NEJ’s Managing Editor Jacob Debets shares some brief thoughts on Astra Taylor’s 2019 Book ‘Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss it When it’s Gone’ (excerpt published in NEJ, March 2020) Astra Taylor’s book ‘Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss it When it’s Gone’
Typically, democracy is considered to consist of one person, one vote, exercised in periodic elections; constitutional rights; and a market economy. On paper at least, there is no shortage of states that conform to this rather limited conception — by some estimates, 81 countries moved from authoritarianism to democracy between 1980 and 2002. Yet recent studies reveal that democracy, defined by the preceding attributes, has weakened worldwide over the last decade or so.