Democracy’s crisis of faith

If you watch the news these days and feel that, beyond the daily chaos, something seems broken in our politics, you are not alone. A recent Pew Research Center survey of 23 countries finds that a median of 58 percent of adults are dissatisfied with how their democracy works. In the United States, more than 60 percent share that view; in Italy and France, nearly 7 in 10. People still prefer democracy to autocracy, but dissatisfaction and despair have become widespread.

When I bring this up with people of a certain age, they often recall the 1970s. Then, too, Western democracies looked exhausted. In the U.S., inflation, Vietnam and Watergate had eroded public confidence. Samuel Huntington warned about the "governability” of democracy. Daniel Bell saw capitalism corroding the virtues that sustained it.

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