The biggest problem facing the democratic societies at present is too much democracy! We're fast losing sight of the importance of limiting democratic decision making by the application of individual rights. This has greatly increased the risk of populism triumphing.

Ironically, what democracy needs now is less of itself.

Christopher NOCK

I do believe democracy as idea and system is in danger. As a historian one knows that there are always phases where one system is dominant. We had an era of totalitarianism and dictatorships, clash of ideologies, military junta ruling and as of late democracy was dominant. No world-leader would claim to act against the will of the people. No matter how an autocratic ruler fiddles with it, some so-called elections will be carried out in order to enable him to point to the people as backing him up. So even in clearly non-democractic societies the populus is considered as absolutely necessity to argue how to lead the country.

• I will (try to) cut things short (this time). Nationalism is on the rise again (Poland, Hungary) and nationalist parties (France, Germany, Netherlands) are on the rise as well as isolationist (Britain, US). All those endanger democracy. They either manipulate people (populist) and make use of their believes or they exclusively focus on one share of the people while neglecting the rest (USA). As for Germany I believe there has been a strange perception of democracy and since it does not work the way a certain portion of the population thought it would, there is disappointment.
• In short: a certain share of the people perceives democracy as if it was some kind of a cigarette vending machine. You throw in your vote and you gonna get exactly the brand of cigarettes you wished for. In reality democracy works much more like a gumball vending machine. You do not always get the green one you were aiming for, the one with woodruff flavor. You might acually end up with strawberry because thats' what most people like. Now people are disappointed that their wishes had not been fulfilled. They are an easy target for populist parties who promise them all they wished for and blame the traditional parties for not having granted them their wishes. They will also willingly promise anything that works even though there is no way to fulfill their promises. A lot of what has been promised with respect to Brexis falls into that category. They promise people to get an omelette made of eggs that went into the European cake forty years ago. "We will get out the eggs - or somebody will!"
• Anyhow, at one point it will become clear that those promises of populists will not be fulfilled. Where will that lead us? I can literally hear their followers complain already: "We voted for them! They did not deliver! Democracy does not work!"

A 2018 Lowy Institute poll recently found that only 49% of 18-29 year old Australians believed that 'Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government' (This is an Annual telephone poll of 1,200 Australians). With five prime ministers in six years - with four of these turfed out by their own parties - formal politics in Australia has not been covering itself in glory. But one can only see results like this as 'dangerous'.

Winston Churchill is often quoted on this topic: "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.… " (1947).

Maybe another aspect to be considered:

I do believe that this too effects pople's attitute towards democracy and if voters don't really care to throw in their vote (a phenomenon that can be observed in all Western countries), what will be left of democracy?

In addition to my previous post:

• There has been a poll on whether there should be made an end to the annual switching to daylight saving time in the European Union. Every spring the clock is set one hour ahead and every autumn its set back to standard time. The argument for this cover a full range of energy saving because of making better use of daylight, health advantages because one gets more daylight in winter-time and so forth. There are being brought forward a lot of pros and cons and yes, every time one has to adjust oneself to either getting up one hour early or one hour later. So the European Commission has started an opinion poll on that question and the result was thag 80% of participants were in favor of making an end to having to switch the time twice a year. Now Jean Claude Juncker, the head of the commission, declared to bring it to an end, based on the results of the poll.
• Thing is: 4,6 Million European citizens have participated, and based on their decision the time-schedule of 500 Million (prior Brexit) Europeans should change?
• In 2015 has been carried out a poll on nature and animal welfare with 550.000 participants. True enough, the commission wants and needs to know what makes people tick, but it is no election and no binding vote and if 0,01% or even 0,92% participate, that is not very democratic. One might claim that those who did not take part might not have had an interest in the mater and willingly left it to those who actually did vote, but if you had such numbers at an election the result would be deemed invalid because of too low of a voter turnout.
• I could loose a word or two about the Brexit poll, but that would blow up this post out of proportion. I do not want to take any side in this, even though I have a strong opinion on the matter, but no matter whether you are pro- or anti-Brexit, there is one aspect of the poll that should concern every British citizen: British expatriots, those British who are living and working throughout Europe, all the elderly living in Spain for instance, all of those had been excluded. As British citizens they have the right to vote for Prime Minister, but they had no right to throw in their vote when it came to deciding whether their country should be in or out of the European Union, even though they are the group that decision matters to the most. I find that rather troubling.

DISCLAIMER: Im using the total number of inhabitants here instead of only the number of those that are eligible to vote, since I do not have those numbers to my disposal right now, but even if only half were eligible to vote, it would still be 0,02% and 1,84% who would then decide for a total of 500 Million.