sábado, 3 de março de 2018

Democracy and Disappointment?

Jochen Tack
«(…) “[B]ad governance” (...) refers in the first instance to the failure of many new democracies to build well-functioning and effective states, which often leads to lagging economic growth, poor public services, lack of personal security, and pervasive corruption. The citizens of such countries understandably feel disappointed by democracy. (...)“[T]he legitimacy of many democracies around the world depends less on the deepening of their democratic institutions than on their ability to provide high-quality governance.” Of course, bad governance afflicts most nondemocratic countries as well, but this offers scant consolation to citizens who feel that the government they have democratically elected is failing them. (…) [T]hose who wish to strengthen democracy need to pay greater attention to state-building, including such prosaic matters as public administration and policy implementation.»

Marc F. Plattner, Democracy & Society, Georgetown University, A Publication of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society, Fall–Winter 2016, Volume 13, Issue 1, págs 1-6.


Marc F. Plattner is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and Co-chair of the Research Council of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies. This essay, an expanded and updated version of “Is Democracy in Decline?” in the January 2015 issue of the Journal of Democracy, was presented as the Joe R. Long Lecture at the University of Texas - Austin on October 1st, 2015.