This conference brought speakers together in two roundtables, one entitled “The Prospect of Public Confidence in Democracy” and the second dealing with “The Current State and Future Prospects of Representative Democracy”. The conference was aimed at exploring the relationship between representative democracy and public trust. As conference host – Genron NPO – advocated for reform in modern democracies, both Eastern and Western. Dominique Reynié, Executive Director of the Fondation pour l’innovation politique and Professor at Sciences Po, was part of the panel.
During this conference, different analyses were expressed. According to Shigeru Ishiba, the duty of politicians is to explain sensitive issues to voters. Gideon Rachman, for his part, evoked the universal tendency of an electoral preference for non-traditional parties. Dominique Reynié observed that a common challenge awaits European states, namely the failure of governing parties to “solve [public] problems”, while our societies are going through a “crisis of effectiveness of the parties in power, rather than a crisis of confidence”.
The second part of the conference focused on the present and future of representative democracy. First, the role of emotions in modern politics was highlighted, leaving a space that would be filled by “disruptive politicians” (Sandro Gozi). However, Denis MacShane expressed his belief that this situation is not new in itself, as it is the substance of political rhetoric since the Roman Empire. Moreover, the very expression of contradictory ideas and points of view would be the cornerstone of a “healthy democracy”.
Moreover, Reynié argued that the current state of representative democracies is facing new problems such as immigration and cultural integration, as well as the financing of the welfare state, which did not exist before. Logically, according to him, this financing problem translates into a popular demand for more public capacity, which could be satisfied at the European level, ultimately giving more powers to the European Union. We must not forget that nationalism is standing on our doorstep as we discuss these problems in the democratic space.
To qualify this overall negative statement, one speaker concluded by reminding participants that there are more democracies than ever before on a global scale. Serious tensions call into question the solidity of our systems, but this does not mean that they will inevitably collapse.
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