Alongside efforts to realize freedom of speech in countries still under autocratic regimes, new initiatives and debates have emerged motivated by fears about how we are exercising that freedom digitally.

Indeed, rights and freedoms, like democratic processes, require constant scrutiny and deliberation regarding their use, their content and their boundaries, if we want them to endure.

There are no easy truths when it comes to the benefits and perils that social media platforms now present to our governing bodies.

On the one hand, digital technologies have played a vital role in providing free access to government data and information; encouraging citizen participation in public decision making; introducing new voices to the

public debate; fostering the transparency and scrutiny of administrative actions; knitting global advocacies together on issues affecting human rights, the rule of law and democracy; and mobilizing new actors eager to find alternative avenues for political participation. The Arab Spring almost a decade ago, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong this summer and the toppling of Puerto Rico’s governor in July are only a few examples.

On the other, the alarming number of episodes involving the use of social media platforms to manipulate elections and public debates, as well as the surge of extremist groups using the internet to incite hatred and violence, clearly warns us that the adverse relationship between those platforms and democracy is no longer just anecdotal.

Fake news is as old as news, and hate speech is as old as speech. But the digital age has provided a ripe environment for the virulent reproduction and visibility of both. To be clear, the promise of the betterment of the human condition held by new technologies is beyond question. But the risks have

Jency Jacob, managing editor of Boom, an Indian factchecking site, addresses his audience on “Fact vs. Fiction,” a live-streamed program he co-hosts. The spread of misinformation increased by 40 percent during India’s fiveweek parliamentary elections in 2019, compared with nonelection times. CREDIT: Atul Loke/The New York Times

32

Demonstrators opposed to a controversial extradition bill rally at the Central MTR station in Hong Kong in June. Digital technologies have offered activists around the world new channels to organize and mobilize.

CREDIT: Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

become just as apparent.

While these issues should be of equal concern to the entire international community, the truth is that, at least with regards to the manipulation of elections, the global South has often been well outside the spotlight. Much of our global attention and reporting have been focused on the deceptions and distortions afflicting elections in the industrial West, such as those that unfolded amid the U.S. presidential race in 2016.

There is a grave danger in overlooking the consequences of this inattention, not only in terms of global democratization and democratic consolidation, but also in the specific ways the use of social media is impacting democratic processes in the South.

In India, the world’s largest democracy, fact-checking news sites estimated that during the most recent parliamentary elections, the spread of misinformation increased by 40 percent compared with non-election times. In February, during Nigeria’s latest elections, false information about the

supposed violence in polling stations located in opposition strongholds was widely spread. In Brazil, during the 2018 presidential elections, electoral authorities were forced to redouble their efforts to counter the spread of videos showing false alterations of results in the voting machines.

And yet, the most important debate we could be having, in both developed and developing countries, might be whether or not the quality of our public conversations, as informed by national levels of education, human development and institutional strength, is sufficient to reveal the advantageous and the harmful, or to separate the just from the unjust, as Aristotle set forth in the 4th century B.C. We certainly have an

obligation to warn against the perils of social media, including the ways it can facilitate the spread of untrustworthy information, incite hatred and violence, or worsen mass political manipulation. But in the end social media is a mere platform. In that regard, though it may help reproduce or magnify content, that content itself was generated by an actual citizen, organization, government agency, political party or company somewhere in the world.

Social media is but the crudest reflection of the societies and types of citizens we have nurtured. If sometimes we do not like what we see, polishing the mirror may not be enough.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Laura Chinchilla

are considering ways to hold companies accountable for the harmful content presented on their platforms, which will surely trigger necessary debates on the dynamics between the right to privacy, economic freedom and freedom of speech.

India, Nigeria and Brazil have something in common: the prevalent use of WhatsApp, the preferred messaging app in Africa, Latin America and many Asian countries (with 1.6 billion active users monthly, in 180 countries) to share information with family and friends.

Unlike other platforms like Facebook, whose content can be monitored, encrypted peer-to-peer messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram and Signal can make monitoring the exchange of information virtually impossible. While it is vitally important to protect users’ privacy, peer-to-peer technology also facilitates criminal activity, the cynical spread of falsehoods and mass manipulation.

Naturally, some countries

Donald Trump, at the time a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, tweets from his office in Trump Tower in 2015. Russia’s attempts to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential race in 2016 by spreading misinformation were extensively documented in the Western media. CREDIT: Josh Haner/The New York Times

33

Make Voting Mandatory in the U.S. Low voter turnout isn’t just embarrassing.

It’s a threat to democracy

D

ambisa Moyo, an economist and the author of “Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth — and How to Fix It.” Around the world, citizens appear to be re-engaging with democracy. In May, voter turnout at the European parliamentary elections reached a 20-year high, and in 2018 turnout for the United States midterm elections was the highest in a hundred years.

Yet in each instance, voter turnout reached just a feeble 50 percent. In the context of recent history, that was a surge. In the 2014 United States midterms, only 37 percent of the electorate voted, rising to 50 percent in 2018. In Europe, this year’s turnout was 50 percent — up

from 42 percent in 2014.

DAMBISA MOYO An economist and the author of "Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy Is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth — and How to Fix It."

While turnouts are higher in United States presidential elections — 60 percent in 2016 — can we say that democracy is thriving when 40 to 50 percent of voters still opt to stay at home? The United States is generally near the bottom of the list of well-off countries in its rate of voter participation. Shortly after the 2014 elections, Senator Bernie Sanders admonished the country, saying “Americans should be embarrassed.” The low voter turnout, he wrote in The Guardian, “was an international disgrace.”

Low voter turnout encourages politicians to design policies that cater to the interests of the few over the many. This, in turn, promotes societal division and harms the economy. In the United States, nearly half the people who don’t vote

have family incomes below $30,000, and just 19 percent of likely voters come from lowincome families. So it’s hardly surprising that the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index downgraded the United States from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in 2017, based on diminished voter engagement and confidence in the democratic process.

This long-term apathy puts the political system at risk.

The government’s credibility is threatened when so few people participate. In the interest of preserving democracy, we need engaged citizens to go to the polls.

An effective way to address this problem — one that might not appeal to Americans who hate the idea of being told what to do — is mandatory voting, which is currently the

A voter cast her ballot in Kensington, Md., on primary day in April 2016.

CREDIT: Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

34

In 1893 Belgium became the first democracy to institute compulsory voting by parliamentary act. Backers saw it as a way to empower the working classes. Australia introduced compulsory voting through an amendment to its Electoral Act in 1924, in response to declining voter numbers. Turnout in 1922 had fallen below 60 percent from more than 70 percent in 1919. The impact of legislation was swift: In 1925, 91 percent of the electorate voted.

What’s more, a century later, compulsory voting still works.

The bigger the voter pool, the stronger the contract is between citizens and leaders. In this year’s European parliamentary elections, mandatory voting in Belgium and Luxembourg led respectively to turnouts of about 90 percent and 86 percent. By comparison, turnout in France was 50 percent, and in the Netherlands it was 42 percent.

If the United States had mandatory voting, there likely would be a greater turnout among lower-income groups and minorities, which could lead to a change in the types of politicians elected. One might think this would favor Democratic candidates, but that’s not necessarily the case. While compulsory voting has been assumed to help Australia’s Labor Party, for example, it has not prevented right-of-center parties from holding power.

Research on mandatory voting does not provide a clear picture of its political consequences. Still, it’s clear that a voting requirement

can change the makeup of the electorate. After the Netherlands removed mandatory voting in 1967, voter participation fell by nearly 20 percent.

We should also consider other, more radical, ways to make voters better informed and more engaged. For instance, citizens could be required to pass a governmentsanctioned civics test to vote.

In the United States, Australia and several European and Asian countries, immigrants — regardless of education level or country of origin — are already required to pass civics tests to become citizens.

Of course, the checkered history of civil rights and suffrage means even the suggestion of such tests would be ripe for criticism and, if implemented carelessly, subject to abuse and discrimination. Some would surely object to this proposal as reviving the sorts of tests once used to disenfranchise racial minorities and the poor in the United States, and certainly we must ensure such discrimination does not occur again. Yet letting voters be underinformed shortchanges them.

Voters cast their ballots in Daniel Island, S.C., in 2016.

CREDIT: Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times

A more extreme requirement would see democracies allocate greater weight to the votes of citizens who are more engaged in the political process. In 2018, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Ohio can exclude voters from the electoral rolls if they don’t vote for a few election cycles and don’t return an address-confirmation card. Six other states have similar laws in place.

citizens who remain engaged in the electoral process and punishes those who don’t.

This might seem like a step back from the democratic ideal of one person one vote, but it brings into sharp focus the importance of voting as a civic duty. That said, it should be implemented in a way that encourages people to engage and vote rather than serving to “clean up” an electoral register.

The court’s decision rewards

In the face of serious long-

term economic threats, the world’s strongest republics must demonstrate that they can be resilient, not by resisting change but by adapting. This requires a willingness to explore ideas that could fortify democracy.

For skeptics — and for those who believe the answer is always more freedom, not less — the answer may be to put the securing of tomorrow’s freedoms above the right to skip out on voting today.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Dambisa Moyo

law in more than 20 countries.

35

Georgian Premium Wine "With the support of our friends, we started our company to produce and offer you the chance to enjoy uniquely tasting wines of Georgian Heritage."

Co–Founder Jaba Jebashvili

UNIQUE WINES FROM A COUNTRY OF WINE The winegrowing area is a Protected Designation of Origin; Limited quantity of wines per year; Naturally Semi Sweet red wines Khvanchkara &Usakhelouri; Naturally Semi Sweet white wines Rachuli Tetra & Tvishi; Naturally Dry red wine Aleksandreuli.

Royal.racha@gmail.com 36

+995 577 450010

Facebook: Royal Racha

Self-Reliance – Optimal Tool for Assisting Developing and Emerging Countries

T

hirty years on from the collapse of the USSR, what key characteristics are shared by post-Soviet states today?

A lack of good governance and rule of law, a diminished institutional environment and the scarcity of the systems in place that would ensure economic linkages between post-Soviet and post-socialist countries are among the main challenges faced and shared by such states.

The process of transformation to properlyfunctioning institutions and legal systems that would lay the foundations for good governance and the rule of law, has turned out to be quite difficult, as this is much more than merely a mechanical process. It encompasses society’s cultural development and changing in the general mindset. Moreover, it also encompasses the establishment of a free, competitive market economy, built upon properly-formed state institutions and accurately-implemented public investment policy.

A crucial component in this regard is putting together a well-designed and developed domestic revenue mobilization system that ensures two things: an effective business environment and the necessary conditions therefor; and guaranteed collection of necessary tax revenue integral to macroeconomic stability and long-term, sustainable economic development.

The collapse of economic relations between many of these countries has significantly damaged them, causing drastic slowdowns of their economies. At the same time, it turned out to be difficult to get rid of the so-called “socialist bacillus.”

Even nowadays, we can

ALEKSI ALEKSISHVILI Chairman and CEO at Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG), former Minister of Finance of Georgia observe that a large number of people, especially among older generations, still see the state and government as the sole means of improving the quality of their lives.

Even though, by and large, society has not really got what it wanted in the past 20-25 years, many still have high expectations of their government and do not consider that society could and should be able to take care of itself.

What role does the international community have in this transition process?

The involvement and resources of the international development community, including multi-lateral and bi-lateral organizations, will play a vital role and function in this process of transformation. This is not a matter of homogeneous evaluation of how well a community is achieving its goals. Indeed, although in some circumstances this can be quite effective, in others it’s counterproductive and leads to worse outcomes. In some cases, there is a lack of good governance and a high level of corruption, international development institutions can in some ways nourish undesirable regimes

and perpetuate the existing situation. On the other hand, such assistance can play a positive role, if there are some key factors in place. In particular, the government must take ownership in the process and lead the way with respect to transformative changes. This is one of the most important conditions for reforms to be effective.

In most cases, we observe insufficiencies in terms of the experience, capacity, and capital necessary for infrastructure or private sector development, as well as weak institutions. If resources are to be effectively spent, they should be focused on these directions.

Can you give a specific example of enacting transformative reform from your experience?

An approach recently presented by USAID, known as self-reliance, is one of the most appropriate tools for such countries to ensure their further development, not only for emerging Europe, but for other developing countries.

Indeed, self-reliance must become the template method and approach for international development organizations. Therefore, the key task is not to satisfy the current, short-term needs of these countries, but to help them to create and ensure a sustainable institutional foundation on which to pursue further development.

Such development would rely on the following: good governance and the rule of law; and a well-developed private sector; and extensive public investment. This could be achieved by applying various models, including public private partnerships (PPPs) that should focus on risk-sharing and highly interesting projects for private capital.

Can a general approach work or do methods need to be tailored from country

to country?

There is not one standard model of reform for all to follow. Of course, you cannot copy specific steps and actions directly.

Nevertheless, there are some key, conceptual factors that are appropriate for every country and they must be considered, as otherwise it would be simply impossible to achieve desired transition.

Establishing a competitive and business-enabling environment, private sector development, open economy and investment attraction are the main conceptual pillars that should steer this process. But the best recipe for achieving transformation is unique for each country, as it must cater to national peculiarities with respect to culture, lifestyle, mentality and institutional environment.

All countries have their own, exclusive characteristics.

Taking these into account, we should pay particular attention to the following: sequence of actions in the process, meaning consistent and proper organization, planning, and implementation; public mobilization through good communication with the public; and ensuring the continuous flow and durability of the process. There is no finish line. The process is always evolving, and requires some updating as time goes on. Therefore, there can be no complacency.

To summarize, based on these three essential requirements (sequence of actions, public communication/mobilization, and continuation of the process) cooperation between a state’s political leadership, international development institutions and bi-lateral organizations should be based on active mutual coordination and trust. If this can be achieved, we will see that their efforts will produce tangible results.

37

The Case for Populism Hungary’s history under communism illustrates why it has chosen a nonliberal path

We

Hungarians have rarely had easy lives. As was the case with other nations that came under the direct domination of the Soviet Union in the 20th century, we had to struggle to retain our national culture and way of life. Yet our trials have prepared us well for the challenges of the 21st century.

After World War II, the Soviet Union foisted a social experiment on Hungary, forcing us to live in a Communist society for almost half a century. In 1956 we rebelled against the Soviet-backed regime in an effort to regain our national independence. Our revolution failed, however, and we paid a heavy price. Liberation would come decades later, after the collapse of the Soviet empire.

In the totalitarian regime imposed on Hungary by Communist Moscow, politics was practiced in impenetrable, smoke-filled back rooms.

There was a total absence of information on the streets, so the public relied on gossip to find out what was happening.

At the same time, people couldn’t care less about who had and who hadn’t fallen out of grace with the Communist leadership. Society was split between Them (party

38

members and careerists within the ramparts of power) and Us (those whose principal aim was to lead independent lives on the periphery).

MARIA SCHMIDT An author and historian whose research focuses on 20th-century dictatorships in Europe, the director general of the House of Terror museum in Budapest, a former adviser to the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban

Under Communism, it would have been unimaginable for me to go out with a party official or share a friendly word with an army or police officer. Such people existed in a different world than the rest of us. Anyone valued or decorated by officialdom was a nonperson in our eyes. We had our own heroes to look up to. We had the freedom fighters from ’56. We had our poets, like Gyorgy Petri; our writers, like Imre Kertesz; our painters, like Gabor Karatson (one of the most important forerunners of the Hungarian Green movement); we had our singers and historians.

The stifling atmosphere under Communism prevailed through the 1970s. But then, in the 1980s, things started to change. The old guard of Communist officials retired, and their successors didn’t care much for the regime’s official ideology; they were as obsessed as the old guard had become with accumulating money and influence. As a result, the regime became increasingly insecure, while we became more liberated and self-assured.

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, we sensed that it was only a matter of time before the Hungarian regime unraveled.

The veteran party leader Janos Kadar knew that Mr. Gorbachev’s reforms would be lethal, and he told the Soviet leader so.

He was right. The young officials who took power in the late ’80s soon accepted the inevitable and gave in to change. In June 1989, they permitted the reburial of Imre Nagy, the reform-minded former prime minister who was executed after the 1956 revolution. At this momentous occasion, the young Viktor Orban publicly called for free elections and demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary.

In September 1989, the regime opened the HungaryAustria border, allowing tens of thousands of East German refugees who had flooded into Hungary passage to West Germany. This destabilized the East German regime and unleashed a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, and of Europe. “It was in Hungary that the first stone was removed from the Berlin

A piece of fencing from the Iron Curtain, a boundary that separated Hungary from Austria until the end of the Cold War..

CREDIT: Andrew Testa for The New York Times

Wall,” Helmut Kohl, the former German chancellor, later recalled.

These were unforgettable days for us. In the summer of 1989, President George H.W. Bush visited Budapest and assured the leaders of the new opposition that the United States would not let Hungary down like it did in 1956. Free elections were finally held in 1990, and the representatives of the old regime were voted out of office. The Soviet Union withdrew its last troops from Hungary, and we left the Warsaw Pact.

Excited to regain control of our destiny and emerge from the Iron Curtain, we Hungarians naïvely believed that Western Europe would share in our elation. We thought that other nations would empathize with the suffering

we had experienced under Communism and offer us a helping hand in overcoming the challenges we faced.

Sadly, instead of treating us as potential allies who were finally joining the free world, the nations of Western Europe treated us as vanquished losers of the Cold War who had to defer to their wisdom.

They used economic power to gain control of our markets, then kept us waiting in the antechamber of the European Union for 15 years. We did not experience a genuine reunification with Western Europe. Instead, we were forced to adapt ourselves to the West. It never occurred to the West that perhaps it should adapt itself to us.

During this time, Brussels and its neoliberal economic agenda gained increasing

sway over the member states of the European Union, effectively denying citizens the right to make their own economic choices. In doing so it degraded national elections across the Continent, reducing them to formal exercises in changing governments, not policies.

Meanwhile, in Hungary some of the successors of the old Communist regime managed to retain significant influence over the nation’s economic and cultural institutions.

Fortunately, their power was dealt a significant blow in 2010, when Mr. Orban was elected prime minister in a sweeping victory. The political elites who preferred to maintain the status quo during the 2008 financial crisis left Hungary’s middle class, as well as its most needy citizens,

high and dry. This impaired the democratic legitimacy of Hungary’s governing parties, which is why voters looked in a new political direction.

Since then Mr. Orban has put Hungary’s interests first when crafting his economic policies, and he has refused to follow the policy directives laid down by European Union bureaucrats in Brussels. He has also worked to replace the neoliberal vanguard that led the country toward bankruptcy during the financial crisis.

To bolster the economy, he imposed special levies on multinational companies and banks to distribute the burden of the crisis as proportionately as possible between the market players who caused it (and profited from it) and Hungary’s citizenry.

In 2014, Mr. Orban proclaimed

39

that Hungary was breaking with the kind of early 21stcentury liberalism that had been bankrupted so spectacularly in 2008. Instead, he declared a desire for a nonliberal society — he called it “illiberal” — based on community, Christianity and solidarity. He understood that the West was suffering from a systemic crisis, in economic terms and within the liberal order itself.

Nine years have passed since Mr. Orban’s landslide victory in 2010, in which he won over two-thirds of parliamentary seats — a feat he has since repeated twice. This is a clear demonstration of the popularity and success of his policies. Hungary’s economy is in good shape: Inflation and unemployment are at low levels; gross domestic product growth stands at about 5 percent; and real wages have increased by 40 percent in the past few years.

The nonliberal shift promoted

by Mr. Orban and the spread of populism that it heralded were consequences of an imbalance within the liberal order, one that favored elites over the needs of everyday citizens. As liberalism runs out of steam, true majoritarian democracy and popular representation is returning to Hungary.

And the same is happening across Europe. In the European Parliamentary elections earlier this year, the “populists” (democrats, in other words) significantly strengthened their position.

The European electorate voted for a balance of stability and change — for preserving

40

the European Union without losing more member states, and for keeping alive all of the European Union’s worthwhile achievements while discarding anything that has proved unsustainable. Voters sent a clear message: They want more flexibility in politics, less ideological dogmatism and more readiness for compromise.

While some may not be able

to accept it, the old world is disappearing. It can’t be saved. What can and should be saved is Western (Christian) civilization. We must realize that, as the historian Niall Ferguson once wrote, “the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by our own pusillanimity — and by the historical ignorance that feeds it.”

We Hungarians are well aware that nobody has our best interests at heart other than ourselves. That’s why we continue to insist on liberty, democracy and our independence as a nationstate.

As citizens of a free country in the heartland of Europe, we have served as gatekeepers between East and West for a thousand years.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Maria Schmidt

Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, at a memorial ceremony last year at the Hall of Remembrance during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

CREDIT: Gali Tibbon/ Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In Sudan, Women Showed the World How It’s Done In order to create real change and stable democracies, women must take the lead.

Sudanese activist Alaa Salah stands in front of a mural depicting her in Khartoum on April 20, 2019. Images of Ms. Salah leading protest chants went viral in the lead-up to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s ouster on April 11.

CREDIT: Umit Bektas/Reuters

T

he world watched last year as the people of Sudan rose up to demand the ouster of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, an authoritarian who had presided over three decades of brutal rule. A protest over bread prices

quickly blossomed into a full-throated demand for civilian government. On April 11, 2019 after nearly four months of demonstrations, the military announced it had arrested Mr. al-Bashir, finally ending his reign.

Sudanese women were at the forefront of this

movement for democracy and change, having endured years of marginalization, harassment and sexual violence. By some estimates, they made up as many as two-thirds of the protesters. A photo of the young protester Alaa Salah leading a chant against the regime became

ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF The former president of Liberia (2006-2018) and a joint recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize CREDIT: Doug Mills/The New York Times

41

The Sudanese protester Alaa Salah addresses demonstrators in Khartoum on April 10, 2019, a day before the ousting of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Sudanese women were at the forefront of the pro-democracy movement that brought down Mr. al-Bashir, an autocrat who ruled Sudan for three decades. (CREDIT: Agence FrancePresse — Getty Images)

a viral sensation, illustrating the revolutionary power of the country’s women.

The protest movement that ousted Mr. al-Bashir is yet another example of African women’s increasing participation in the political process, whether as activists or legislators. As of July 2019, four of the world’s top 15 countries with the highest percentage of female lawmakers in their lower or single houses of parliament are in Africa. Thirteen African nations have parliaments with female membership at

42

30 percent or higher.

Creating inclusive democracies takes time, however. And inclusion cannot occur without strong democratic institutions and basic respect for the rule of law, both of which have long been absent in Sudan.

The months between Mr. al-Bashir’s ouster in April and the August signing of a transitional power-sharing agreement between Sudan’s ruling military council and the pro-democracy opposition were marked by widespread protests and violence.

On June 3, a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Response Forces attacked pro-democracy protesters in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, as they demanded an end to the military-led government that took power after Mr. al-Bashir’s arrest. A doctors’ group associated with the opposition estimated that 127 people were killed and approximately 70 raped in the attack. The following month, several student demonstrators were shot and killed by security forces in the city of El-Obeid.

As Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese-born businessman and philanthropist, has written, “Intimidation, harassment and violence have no place in a democracy.” How right he is.

But in order for democracies to be safe, women must have power. That means more than just the right to vote; women need real decisionmaking authority. Their voices must be heard on the streets and in all branches of government.

Electing more women to office normalizes the idea

A 2017 study by the Brookings Institution found that gender equality and democracy strengthen each other. When there is greater equality in governance, a nation’s “relative state of peace” is increased, security is improved and there is less aggression toward other countries. In turn, when democracy is stronger, women are less likely to suffer violence and enjoy greater political and economic equality.

How can we set this virtuous cycle of inclusion and democracy in motion? The question must be asked, not only in Sudan as the country works to build a stable civilian government, but also all across the world, as women struggle for equality and representation.

I humbly offer three suggestions.

First, quotas must be set for female representation at all levels of government.

Research has shown that

gender quotas, although not a perfect system, do help women overcome the cultural, economic and electoral barriers that keep them from holding elected office. Such quotas can later be phased out, based on the recognition that women, once in office, will begin to share in the benefits normally granted to men.

Mandated quotas of various kinds have gained traction in Africa and around the world in recent years. For example, a constitutional requirement in Rwanda — the world’s leader in terms of female representation in Parliament — stipulates that women must account for at least 30 percent of all decisionmaking organizations in government.

In the case of Sudan, which recently embarked on a three-year transition toward democracy after months of unrest, women must have a large seat at the negotiating table and play an active role in the peace process. In a hopeful sign, Sudan’s new cabinet includes the country’s first female foreign minister, Asma Mohamed Abdalla.

Second, the international community must be more responsive in advocating for stronger democratic institutions. Instead of becoming involved only after tragedy occurs, as happened in Sudan, international actors and institutions must learn to detect the warning signs of impending violence and lend support by pressing for open dialogue, ensuring

A Sudanese protester flashes the V-forvictory sign during a sit-in outside the army headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, on April 30, 2019.

CREDIT: Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

that women have the right to speak up. In this way, nations can make the transition to democracy without resorting to mass protests and bloodshed.

Third, we must support girls in Africa and around the world, by providing them with education, health care and economic empowerment.

We also need to think seriously about leadership training, whether that means providing assistance to the

young women who are bold enough to enter politics or creating networking platforms that empower women across cultures and continents.

Sudan’s democratic revolution would not have been possible without the efforts of women and girls. I believe that, in time, Sudanese women will enjoy the full fruits of democracy.

Until then, we must stand with them, in our words and deeds.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

that women and other marginalized groups can wield power effectively.

It also changes the government’s priorities and makes it function better over all. Various studies have shown that women tend to be less autocratic and to work more collaboratively.

Research also suggests that governments with more women in office are more likely to spend money on health care and education and to advance women’s rights.

43

Lessons from Nigeria’s Militarized Democratic Experiment When the military shares power with civilians, it’s never an equal partnership.

N

igeria’s current Constitution, a parting gift from the military that ruled the nation for nearly four decades after its independence from Britain in 1960, was released to the public on May 29, 1999.

The document was significant in one respect: Other than the conscripted drafting team, no one had previously set eyes on its contents. As Rotimi Williams, one of Nigeria’s most revered legal minds, once declared, even the Constitution’s preamble began with an egregious lie, with that ritual attribution “We the People …”

The Constitution marked the commencement of a political arrangement once proposed by Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first president of independent Nigeria and one of the country’s foremost nationalists, as a solution to the power struggles that had roiled Nigeria since its first military coup in January 1966.

The military had mothballed the idea at the time, only to roll it out in 1999, camouflaged as democracy. The true name for this governing

structure is “diarchy,” and it describes a government jointly ruled by military and civilian components, with or without the latter’s consent.

WOLE SOYINKA Nigerian author, the Nobel Prize for Literature laureate in 1986 CREDIT: Paul Gratty via The New York Times

The current interim political arrangement in Sudan, a compromise between the former military dictatorship and the democratic opposition, provides us with a consensual model for diarchy. However, it is the protocols of “centralism” — with the military at the center — that characterizes the Nigerian variant. And centralized control is the true mission of diarchy, no matter how hard it pretends to govern through an equal partnership.

It is no surprise then that the Constitution bequeathed by the Nigerian military 20 years ago marked a total repudiation of the less-centralized federalist structure that was the driving principle, agreed to after tough negotiations, of prior constitutional conferences in Nigeria and Britain. Ironically, one of the proclaimed justifications for a countercoup in July 1966 was the aim of reversing the centralization decrees that had gathered the security arms, civil service, judiciary and other state structures under one command.

As an embedded force of internal colonialism with nearcultlike status, the Nigerian military will never quit the

political stage. Military coups may no longer be fashionable in Africa, but that doesn’t mean that the military has removed its hands from the wheel. In the last couple of decades the managers of power in Nigeria’s “democratic” system have learned not only to secure approval for their political preferences but also to plant their enforcers in key positions before formally quitting the scene. These enforcers appear in the Senate, the House of Representatives and the security services, as well as in various committees, state assemblies, parastatal organizations and important economic agencies.

It is, however, at the very center of the government that the military has built and effectively garrisoned its control tower in Nigeria.

From there it enacts variations on Britain’s own strategy of indirect rule.

As a result of all this, centralism has not merely been imposed on Nigeria, but made to percolate throughout its governing structures, even affecting the nation’s political consciousness. It was no accident that when the Nigerian Constitution was being drafted, preference was given to the American presidential system rather than the parliamentarian model

A police officer points his baton at an election ballot at the Giginyu Primary School in Kano, Nigeria, in February 2019.

President Muhammadu Buhari was re-elected on Feb. 24 with slightly more than 55 percent of the vote. (CREDIT: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

44

While Nigerian diarchy operates mostly in covert fashion, the military does not hesitate, when required, to declare openly where the real power lies. For instance, during the second round of postmilitary elections in 2006, Ahmadu Ali, an ex-colonel and chairman of the ruling party’s National Working Committee, lectured the citizens of a “restless,” politically strategic state, saying that they should understand that they lived in a garrison state and should learn therefore to bow to the will of the garrison commander.

That “commander” was none other than Lamidi Adedibu, a self-proclaimed thug and a politically spent one at that.

Yet he was exhumed and refurbished, and then inserted into the British legacy of indirect rule. To confer further clout on this commander, then-President Olusegun Obasanjo, also formerly of the military, paid homage to Mr. Adedibu in his own home, while the latter returned the compliment like a feudal potentate, mounted on a royally caparisoned horse.

There have been other occasions when circumstances — such as a challenge to the ruling order — have mandated a more direct militarist approach.

In 2006, under the guise of a reformist agenda against corruption, members of a state assembly were rounded up, commando-style, and taken to a different state, where they were kept in virtual house arrest and forced to impeach their own governor. Corrupt though he may have been, the governor was also a voluble opponent of the incumbent president.

Another example: In August 2018, a group of armed men under the direction of Lawal Musa Daura, the director general of the Department

of State Services, set up a blockade at the entrance to the national legislature in an effort to prevent opposition lawmakers from entering.

Mr. Daura acted on his own initiative while Nigeria’s current president, Muhammadu Buhari — a former general — was briefly out of the country. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, acting as president in Mr. Buhari’s absence, booted Mr. Daura out of office, first ensuring, however, that Mr. Buhari approved of the dismissal. The blockade of the legislature — a clear violation of the Constitution — shows once again how diarchy can occlude legitimate sources of democratic power.

As illustrated above, diarchy in Nigeria is mostly experienced in the form of explicit government actions. But the system is also propped up by a kind of denial. For example, Nigeria’s governors are constitutionally responsible for maintaining security in their states. However, with true power residing with the military in the center, they have essentially no way of performing this duty.

Consider the most critical issue that plagues the Nigerian polity at this moment, a devastating menace that threatens the very base of national existence: the deadly exploits of so-called nomadic herdsmen, whose grisly clashes with farmers have claimed thousands of Nigerian lives in recent years.

The nomadic herdsmen are well organized, have articulate spokesmen and even openly endorse presidential candidates, as they did in the February elections that returned Mr. Buhari to power. The herdsmen thunder ultimatums at state assemblies that dare to enact laws regulating their business practices, which include murder, kidnapping, rape and the destruction of farms.

“Repeal the edict or face more of the same!” is the nomads’ mantra.

A woman walks past posters featuring the presidential candidate of the opposition People's Democratic Party in Makurdi, Nigeria, in January 2019. CREDIT: Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters Last year a retired general, a veteran of more than one coup d’état, felt compelled to accuse the military of colluding with the nomads, who have lately traded their wooden cattle prods for AK-47s.

Meanwhile, desperate state governors remind the center that they are security officers in name only, and that the instrument of law enforcement and protection lies with the center — but the center has gone nomadic!

Given Nigeria’s ongoing democratic ambiguity, where sustained calls for a constitutional review and the restructuring of the nation along less centralist lines of governance routinely draw dire warnings from military officials, it is wise to keep careful watch on diarchy’s military partners and their ready spouting of “patriotic” zealotry.

In Nigeria, the will of the people, which lies at the very

heart of democracy, appears to be a conditioned will, one that does not extend to even a mild tinkering with the constituent parts of the nation.

Africa’s latest emerging democracy, Sudan, deserves the benefit of Nigeria’s experience, its civilian opposition having recently signed a pact of diarchy — supposedly transitional — with the military. There are a number of disturbing parallels between Sudan and Nigeria, not the least sobering of which is each country’s tremor-prone path to genuine democracy.

The toxin of power has deeply infected the militaries of both nations, and each will employ the most unconscionable wiles to hold on to that power and ensure its continuing domination of the political environment.

When African nations go democracy shopping, diarchy tends to look like the perfect fit, but — caveat emptor!

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Wole Soyinka

inherited from the British. The former was more amenable to centralist manipulations.

45

The Afghan Dreamers robotics team at the First Global Challenge robotics competition in Detroit in 2017.

CREDIT: Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

Empower and Educate Afghanistan’s Youth to Ensure a Peaceful Future By giving young people the chance to thrive, the country can secure its democracy.

Afghanistan has made great progress over the past two decades toward empowering women, strengthening democracy, improving access to health care and providing education to millions of children. International donors have had a direct impact on the lives of many Afghans, offering us opportunities for economic growth as we strive for human rights and dignity.

Yet much more work is needed to transform our nation into a functioning democracy. Luckily, we can count on a young population that is eager to contribute; its involvement in the country’s social, economic and political life will determine our ability

46

to succeed. We must ensure that our young people are given the opportunities to take charge, and education is key in this endeavor.

ROYA MAHBOOB Afghan serial entrepreneur, the CEO and president of Digital Citizen Fund, a nonprofit devoted to helping girls and women in developing countries gain access to technology.

CREDIT: Alena Soboleva

Today, over 27.5 million Afghans — more than half of the country’s population — are younger than 25. They have come of age in an era of hard-won democratic gains, increasingly hopeful and unwilling to relive the tragedies of their parents’ war-torn generation. Many of these young citizens live in cities. They grew up with cellphones, the internet and access to information.

But major obstacles are blocking progress. Parts of the country remain under Taliban rule, and

constant fighting between the militant Islamic group and government forces has killed and displaced many people. After President Trump in September called off negotiations with Taliban leaders to end America’s military involvement in the country, peace seems more distant than ever. Human rights groups continue to denounce injustices across the country, and little accountability exists for perpetrators of violence against women and children.

The presidential election on Sept. 28 — in which incumbent President Ashraf Ghani and his government’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, both claimed

Data from the World Bank shows that approximately eight million young Afghan workers entered the labor market in 2018 amid low literacy levels and few employment options. Our leaders should pay closer attention to the quality and quantity of education, vocational training and jobs available to citizens. A skilled and thriving work force is one of our biggest weapons in the fight against terrorism and backwardness.

As peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban stall, we should also reflect on what young people can bring to the process. Until now, political leaders have tried to conduct negotiations as they have in the past: solely for

their own personal gain. The younger generation desires peace and believes in the democratic standards of free speech and human rights.

And they are ready to fight for the right to decide their own fate.

The young people of Afghanistan must be given the opportunity to learn, develop and grow. UNICEF estimates that around 3.7 million Afghan children are out of school; 60 percent of them are girls. As a society, we have to do better.

In 2017, a nonprofit organization called First (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) invited Digital Citizen Fund, the nonprofit I lead, to put together a robotics team to take part in the First Global Challenge, an international competition for teenagers.

This is how the Afghan Dreamers, Afghanistan’s first all-girls robotics team, began. Six students, selected on merit by Digital Citizen Fund out of 150, joined the team.

Even though their visa

applications were rejected twice, the Afghan Dreamers eventually traveled to the United States to participate in the First Global Challenge. Tasked with building their own robot for the competition, they captivated the public with their inspiring message of hope and determination.

(They eventually received a medal for “courageous achievement.”) They proved that, after years of darkness and subjugation, Afghan girls across the country can finally take charge and aspire to be masters of their own destiny.

Afghan Dreamers Institute — based on a design provided by the Yale School of Architecture — will one day be located. The institute will offer STEM education to high school and university students, with an emphasis on artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

This is the power of our youth. Their courage, against a backdrop of personal and national tragedies, has the infectious power to instill hope.

In May, the Afghan Dreamers were invited to speak at the Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, an event sponsored by the aerospace industry. After they spoke, someone in the audience asked the five team members in attendance which planet they would like to “put their fingerprints on.”

As a reward for the Afghan Dreamers’ efforts advocating women’s participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, this year Afghanistan’s government donated a six-acre plot of land at Kabul University to the team. This is where the

Initiatives like this embody exactly the vision for self-sustaining economic growth that Afghanistan needs. Our children are our country’s future leaders and innovators, and they deserve the full support and investment of their nation.

“Mars!” was their answer.

I hope they succeed.

Children must be allowed to dream big dreams.

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Roya Mahboob

victory — took place amid the threat of terrorist attacks, accusations of electoral fraud and historically low voter turnout. It is easy to see why many young Afghans might have lost faith in the old guard’s ability to make wise decisions about our country.

Two members of the Afghan Dreamers robotics team and the Afghan entrepreneur Roya Mahboob talk to Dean Kamen, a co-founder of First Robotics, the organization behind the First Global Challenge competition.

CREDIT: Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times

47

At Athens Democracy Forum, Division Is at Center of Debate Globalism comes under fire amid warnings about more election interference.

FARAH NAYERI A regular contributor to The New York Times

A

THENS — Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to President Donald Trump, delivered a stinging indictment of global elites at a democracy conference in Athens, blaming them for — among other things — bailing out the world financial system at the expense of the working classes. In a debate, he hailed the resulting wave of populist nationalism that put Mr. Trump in the White House.

His sparring partner, the French philosopher BernardHenri Lévy, a fierce Trump critic, hit back, accusing the Trump administration of abandoning America’s global responsibilities, and backing Russia and far-right European political parties.

The dramatic debate — held inside Athens’s old parliament building — was part of the Athens Democracy Forum, an annual summit of world leaders, academics and activists convened in association with The New York Times. Illustrating the intensity of the battle for political minds and souls going on around the world, the pair traded taunts

48

and accusations, and hopped off their stools to face each other like prize fighters.

“Globalism is the last of the great failed ideologies of the 20th century,” Mr. Bannon began. He recalled the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, and the subsequent rescue of the financial system through “negative interest rates” and other policies. “On whose shoulders was that put upon, because that has to be paid by somebody? It was paid by working-class and middleclass people in the United States, Europe and Asia.”

“It was that effort that bailed out the elites,” he said, referring to attendants of the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“The party of Davos brought that upon us, and it’s Donald Trump’s populist nationalism that’s going to see us forward.”

Mr. Lévy responded, saying, “If the will of the people consists of voting for Hitler or supporting Mussolini, it is not democracy.” Democracy requires “a lot of other principles,” such as the rule of law and the protection of

minorities, he added, and the populist parties backed by the United States were “spitting at the face of this great idea.”

Representatives of the global political elite were not in short supply at the forum. They included the presidents of Greece and Ireland; European Union Council President Donald Tusk; European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager; and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece, son of a previous Greek premier and uncle of the current mayor of Athens.

“I hear this debate about elites quite frequently, and I would argue provocatively that I’m a poster boy for an elite, coming from a political family,” Mr. Mitsotakis said a day before Mr. Bannon’s remarks. The answer was not to resort to populism, he said, but for mainstream parties to “bring in new blood” and be “much more democratic” in their decision making. As his landslide defeat in July of the left-wing Syriza party had proved, he added, “populists, when they come to power, don’t offer any real solutions to

real problems.”

Democracy as a system of government is a given in the West, and has been for a long time. Yet in large parts of the world, it is a distant dream, said Annika Savill, the executive head of the United Nations Democracy Fund, a U.N. body that works directly with civil society to support democracy. In an openingnight address, Ms. Savill said the word “democracy” appeared nowhere in the United Nations Charter, and about half of the world’s countries “do not embrace it as a form of governance, or merely pay lip service to it.”

That stark statistic was epitomized by the Syrian human rights activist and author Kassem Eid, who is an adversary of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and a survivor of a Sarin gas attack in August 2013. Mr. Eid appeared onstage in Athens sporting a Batman mask — a reminder, he said, that while politicians (such as the Chinese leadership in Hong Kong) ban face masks, “they get to wear them every day, and just wear a poker face, and go out on TV

Mr. Eid — now a refugee in Germany — said the West, having defeated Nazism and witnessed the collapse of communism, had let its guard down “while Nazis and communists were working on their comeback — and they have succeeded.”

“I hate to bring the bad news, but the party is over,” he declared to thunderous applause. “Democracies are under attack, and if you don’t fight for democracy, you don’t actually deserve it.”

One key weapon against democracies is technology, and it could potentially be used to toxic effect in next year’s presidential election in the United States, said academics and social media executives at the forum.

The United States is “extremely vulnerable” to

“hacking from external actors or from mischievous domestic actors” when it comes to election hardware — actual voting machines — and backend electoral software, such as voter registration rolls, said Stephen Stedman, a Stanford University academic who is secretary general of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. There are 50 different balloting systems, one for each state in the United States, and only 20 work well, he said, warning that there could be a “constitutional crisis” if vote tallies or voter rolls were to be disputed after the election.

Mr. Stedman also urged Facebook to “get out of political advertising,” as ads sometimes contained “lies” put out by candidates. “You just can’t hide behind a rule that

says ‘It’s political advertising, therefore anything goes,’” he explained.

Crystal Patterson, global civic partnerships manager of Facebook (a conference sponsor), replied that the platform was taking down fake accounts — 3.4 billion of them were removed between October and March, twice as many as in the previous sixmonth period — and marking news items that had been disputed by third-party fact checkers.

problems,” Ms. Patterson said, adding that the public “would rather us butt out more” than “cherry pick.”

Considering the multipronged assaults on democracy around the world, the Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka had an idea.

But the company had no plans to stop political ads, because they allowed “an upstart candidate” to “get in the mix without having a ton of financial buy-in.”

“Maybe it’s just about time that we started a kind of counterOlympics: a competition among the least democratic nations in the world every year,” he proposed. Each continent would vote on its component nations. “The conduct of that nation both within and outside would be totaled up, and then we’ll have the champion anti-democratic nation of the year.

“As soon as we start policing in that way, and people don’t know what we’re taking down and what’s left, that also creates a whole new set of

“Certainly, right now,” the Nobel laureate concluded, “the United States would qualify to be the representative of the Americas.”

© 2020 The New York Times Company and Farah Nayeri

and lie to people.”

CREDIT: Matt Rota for The New York Times

49

The Free World at 30 “If you don’t fight for democracy, you don’t deserve it.”

A

THENS — Perhaps you know the story of the parrot in Soviet Russia that escapes from its cage and flies out the window. Its owner rushes out and hurries down to the Ministry of State Security.

“I just want to assure you,” he tells the Soviet agents, “in case the situation arises, that my parrot’s views are not my own.”

None of us wants to live in a

society where we worry what our parrots might say. Nor for that matter in a society where the presidential parrot would repeat: “I am a genius!

America first! Witch hunt!

Coup!”

ROGER COHEN A columnist for The Times Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

China has banned Winnie the Pooh online and in theaters. Pooh, who memorably said, “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day” — among other incendiary remarks. A society that bans

Winnie the Pooh, because of a supposed resemblance to its Great Leader, is a society with some serious issues.

As the three-decade mark of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches, free speech must be safeguarded with great tenacity, for when it dies, as when truth dies, the worst becomes possible and probably inevitable.

I have been attending the Athens Democracy Forum, a gathering organized in

Protesters in Hong Kong in September.

An Rong Xu/The New York Times

50

Kassem Eid outside the United Nations in 2014.

Michael Appleton/The New York Times

association with The New York Times. There, I met Magdalena Adamowicz. Her husband, Pawel Adamowicz, was murdered earlier this year in Gdansk, the quintessentially European city in Poland of which he was mayor.

She reminded me, with the solemn force of her dignity, that we must do better in the regulation of hate speech.

But freedom of expression also protects — and perhaps above all protects — the ideas we hate. That is the price of freedom, and freedom must be relearned every day. I will hear echoing in my mind for some time Adamowicz’s appeal: “Education, education, education.”

When her husband was stabbed to death, one of his

last words was “solidarity,” with a small “s”, as Donald Tusk, the outgoing president of the European Council, observed. This, then, was a frenzied attempt to take a knife to the universal human connection — above and beyond barriers of class, race and religion — that the walls of nationalists are built to deny.

Digitized democracy in the 21st century cannot be the democracy of the 20th century. At the same time, even as institutions must adapt and the connective tissue of our societies must be rewoven and our economies reinvented, an obligation exists to defend the values that provided the framework of the 20th century’s international order: freedom and openness;

the rule of law; human rights; democracy and selfdetermination; security; and free-market opportunity.

No wrongheaded American abdication can diminish the importance of this task.

I do not believe this undertaking can be advanced through nationalism and barriers, mythmaking and drum rolls, incitement and xenophobia.

Been there, done that, suffered. The end point of nationalism, as François Mitterrand observed, is war.

That is no less true today than it was at the Normandy landings — when, yes, the Kurds were unpardonably absent. President Trump does take your breath away. Perhaps he intends to resettle the Kurds in Greenland.

Words are fine, but without deeds they fade into the mist.

The doers admonished everyone in Athens. Nathan Law, a Hong Kong politician and activist, said: “We stand with the defenders of liberty everywhere. In Hong Kong we are in the forefront of a clash of authoritarian and liberal values. If Communism prevails, that will threaten all liberal democracies.”

I agree.

Kassem Eid, author and brave survivor of the Syrian blood bath: “If you don’t fight for democracy, you don’t deserve it.” I bow my head.

Paul Polman, the former head of Unilever, on the lesson of the Great Recession of 2008: “Banks were too big to fail and people too small to matter.”

51

Figures on the Peace Monument memorial statue depicting Grief crying on History’s shoulder in Washington, D.C. Damon Winter/The New York Times

liberal democracy’s worst enemies.

Ivan Krastev, a political scientist, on the power of myth: “More Hungarians believe they have seen an unidentified flying object than believe they have met a refugee.” Yet xenophobic illiberalism works for Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary. Nothing is easier, or more dangerous, than cultivation of hatred of the stranger.

It is not the prerogative of the globalized city dweller to ignore the concerns of all those living on what the French call the periphery.

Democracies have the merit of giving expression to discontent. This is what we have witnessed in the recent nationalist wave: a reaction by the invisible and marginalized to globalization’s masters of the universe.

We must be humble and listen and heed the forgotten voices. As Kyriakos Mitsotakis, prime minister of Greece, put it: “There has been a massive failure of elites to understand the new cleavages.” Complacency and contempt have been

52

“Life,” as some sage once observed, “is a predicament that precedes death.” Our struggles are not as new or as different as we imagine.

The tension between freedom and equality is not new. The struggle between

humanity and the machine is not new. The human susceptibility to folly is not new. What is new, above all, is the means we now have, if only we would use them right, to build a connected world of dignity and decency.

For a long time, over the course of my life, I watched liberty and democracy and openness spread, not steadily but in spurts, not smoothly or evenly, but falteringly and unevenly.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the wars of Yugoslavia’s destruction were pivot points of my life that cemented the link between America and freedom, America and peace. Alone among nations the United States could make me an insider

overnight. That is why New York is my home.

Today, American patriotism, as I understand it, requires this: the defense of the Constitution, the rule of law, truth, freedom and the planet itself against the ravages issuing from the White House and its increasingly deranged occupant.

Each of us has a journey. I am a Jew of South African descent raised in Britain, shaped by France, an American now. These are the threads of my story, and where they have left me is right here in Athens, where democracy began, as part of a conference I cherish. I am a bridge not a wall person.

How could I be anything else?

© 2020 The New York Times Company

I have not heard a better summation.

New Models of Democracy Leaders from around the globe tackle issues facing the evolving state of world democracy.

At

the Athens Democracy Forum in October, a conference organized by the Democracy & Culture Foundation in association with The New York Times, international leaders and policymakers debated the evolving state of democracy around the globe. Here are excerpts from the discussions.

They have been edited and condensed.

WE AND THEM: THE TECTONIC PLATES OF NATIONALISM AND MULTICULTURALISM Far from diminishing, ethnic, national and religious tribalism are on the rise and feeding intolerance, exclusion, populism and conflict. Why are the ideals of multiculturalism and inclusion so elusive, and so often held in disdain?

Nathan Law, Hong Kong politician and activist Kassem Eid, human rights activist and author Sergey A. Karaganov, dean of the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs of the National Research University Higher School of Economics and honorary chairman of the Presidium of

the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in Moscow

helped. Maybe just give us a quick overview of your story.

Moderator: Katrin Bennhold, Berlin bureau chief, The New York Times

Mr. Eid I grew up with poverty, in a very dark place where dreams are crushed and we have no opinion. Everyone was telling us since we were born that the walls have ears, that we cannot talk, we cannot think, we cannot love, we cannot have any kinds of dreams. My only dream, and everyone’s dream, was actually to leave Syria, to get away from this big prison without walls.

Ms. Bennhold Our topic this morning is as old as humanity itself: us versus them.

Nathan, you and your fellow protesters in Hong Kong are fighting for the rights of democratic freedoms, while in the West we’re struggling with our own democracies. What is the “us” and the “them” for you?

Mr. Law The story of Hong Kong is really important in this time, especially that we are fighting for democracy and autonomy of our hometown. I can tell, from a personal story, the worst form of this kind of “we” and “them” is to stir hatred among people, is to use misinformation campaigns to create conflict among people, and that’s what China has been doing.

Ms. Bennhold Kassem, in 2011 you were kind of doing what Nathan is doing now — you were fighting for democracy — standing up for democracy in your own country, in Syria. And you got beaten down. You made the same appeals to the West to help that Nathan is just making here now, and nobody

But in 2011 our dreams changed. During the Arab Spring, instead of all thinking about how we should leave the Middle East, how we should leave the Arab world and run to Europe or run to America, we actually just wanted to stay home and make our countries a better place for everyone.

We stood up in the streets and we started chanting for freedom, for democracy. But we discovered that was all bullshit. Democracy is — I think it’s not for everyone.

Ms. Bennhold Sergey, I want to come to you. The West seems to be unable to deliver on its promise of a multiethnic democracy, where there is no “us versus them,” there is just an us. Viewed from Russia

and from Moscow in 2019, is liberalism failing? Is Western democracy on its way out?

Mr. Karaganov I must say that I do not agree that democracy is dying in the world. It is more democratic than ever for two reasons. One is that now countries have more freedom … than ever in history to choose their ways, the cultural parts, their economic models.

The second is, of course, that even in more authoritarian countries, because of the information, people have more possibilities to influence their governments, even in formerly democratic countries.

THE COST OF INEQUALITY: PROGRESSIVE CAPITALISM IS NOT AN OXYMORON “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both,” said Louis Brandeis, a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. Was he right? Can economic inequality be tempered without discouraging innovation and entrepreneurship?

Paul Polman, former chief executive, Unilever, and cofounder and chair, Imagine Margot Wallstrom, former

53

The opening session of the Athens Democracy Forum at the Zappeion Megaron.

CREDIT: Studio Panoulis/Athens Democracy Forum

minister for foreign affairs, Sweden Anna Diamantopoulou, president, DIKTIO Network for Reform in Greece and Europe Moderator: Liz Alderman, chief European business correspondent, The New York Times Ms. Alderman Why are the rich continuing to get even richer, the middle class continuing to hollow out, and the poor not being able to make advances? Let me start with Margot Wallstrom.

Ms. Wallstrom I really think that we are in a situation in the world today where it has become a kind of fight between good and evil in a way. And I think that rising inequality undermines democracy. It does so because I think that what we see now is a lost confidence in governments. It means also that we have fraying social fabrics as well. And we see increasing political divides

54

and also growing divisions between rural and urban populations. If democracy does not deliver economic growth, and prosperity and the hope for a better future, then people will lose faith in democracy and in democratic institutions as well.

Ms. Alderman Anna, one of the issues is the continued development, the continued entry, for example, of artificial intelligence technology in the workplace, also the continued spread of the so-called gig economy, which as we are discovering is not all it’s cracked up to be. These are economic developments that have contributed to the creation of jobs, but to arguably much poorer-quality jobs. How do you address that, the continued hollowingout of support for working people?

Ms. Diamantopoulou Inequality is a keyword through human history. But

it has different forms from century to century, from era to era. And for me it is very difficult to speak generally about inequality. So I would like to concentrate on the Western world, the Western democracies, and on a particular issue, which is our new big fourth Industrial Revolution. The recent decades in Western democracies, in modern democracies, we had combined democracy and relative justice prosperity. So there was a strong middle class; there was social mobility. This is not the case today, and this is why we have this increase of inequalities.

Ms. Alderman Paul, we hear people like yourself talk about the fact that business needs to be more responsible. But how can you show us that those aren’t hollow words in terms of the ways that your company and other companies actually operate?

Mr. Polman Let me start on a positive note, if I may.

It’s without any doubt in the last five, six decades we have lifted more people out of poverty than in any time in human history, and we should feel good about that.

The population has grown threefold, but the income or G.D.P. has grown nine times over that period. The unfortunate thing is that obviously with population growth that we’re seeing, the trend is not our friend.

So while many people would claim that we’re moving in the right direction on many of these indicators, we’re just not moving fast enough.

BACK TO BASICS: RESTORING FAITH IN CORE VALUES Disenchantment with liberal democracy has confronted it with an existential danger. But while the problem has been richly described, few tangible

solutions have emerged to reverse the alienation voters feel from their elected leaders and institutions. What is the answer, or answers?

Huiyao (Henry) Wang, founder and president, Center for China and Globalization Jayathma Wickramanayake, United Nations Secretary General’s envoy on youth Karolina Wigura, sociologist, Kultura Liberalna Foundation, Poland Moderated by Steven Erlanger, chief diplomatic correspondent, Europe, The New York Times Mr. Erlanger So we have a kind of disenchantment with liberal democracy. We’ve all been hearing about that.

But I think what we need to think about are its roots and its sources, partly in human nature, and partly in the way we organize our societies.

Karolina, please, you’re first.

Ms. Wigura I think that if the citizens are filled with anger, with rage, then the rule of law will not last.

What is the emotion, what is the feeling that made populists’ victory possible, and makes them still be popular, like in my country,

for example? What is the particular emotion? I would say that the emotion is the feeling of loss. We certainly think that development is something good. But development and change means loss. It’s a loss of families; it’s a loss of connections between people.

Populists channel the feeling of loss into civil war, hatred and disgust.

Mr. Erlanger Henry, you come from a country that has been struggling with how to represent its citizenry.

What is your sense of what representative governments, democratic governments, ought to be providing to their citizens?

Mr. Wang We are coming into an age of globalization and also at a crossroads. Seven and a half decades after a major world war, democracy has flourished in so many countries, and [it led to] prosperity. So I think the global governance system — which has been led by the U.S., European and other countries — has actually paved the way for a lot of good things to happen. But as time goes on I think that now, with all the technological development,

with all the world experiencing explosive growth, it’s time to rethink the models that we are in now. We have to upgrade, we have to reinvent.

Mr. Erlanger Jayathma, social media — which is a big deal for all of us, but certainly for young people — is this helping democracy? Or is it hurting it?

Ms. Wickramanayake I think social media definitely is a double-edged sword. I struggle a lot to make the work of the U.N. communicated in a way that is relevant to the young people of today, which is of course crucial and important given the fact that half of the world’s population today is under the age of 30.

I think there are a couple of reasons liberal democracy and democratic institutions have pushed and continue to push young people away from being engaged. I think the lack of trust in political institutions is one of the biggest causes for that.

THE COLLAPSE OF THE TRADITIONAL PARTY Today traditional parties in many mature democracies have become polarized, weakened and alienated

from the public, giving way to populist parties and leaders who put their personal interests above the values of democracy. Why has this happened, and what is the remedy?

George A. Papandreou, former prime minister, Greece Angie Hobbs, professor of the public understanding of philosophy, University of Sheffield Jay Weatherill, former premier, South Australia, and industry professor, University of South Australia Moderated by Serge Schmemann, program director, Athens Democracy Forum and member of the Editorial Board, The New York Times Mr. Schmemann Political parties are a mainstay of a functioning democracy.

They are supposed to play a moderating role in the emotions of the electorate. So let me put the first question to you, George. Your father founded PASOK, which was long one of two major parties in Greece. But then in 2012 you resigned from the party, and you sit now in parliament as a member of something called the “Movement for

CREDIT: Studio Panoulis/Athens Democracy Forum

55

CREDIT: Studio Panoulis/Athens Democracy Forum Change.” Why did you shift from this established party?

Mr. Papandreou We have such a concentration of wealth and power that it has undermined democracy. You do not need a party anymore; you need good finance and good media to be elected.

Many parties were a way for expression. Today people express themselves as individuals, through Facebook and social media. What is needed is to create parties which are much more open, much more participatory. More and more people feel they do not have a say, so I think this is where parties have to go.

Mr. Schmemann Angie, you spend a lot of your time in Ancient Greece, where rhetoric, logic, were highly prized in the deliberations of the elites. Now that this has been replaced by the babble of social media, how do you go about shaping the debate

56

that democracy needs?

Ms. Hobbs When party politics doesn’t work so well, it’s when elected representatives put their own personal ambitions ahead of their party, or when parties put their own livelihoods against the national interest. Also, if the parties fail to grasp and react quickly to huge changes, you tend to get people switching off, not turning out to vote, not getting involved in the conversation and turning to single issues.

Mr. Schmemann Jay, polls I’ve seen from Australia show that less than half of Australians under the age of 44 preferred democracy over other forms of governments. I’d like to get your sense whether this is a crisis or whether this is a process of renewal among the young.

Mr. Weatherill I don’t think the way the youth are responding to the political process is wildly different from the way

everybody else is seeing it. There is a widespread disillusionment with politics and politicians. If faced with a politician that doesn’t seem to be able to represent your interests, either they’re corrupt or they’re incompetent. We need to deconstruct the way in which governments make decisions. We’ve got to raise awareness about the very problem so that you can actually get permission to address it. Then you need to tap into the greatest resource we’ve got, which is the common-sense judgment of everyday citizens.

THE ECHO CHAMBER AND THE AGORA: THE USE AND MISUSE OF NEW AND SOCIAL MEDIA Social media is integral to connecting with one another these days. But it has also become a platform to spread lies and hate. How do we deal

with this dilemma?

Laura Chinchilla, former president of Costa Rica and chairwoman of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age Crystal Patterson, global civic partnerships manager at Facebook Alvin Carpio, chief executive of the Fourth Group, an advocacy organization focused on tech issues Moderator: Alicia Wittmeyer, an Opinion editor at The New York Times Ms. Wittmeyer Laura, you said earlier that “we talk a lot about the ways in which social media shapes democratic processes in the developed world,” but “we talk less about how it operates in the global south.” What are we missing, and what are we misunderstanding?

Ms. Chinchilla Social media didn’t create most of the

debate, deliberation and on democracy.

Ms. Wittmeyer Crystal, what is Facebook doing about the issue of cultural competency in a way that addresses the issue of understanding the context of the places that it’s in before something happens, instead of correcting itself after the fact?

Ms. Patterson Well, we do spend a lot of time trying.

We do try to work with governments, we try to work with civil society. We work with a number of international organizations that just have a really strong sense of kind of cultural standards, the geopolitical dynamics in specific countries and regions, to kind of help inform how we’re thinking about our tools and how they’re used. And

we’ve gotten better with this over time. To your point, there are a number of places where we’ve sort of been way too late about understanding the impact our tools were having on existing difficulties. And it is a challenge.

Ms. Wittmeyer I wanted to turn to the question of echo chamber versus agora.

Because, Alvin, when you were thinking about this panel and the question of whether social media created an echo chamber, you said that to some extent you thought it was just making echo chambers that already existed more evident and easier for the rest of us to see. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Mr. Carpio When you think about it, democracy itself for millennia has been an echo

chamber. Political institutions have been so exclusive that they’ve been an echo chamber for the elite. People like me — born and raised in places like East London, one of the poorest boroughs in the United Kingdom — people of color and women fought for the ability to be able to even vote. And we need to really think about that historically.

That’s very recent. And when I think about the fourth Industrial Revolution, and technology, and the ability to actually see what people truly think, I think that’s actually a beautiful thing. We’re hearing voices that we never heard before, where the means through which you can express your views and your ideas are no longer beholden to a gatekeeper.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

problems that we have been discussing here, but in certain ways it is amplifying some of those problems. Part of the complexity we have to consider is that social media doesn’t behave the same way in all regions, in all societies, in all contexts.

So it is very important to understand that some countries are more vulnerable than others. In the global south it is more common to find high polarization levels, weaker institutions and public distrust with regard to those institutions. And there are low levels not only of digital literacy, but of literacy in general. So those are the kind of vulnerabilities that we have to be aware of when we analyze the negative effects of social media on public

CREDIT: Studio Panoulis/Athens Democracy Forum

57