President: Giampaolo Pioli    |    Editor in Chief: Stefano Vaccara
English Editor: Grace Russo Bullaro 

  • Login
VNY La Voce di New York

The First Italian English Digital Daily Newspaper in the US

  • English Edition
  • Letters
  • New York
  • U.N.
  • News
  • People
  • Arts
  • Lifestyles
  • Food & Wine
  • Travel
  • Italian Edition
No Result
View All Result
VNY
  • English Edition
  • Letters
  • New York
  • U.N.
  • News
  • People
  • Arts
  • Lifestyles
  • Food & Wine
  • Travel
  • Italian Edition
No Result
View All Result
VNY La Voce di New York
No Result
View All Result
in
U.N.
December 15, 2019
in
U.N.
December 15, 2019
0

UN Human Rights Day: “Is Democracy Catching the Flu?”

IDEA on “The Global State of Democracy 2019: Addressing the Ills, Reviving the Promise". Today's crisis of the democratic process is an opportunity, not a tragedy

Renzo CianfanellibyRenzo Cianfanelli
Democrazia in crisi? Calma, all’ONU se ne discute con una bella IDEA

Massimo Tommasoli speaking at the UN

Time: 3 mins read

At the UN Headquarters, an international enclave of New York that legally is not part of the United States territory, the world’s bill of health was made public in the form of an extremely important 256-page report. The title is telling: “The Global State of Democracy 2019: Addressing the Ills, Reviving the Promise”.

The event is promoted by Stockholm-based  International IDEA, the only intergovernmental organization exclusively working on democracy worldwide, whose title stands for Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. On the state of democracy in Europe it says: “Of the 10 democracies in the world currently experiencing democratic backsliding, six – Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and, to a lesser extent Ukraine – are in Europe”. These countries “are currently experiencing severe forms of democratic backsliding. Although each country context differs, common characteristics include weakening accountability institutions, executive aggrandizement of officials in leadership position, curtailing of dissent and efforts to ensure long-term rule by stifling opposition and civil society”. The words carefully used by IDEA weigh like millstones.

Italy also, one of the founding nations of postwar democratic Europe, does not fare much better. The country, true, is no Banana Republic. It is after Germany, and at a par with France, the second or third largest manufacturing nation in the Eurozone. But, shaken as it is by the tsunami of populism and of the dishonestly named “Alt-News” spread by the Web, Italy’s democracy, while fundamentally solid, is seriously disoriented.

In the IDEA report Italy still features in the number of countries of Europe that are rated as “high” for representative government. In “participatory engagement” however, Italy is already relegated (temporarily, one hopes) in the Serie B of democracies’ league. Its politics, parochial with no vision, are wallowing in prejudice and self-defeating negativity. They are increasingly Balkanized. The Italian public, fed with a combustible mixture of  fake “Alt-News”, outright lies and viciously partisan talk-shows, is cynical and confused. In extended Europe, only hardcore non-participatory cases like Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia and Turkey fare worse.

Alt-News, incidentally, is pure Orwellian newspeak. It describes, as in George Orwell’s “1984” book, the perverse effects of repeated blatant lies dressed like incontrovertible facts. Chemical streaks “causing cancer”; the non-existent “vaccines that kill and cause autism”; the Twin Towers destroyed not by Al-Qaeda terrorists but by a totally false “cabal of Masonic-Jewish plotters aided by America’s Deep State”. The waves of falsehood spread, via tweets and other social media, even from the White House, are disgraceful examples of everyday life in the fraudulent universe of Alt-News.

Italy is far from alone in such a predicament. Officially inspired mendacity and obfuscation operate with impunity in Washington, Moscow. Beijing, Tokyo, Rome, and virtually everywhere in the world. In the Americas, while Venezuela is according to IDEA “the most democratically ailing country” in the southern subcontinent, and in Central America a particularly serious democratic breakdown has occurred in Nicaragua, in North America the United States backsliding under President Trump gives cause for concern.

As the report points out, in its GSoD Indices (Global standards of democracy), the US, while remaining “a democracy with relatively high performance,” shows signs of democratic erosion. “Indeed, the USA is among the 12 countries in the world with the most subattribute declines since 2013”. Even if, as IDEA notes, these declines are not serious enough to be labelled as democratic backsliding, the negative trend is worrisome.

According to the report’s rigorous terminology, democratic backsliding occurs when the  GSoD (global standards of democracy) indices point to a ”gradual and intentional weakening on Checks on Government and accountability of institutions, coupled with declines in Civil Liberties”.

While the United States’ democratic decline has not reached this low level, the trend, in parallel with the gradual erosion of  Constitutional “checks and balances,” is far from reassuring. With the U.S. Congress paralyzed by parliamentary warfare, and with President Trump’s impeachment that will inevitably hit a brick wall when Republican-dominated Senate will absolve him next year, it is not only the 45th president’s status that is going to suffer, but far more importantly, the world credibility of the United States. Impeachment, originally conceived by the Founding Fathers as a kind of “nuclear option” to safeguard the integrity of the Republic, will be hopelessly neutered and used by both parties as a sledgehammer to score political points.

With oversight weakened, as The Economist writes in a despairing editorial, the presidency will become more imperial. In this sense, given the United States’ albeit declining world role, the global health of democracy needs monitoring with particular care. But as the scientist Stephen Hawking (an atheist!) famously said: “while there’s life, there’s hope”.

 

 

 

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Renzo Cianfanelli

Renzo Cianfanelli

Renzo Cianfanelli. Studi classici e laurea in giurisprudenza con specializzazione in economia monetaria, Università La Sapienza, Roma. A Londra per 4 anni con la BBC World Service. Poi corrispondente per il Corriere della Sera da Londra e New York. Inviato a Tokyo, Mosca, Israele, Sudamerica, Cina, Australia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Iran. Corrispondente di guerra dall’ ex-Jugoslavia, Cecenia, Somalia e altre aree di crisi. Attualmente a New York nella sede dell’ONU. Visiting Scholar, SAIS Johns Hopkins. Vincitore di premi giornalistici (Premio Max David Inviato dell’anno, Premio Hemingway e altri). Per le corrispondenze in Iraq ha ricevuto i gradi di tenente colonnello onorario della Brigata Friuli. Renzo Cianfanelli is an award-winning global correspondent-at-large. Graduated in Law and Monetary Economics at La Sapienza in Rome, Italy, he worked as a broadcaster in London at the BBC. For Corriere della Sera he served as resident correspondent and Bureau Chief in all parts of the world including London, New York, Belgrade and Moscow. As a war correspondent he covered contemporary conflicts from Sarajevo to Baghdad. He is currently based at the UN in New York

DELLO STESSO AUTORE

Ucraina: protesta davanti a ambasciata russa a Varsavia

Russia-Ukraine, Will it Be the Forever War? Don’t Ask!

byRenzo Cianfanelli
Corte suprema Usa boccia Maine su scuole religiose

With Recent Rulings, Supreme Court Deepens Division

byRenzo Cianfanelli

A PROPOSITO DI...

Tags: Crisis in democracyDemocracyIDEA
Previous Post

Democrazia in crisi? Calma, all’ONU se ne discute con una bella IDEA

Next Post

FREEeste, ovvero l’occasione per Trieste di tornare finalmente porto franco

Discussion about this post

DELLO STESSO AUTORE

Ucraina: Kissinger, Mosca rischia perdere status grande potenza

Invited to Talk About Ukraine, Kissinger and Soros Voice Opposing Views

byRenzo Cianfanelli
Sleepwalking Into the Unknown: A Fatal Optimism on the War in Ukraine

Sleepwalking Into the Unknown: A Fatal Optimism on the War in Ukraine

byRenzo Cianfanelli

Latest News

Kosovo, NATO: ‘Se la situazione peggiora pronti a intervenire’

Kosovo, NATO: ‘Se la situazione peggiora pronti a intervenire’

byAnsa
L’inflazione è arrivata per “Mister Softee”. Che fine farà?

L’inflazione è arrivata per “Mister Softee”. Che fine farà?

byMaria Sole Angeletti

New York

L’inflazione è arrivata per “Mister Softee”. Che fine farà?

L’inflazione è arrivata per “Mister Softee”. Che fine farà?

byMaria Sole Angeletti
West Nile: un morto nel Bresciano

Allarme West Nile a New York: almeno 2 contagiati e record di zanzare infette

byPaolo Cordova

Italiany

Torna in Sardegna il festival “MusaMadre”: richiamo della cultura e delle radici

Torna in Sardegna il festival “MusaMadre”: richiamo della cultura e delle radici

byManuela Caracciolo
“Senato&Cultura”: premiati gli imprenditori che rendono grande l’Italia nel mondo

“Senato&Cultura”: premiati gli imprenditori che rendono grande l’Italia nel mondo

byNicola Corradi
Next Post
FREEeste, ovvero l’occasione per Trieste di tornare finalmente porto franco

FREEeste, ovvero l'occasione per Trieste di tornare finalmente porto franco

La Voce di New York

President: Giampaolo Pioli   |   Editor in Chief: Stefano Vaccara   |   English Editor: Grace Russo Bullaro

  • New York
    • Eventi
  • Onu
  • News
    • Primo Piano
    • Politica
    • Voto Estero
    • Economia
    • First Amendment
  • People
    • Expat
  • Arts
    • Arte e Design
    • Spettacolo
    • Musica
    • Libri
    • Lingua Italiana
  • Lifestyles
    • Fashion
    • Scienza e Salute
    • Sport
    • Religioni
  • Food & Wine
  • Travel
    • Italia
  • Mediterraneo
  • English
  • Search/Archive
  • About us
    • Editorial Staff
    • President
    • Administration
    • Advertising

VNY Media La Voce di New York © 2016 - 2022
Main Office: 230 Park Avenue, 21floor, New York, NY 10169 | Editorial Office/Redazione: UN Secretariat Building, International Press Corps S-301, New York, NY 10017

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • New York
  • Onu
  • News
    • Primo Piano
    • Politica
    • Economia
    • First Amendment
  • Arts
    • Arte e Design
    • Spettacolo
    • Musica
    • Libri
  • Lingua Italiana
  • Lifestyles
    • Fashion
    • Scienza e Salute
    • Sport
    • Religioni
  • Food & Wine
    • Cucina Italiana
  • Travel
    • Italia
  • English

© 2016/2022 VNY Media La Voce di New York

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In