2024 - The year of democracy?
2024 will see the biggest year for democracy in history, with 40 countries and around 1.5 billion people going to the polls in 8 of the 10 most populous countries in the world.
But this isn’t a sign that people are experiencing greater freedom. The Freedom House Freedom in the World report found that global freedom declined for the seventeenth year in a row in 2023. Hardly surprising you might say, if you follow current affairs. War rages in Ukraine, and the Israel Gaza conflict has led to tens of thousands of deaths and threatens to spread across the Middle East, which is already a tinderbox with no clear path to long-term peace and prosperity. Parts of Africa are battling extremist terrorist groups who are gaining ground, and many nations are struggling to reform and rebuild from colonial pasts and ongoing coloniality.
The Chinese Government is expanding aggressively in the South China Sea and tensions with Taiwan are at near all-time highs. Meanwhile, populist governments across Europe and America, present a serious threat to democratic institutions and to the rule of law. This risks throwing the rules-based order into further chaos and disarray. Populism, nationalism, and authoritarianism are often an unholy trinity which can twist benign democracy into something more sinister and in extreme cases be used to represent the will of the people to depose it entirely.
However, the same Freedom in the World report is noting that it is possible that this year may be a positive turning point, it states ‘by drawing strength from diversity, protecting dissent, and building international coalitions to support their own norms and values, democratic forces can still reverse the long decline in global freedom.'
So, what does this mean for a world choosing its leaders and where does it leave social work both at home and abroad as we consider World Social Work Month and our joint commitment to the profession around this small blue planet that we call home. The theme of World Social Work Day this year is Buen Vivir, best described as collective wellbeing. An ideal that is impossible to realise without democracy but just as likely to be an unrealised dream in some of the most developed democratic countries.
Like Buen Vivir, democracy is an ideal seldom truly realised. Even in the United Kingdom and Scotland with our mother of parliaments, devolved settlements, elected local authorities, and extremely low levels of corruption, there remain challenges to true democracy. Too often the rights of individuals are unable to be realised, too often the notion of choice is an illusion. We see soaring poverty and public services on the brink of collapse on our own doorstep each of which limit and exclude the ideal of Buen Vivir and true democracy.
Social work and democracy go hand in hand. But an active grass roots social work movement does not necessarily mean there will be democratic institutions of the state. Indeed, social work is often a seedling of democracy in countries with less embedded democratic institutions. Social work in its most foundational form is about supporting the ability of an individual and community to make informed choices, support one another and grow as a society. These are fundamentally democratic ideals.
This year of democracy is something to embrace despite many of the elections taking place not being free or fair. While democracy is too often used as a cover to legitimise illegitimate and oppressive governments, democracy is still the ideal people all over the world rally towards.
For these reasons, let us welcome this year of election. Let us call on those brought to power by the people to embrace Buen Vivir. Without democracy, we cannot realise collective wellbeing and until everyone in society matters and has a voice, true democracy will remain an ideal.
Blog by George Hannah
Communications and Public Affairs Officer, SASW