• FundMECFSResearch
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    2 months ago

    Unfortunately this is legit. Pretty much every democracy index such as the EIU’s find similar results, with democracy peaking somewhere between on or two decades ago, and consistently deteriorating since. I wrote my bachelors thesis (a decent while ago) about this very phenomenon. (Democratic backsliding).

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      It’s happened more than once though, right?

      I think the big thing we’re all worrying about is whether this is a blip, or this is a French-revolution-style turning point. At least, that’s where my mind goes. It sounds like you’re qualified to help clear it up a bit.

      • FundMECFSResearch
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        2 months ago

        Well last time it happened for such a prolonged period was 1930-1945, so the precedent isn’t great.

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          Fun. Fun fun fun. /s

          Please vote, Americans; we all have a guess who Wiemar Germany is this time around.

            • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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              2 months ago

              No, that would be the guns. Try blatantly ignoring the legislation of your choice, and any lesser penalties, and you’ll get a demonstration.

              Maybe you’ve forgotten in all the stupid pageantry, which is understandable, but at the end of the day that’s what it’s about: who gets to write the laws.

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Theres only one world pie, its deteriorating, and a tiny fraction of people own more than half of it?

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          The size of the pie depends on how you measure it (there’s less dodos now, but more water mains, which are also nice), but sure, roughly correct.

          That’s kind of a separate problem, though, isn’t it? The democracies of the world all have wealth inequality too. It’s not as bad as in most autocracies, and I hope eventually we’ll get classlessness, but we’re not there yet.

          (Autocracies with low wealth inequality were a thing for a while, too, but they haven’t lasted, and weren’t really supposed to be autocracies in the first place)

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Its not really separate. As people fear they turn to the right, which births more autocracies and ironically makes the situation worse with their policies.

            • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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              2 months ago

              How do you explain periods where there was prosperity and an autocratic shift at the same time? Like Early Modern Europe or present-day China.

              • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Are fear and prosperity exclusive? Or can your nation be prosperous while it is fearing climate change?

                • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  2 months ago

                  Hmm, I guess.

                  That being said, where I live, there’s fear but it’s not really about climate change. Yet, this is a global trend. I don’t know, I guess I don’t really have a better idea, but just fear seems a bit too simple.

  • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Neoliberalism broke democracy.

    People are willing to vote for someone, anyone, who promises to make things better because they’re tired of bootlicking milquetoast corporatists that’ll give a tax break to a billionaire but will charge you user fees for breathing.

    We need to vote for politicians that will actually improve things, instead of either rainbow-bench-painting wage-thieves or protofascist grifters.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      Saying “broke” implies that liberal democracy previously worked, but now doesn’t. I doubt that’s what you meant. The two main camps are that it still works, albeit less, and that it never worked, and either there never was a democracy or the USSR was the real democracy.

  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    What happens when democracy itself becomes a partisan issue? What happens when Democratic Values don’t correspond with continuous economic growth (or, at least, the appearance of it as reported by your news outlet of choice)? What happens when democracy becomes unpopular and demagogues are seen as a social good?

    It’s a paradox of sorts. If a savvy enough media campaign or a cynical set of bureaucrats can turn people against the mechanisms of self-representation, how can a democracy survive?

    John Locke would tell you it can’t.

  • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
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    2 months ago

    Could one explanation be that democratic countries have less children, than autocratic countries?

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      There is a correlation but please don’t draw the same conclusion as that one weird guy who has 12 children and ran out of pronounceable names that include his favorite letter.

    • RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      India is like 18% of the world population, so it becoming an autocracy explains most of the population swing.

        • turmoil@feddit.org
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          2 months ago

          Modi is really trying his best by constructing a god-cult around his persona, building up paramilitary forces and stoking hindunationalistic pogroms. The classic autocracy/fascism setup if you will.

          • red@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            “building up paramilitary forces and stroking Hindu nationalist pogroms” where are your sources, that’s just straight up bs. modi got less seats in 2024 election than he did previously, and bjp didn’t even get majority, how is that a autocratic government

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          It’s sliding that way, thanks to radical Hindu nationalists, but I’m not sure how it actually got recorded in this data.

          • red@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            “radical Hindu nationalist” get back to reddit, you only belong to echo chambers

            • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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              2 months ago

              I’m pretty sure that’s how guys like RSS would self-identify. A Hindu Rashtra (ethnostate) is their stated goal, and the marching and paramilitary activity make me skeptical they would say “we’re just moderate”.

              • red@lemmy.zip
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                2 months ago

                they are not even close to being as radical as you think omg, even if they are it still has nothing to do with india being autocracy. i said that because this has nothing to do with india being autocracy

                • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  2 months ago

                  And see, that’s where you can actually get me. I don’t follow Indian politics that closely, I don’t know off the top of my head what exactly the mainstream NGOs are talking about when they mention the autocratic shift under the BJP. Maybe you can add some context.

                  It looks like it still rates still rates as a flawed democracy at this point, to be clear. Even groups openly hostile to democracy, which the BJP isn’t to my knowledge, can take many years to accomplish the shift to autocracy, because norms don’t die overnight.

        • RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s typically not an instant thing. Below is the description from page 25 of the pdf linked by OP, from which the charts were taken; I have highlighted some mentioned timeframes. There is also a graph on page 24 showing the change over time.

          India’s process of autocratization begins in earnest from 2008 and characteristically proceeded in the incremental, slow-moving fashion of the “third wave”. Over the years, India’s autocratization process has been well documented, including gradual but substantial deterioration of freedom of expression, compromising independence of the media, crackdowns on social media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, as well as attacks on civil society and intimidation of the opposition. The ruling anti-pluralist, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Prime Minister Modi at the helm has for example used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics. The BJP government undermined the constitution’s commitment to secularism by amending the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2019. The Modi-led government also continues to suppress the freedom of religion rights. Intimidation of political opponents and people protesting government policies, as well as silencing of dissent in academia are now prevalent. India dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018 and remains in this category by the end of 2023.

          • red@lemmy.zip
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            2 months ago

            oh boy, a bunch of bs that’s supported by nothing. if India is in autocracy category then that whole data is invalid for me. tell me source of any one claim from here just one

            • RustyEarthfire@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              tell me source of any one claim

              The report provides sources, as well as its criteria and methodology. If you are interested in facts, you may find them there.

    • Beaver@lemmy.caOPM
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      2 months ago

      The more educated the people are the more likely they are to support democracy. However the fertility rate goes down with education.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      Somewhere between none and all of it.

      It would make total sense if changing the way we communicate causes a change in which social structures work, but the first theories about it (radicalising echo chambers) turned out to be empirically wrong. Now there’s new theories that connect the two, but on the other hand this isn’t the first episode of democratic backsliding, so it’s possible they’re not connected at all, or only mildly connected.

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 months ago

          Yeah, the Arab spring didn’t really make a huge impact in the end, but it definitely had the potential, and that was down to social media.

          One of the new theories I’ve seen is that people, through social media, are being exposed to more viewpoints they disagree with, and radicalising in response - in other words not enough echo chambers. Using the opposite argument to support the same conclusion is suspicious as hell.