Democracy remains popular across the world, but faced with a global array of challenges from inequality to the climate crisis, young people are far less likely than their elders to believe it can deliver on what concerns them.
According to a major international survey of 30 countries published on Tuesday, 86% of respondents would prefer to live in a democratic state and only 20% believe authoritarian regimes are more capable of delivering “what citizens want”.
However, only 57% of respondents aged 18 to 35 felt democracy was preferable to any other form of government, against 71% of those over 56, and 42% of younger people said they were supportive of military rule, against just 20% of older respondents.
The report, by Open Society Foundations (OSF), the civil society donor network funded by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, also found that more than a third (35%) of young people felt a “strong leader” who did not hold elections or consult parliament was “a good way to run a country”.
“Our findings are both sobering and alarming,” said Mark Malloch Brown, OSF’s president and a former UN deputy secretary general. “People around the world still want to believe in democracy, but generation by generation that faith is fading as doubts grow about its ability to deliver concrete changes to their lives.”
The polling revealed strong support for human rights, with majorities of between 85% and 95% in all regions and at every income level agreeing it was wrong for governments to violate individual rights on grounds of appearance, religion, sexual or gender orientation.
At a time of multiplying national and international crises – respondents were most worried about poverty and inequality (20%), the climate crisis (20%) and corruption (18%) – more than half (53%) felt their country was heading in the wrong direction, and about a third said politicians were not working in their best interests.
When almost half of respondents (49%), including countries as different as Bangladesh and the US, said they struggled to feed themselves at least once in the past year, democracy was falling short of its potential, the report said.
“Confidence in the foundational elements of democracy coexists with profound doubts about its real-world practice and impact,” Malloch Brown said.
An average of 58% of respondents also said they were worried that political unrest in their countries could lead to violence in the next year – a fear that was highest in South Africa and Kenya (79%), Colombia (77%) and Nigeria (75%), but included two-thirds of respondents in the US and France.
Insecurity, too, was a major concern, with 42% of people, including significant majorities across Latin America – 74% in Brazil, 73% in Argentina, 65% in Colombia and 60% in Mexico – saying they did not feel the laws in their country kept people like them safe.
About 70% of the more than 36,000 people surveyed said they were worried the climate crisis would affect them and their livelihoods in the coming year, with those in Bangladesh (90%), Turkey (85%), Kenya (83%) and India (82%) the most concerned, and in China (45%), Russia (48%) and the UK (54%) the least.
The climate crisis was viewed as the most significant challenge facing the world by 32% of people in India and Italy, followed by Germany (28%), Egypt (27%), Mexico (27%), France (25%), and Bangladesh (25%).
At a national level, however, corruption was the chief worry, with an average of 23% saying it is the top issue facing their country – ranging from 6% in Germany and 7% in France and the UK to 45% in Ghana, 44% in Nigeria and 37% in Colombia.
Of issues most directly affecting people personally, poverty and inequality ranked highest – including in Senegal, the smallest economy surveyed, and the US, the largest – with an average score of about 21%.
Migration, while highly visible as a key political campaigning issue in many countries, was of low concern. Just 7% of respondents said migration was their biggest concern, at global and national level, and 66% wanted to see more safe and legal routes for migrants.
Many respondents believed China’s growing influence would be a force for good, with nearly twice as many respondents believing it would have a positive impact (45%) on their country as a negative one (25%).
However, people in lower-income countries such as Pakistan (76%), Ethiopia (72%), and Egypt (71%) were markedly more enthusiastic than those in higher-income democracies such as Japan (3%), Germany (14%), the UK (16%) and the US (25%).
In the UK, the survey – titled Can Democracy Deliver? – found a low level of trust in national politicians (20% against the global average of 30%), and also low confidence in international institutions (26%), with only France, Germany, Japan and Russia scoring lower.
