Democracy is in decline; How can we save it?

“The country will never die, because the young people will save it”. 

This reassuring outlook on the future of our states and our core belief in the capacity of young people to overcome the challenges facing our nations is attributed to Zimbabwe’s liberation icon and father of the nation, Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo, who would later become the country's vice-president. 

Recently, Nkomo’s words have been affirmed by the actions of young people in places like Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka, as well as across the African continent in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, Mozambique, and Madagascar. These Gen Zs have challenged their countries' decline by protesting against governments that act as death doulas, funeral officiants, or undertakers over “dying” nations. The protests have seen varying levels of success, including the resignation of heads of state and government, reforms in laws, and the suspension of planned harmful actions. 

In this gilded digital age, the “weapons of the weak” have evolved from the everyday forms of peasant resistance that James Scott described in 1985. From Scott’s passive and indirect daily acts of resistance, Gen Zs have developed a new repertoire that includes memes, social media, and gaming platforms like Discord, X, and others. This arsenal has been effectively utilised to communicate, expose injustice, create and counter narratives, organise, and establish a new form of citizen journalism and activism. The post-Westphalian state is still struggling to regulate these new forms of engagement, and is ill-suited to accommodate the modelling that, for instance, young people in Nepal did when they used Discord not just as a gaming platform, but as a platform to renegotiate political space, build the new social contract, and articulate their envisaged form of effective government. 

The same channels have also been adeptly used for solidarity building across borders, with demonstration effects proving the power of translocal networks and organising. 

But perhaps more importantly, beyond the keyboard, young people have overcome the challenge of superficial slacktivism and transcended the digital-physical divide by translating online conversations into street action. This challenge has confronted many new and online movements over the last decade. The issues confronted by these young protestors have varied across space but primarily revolve around rampant inequalities, corruption, poor social service delivery and unequal access to social and economic opportunities. 

These developments have been reassuring, and Joshua Nkomo’s visionary credentials have been validated. However, they raise questions about the condition of our ‘dying nations’ in need of salvation. If our nations are indeed dying and democracy is failing to deliver, how widespread is this issue? What is the cause, and how can we remedy the problem? 

For decades, the writing has been on the wall about the challenges facing democratic nations and the concept of democracy. In 2024, Freedom House declared it the 18^th year of democratic decline, citing manipulated elections, military coups, wars, conflicts, and a decrease in respect for fundamental freedoms. Varieties of Democracy, an initiative of the University of Gothenburg, has observed a “third wave of autocratisation” driven by gradual setbacks masked by legal façades. While historically, these analyses have concentrated on various African states and other parts of the majority world, the declines so lamented have extended beyond the traditional regions of decay.

When Farid Zacharia lamented the rise of illiberal democracy in his 1997 article, his analysis closely aligned with the emerging literature on illiberal regimes that others had begun writing about in the early 1990s. Few would have imagined that, barely three decades later, the concepts and critiques surrounding authoritarian resurgence, the rise of the right, toxic nationalism, and democratic decline would apply to the “West” and indeed to the country that won the Cold War and declared the end of history, the United States of America. However, developments in the US, the rise of several far-right governments in Europe, coups in the Sahel and West Africa, wars across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa—east, south, and north—and institutional atrophy in parts of Europe have shifted this reality. 

This trend reflects a shifting global political landscape, driven in the United States and Europe by perceptions and realities of electoral manipulation and executive overreach, the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric, and crackdowns on fundamental freedoms, particularly freedom of expression. This has been exacerbated by attacks on the free press and growing support for extreme views on both the left and right, with each side accusing the other of overstepping in their liberal and conservative principles.

In Africa, Afrobarometer reports that support for democracy remains strong, with approximately two-thirds (66%) of Africans expressing a preference for democracy over any other system of government. However, despite the widespread opposition to one-man rule (80%), one-party rule (78%), and military rule (66%), a staggering 53% are willing to accept a military takeover if elected leaders “abuse power for their own ends." Fortunately, Africa’s democratic challenges mainly stem from the inability of democratically elected governments to deliver socio-economic benefits to citizens. Additionally, there are deep-rooted trust deficits in key institutions essential to democracy, such as the three branches of government, independent electoral bodies, and a continually shrinking civic space. Less than half of Africans surveyed by Afrobarometer trust their president (46%), police (46%), courts of law (47%), Parliament (37%), and other state institutions.

The democratic experiment is floundering across space, not only because authoritarian regimes are consolidating power but also because democratic countries are turning into hybrid regimes, where undemocratic practices are concealed within democratic institutions and procedures. Ultimately, the institutions intended to uphold the democratic nature of states are faltering, becoming more extractive than inclusive, and are being manipulated to serve the interests of political elites whose agendas are far from noble. 

In short, our nations, as we knew them with an explicit commitment to democracy, are dying, and what is emerging is a dystopian autocratic beast embraced in both the East and the West, in what appears like a competition over who can outperform the other between despots. There are clear challenges regarding inclusion, both politically and socio-economically. The Gen Z protests, the toppling and electoral defeats of incumbent regimes across the world, and the emergence of new autonomous zones of organisation all tell us this. There are serious doubts about the efficacy of our institutions and the trustworthiness of legacy media in a new information-heavy age. 

In this upside-down world, it is the duty of supporters of democratisation to rethink how to articulate the democratic proposition. Despite the energy of youth and many positive outcomes, especially in elections across Africa, the debate is being overshadowed by autocrats. In fact, even when people seem to be winning, as in recent elections like the Malawian election or the 2024 US election, old leaders with dubious democratic credentials are sometimes recycled into national leadership. The new struggle for democracy cannot be won merely by having confidence in being right; it requires compelling narratives in an era where people's capacity to engage is limited and attention spans are decreasing. 

The biggest challenge that Gen Z protests have shown us is institutional. Our current governance institutions are failing to deliver on the promise of inclusive development, effective redistributions of wealth and meaningful representation. They show us that we still have a battle for social justice on our hands. If we do not begin reimagining transparent and accountable governance, where citizens can engage effectively and leaders are responsive, we will continue to be in turmoil and steeped in increasing autocratisation, regardless of location in the world. 

We know that autocracies learn from and mimic each other; it is high time that democracies do the same, in more effective ways than we have seen so far. Part of that involves understanding the changing social composition of the global population and the rise of young people as the majority on the African continent and worldwide. Failing to recognise this demographic shift, giving space to youth voices, ensuring their meaningful representation on issues affecting them, and facilitating their access to economic opportunities will only lead to regret. 

We must redesign our institutions for the 21^st century, the age of AI and the Internet of Things. Failing to meet people where they are will ensure that governments, and indeed democracy and good governance advocates, will continue to speak over the heads of the majority. Yet, we know that democracy is about debate and inclusion. What kinds of democracies will we build if we do not meaningfully engage with the majority of the population, especially when women and youths are not included or occupying spaces of decision-making power as the majority? 

In this hyper-globalised and gilded digital age, which no longer relies solely on physical markers of jurisdiction, we live in the era of the Broligarchy, where a few super-rich people have risen and occupy spaces of formal and informal influence in our world. While all successes of individual human endeavours are worth celebrating, we cannot celebrate unparalleled success achieved on a string of dead bodies, shuttered futures, and increasing inequalities. 

There are those amongst us who do not see hope and solutions in young people. It is understandable. The truth is our old ways are not their ways, and in the fight for supremacy of narratives and ideological principles, young people across the globe have been exposed to some not-so-savoury ideological ideas and are following less-than-admirable role models. Their ways of organising and mobilising are unique to their time.

We already know from the wisdom of Joshua Nkomo, who will save us. The question we need to answer is how to help them help us. There is very little doubt in my mind that the answer to that question begins with values and is rooted in democracy's ability to communicate the new democracy question, transforming the old agenda of social justice in new ways. As it was in pre-independence Africa, the generational challenge for our people, who are now predominantly young, remains today one of justice and a substantive form of democracy. One that delivers politically and socio-economically, ensuring that our countries and nations are representative of our people and their aspirations in terms of representation, redistribution of wealth, and recognition of our diversity. 

We know the question and have a good idea of the answer; now we need to bridge that gap with compelling narratives and an effective redesign of institutions to make them inclusive and ensure access to socio-economic opportunities for our people.

Democracy might be in decline, but we know it will not die because the young can and will save it. However, without the substance and socialisation in a meaningful democracy rooted in social justice, we may seem safe but risk jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Therefore, we need to invest in discussions that reframe democracy without losing its core, and socialise active young generations in firmly grounded principles of justice. Despite Nkomo’s wisdom, democracy will not be preserved by nostalgia or, as Cable News Network anchor Larry Madowo mentioned a few months back in Morocco, by good vibes and inshallah.