This week, US President Joe Biden will hold a virtual Summit for Democracy, to be followed in roughly a year’s time by a second in-person gathering of leaders from around the world. More than 100 governments have been invited to attend.
Granted, not all invitees are democratic stalwarts. In fact, the democratic credentials of many are questionable, to say the least.
In any case, the more interesting question concerns those countries whose democratic credentials are not in doubt. Do they have common characteristics beyond the fact that they hold free and fair elections, maintain the rule of law, and ensure freedom of expression and other individual rights?
One thing is certain: The cohort of true democracies is smaller than it was ten years ago. Among the 146 countries with more than two million residents, Freedom House considered only 39 to be “fully free” in 2020, down from 43 in 2010.
But a less noticed feature of today’s true democracies is that they tend to have aging populations.
But in an age of rapid global change and multiplying crises, these demographic trends raise urgent questions. Does a growing share of older voters affect how a country will adapt and respond to international shocks, financial crises, inflationary or deflationary threats, disruptive technologies, migration waves, and all the issues associated with climate change?
This was a central question in Germany’s recent federal election (though it lingered beneath the surface of the usual party rivalries). Germany, followed closely by Italy, has the highest median age in Europe. More than half of each country’s electorate is older than 50. The number of eligible German voters fell by 1.3 million in the last general election, owing to demographic decline. In West Germany’s 1987 national election, 23 per cent of voters were under the age of 30, and 26 per cent were over 60. In 2021, 14.4 per cent were under 30 and 38.2% were over 60. A similar or even sharper trend can be seen in Italy, Japan, and South Korea.
Age, of course, bears heavily on psychological traits and political preferences. Older individuals tend to be a little wiser; but they are also more cautious and slower to understand new developments. They are generally less able or willing to adapt to the twists and turns of history. Younger people, by contrast, tend to be flexible, less risk-averse, and more resilient to shocks.
The absence of boldness, openness to novelty, and long-term vision in today’s democracies is not reassuring. Worse, there is no obvious antidote, other than to try to give young people a greater voice.
That may be a prudent reform for other democracies to discuss at this year’s Summit for Democracy.
