Photo: James Duncan Davidson

“Give me liberty or give me death,” says global economist Dambisa Moyo, quoting Patrick Henry from 1775. In Western ideology, freedom is the most cherished value of all, and its government and economic systems have freedom deeply embedded in them. Over the past century, these systems have delivered prosperity and innovation: US incomes have increased 30 times, hundreds of thousands have been lifted from poverty, and US ingenuity has helped spur global industrialization. So there’s an understandably deep-seated presumption among Westerners that the whole world wants to embrace an ideology that holds sacred private capitalism, liberal democracy and prioritizing political rights over economic rights.

But there’s an ideological schism emerging between developed and developing countries, and it is widening. Ninety percent of the world’s population lives in emerging markets, and to them, the obsession with political rights is beside the point, taking a backseat to food, shelter, education and healthcare. When you’re earning less than $1 a day, says Moyo, you’re far too busy trying to feed your family to worry about defending democracy.

It’s not that these people wouldn’t ideally like to pick their own presidents and leaders, says Moyo, but on balance, they worry more about where life improvements will come from, and how quickly — not whether the governments that will deliver what they need got put there by democracy. What would you choose if you had to choose between the right to a roof over your head and the right to vote?

Now, for the first time in a long time, a real challenge to Western ideals is emerging — the system embodied by China, which values state capitalism, deemphasizes democracy and prioritizes economic rights. China’s system is gathering momentum as the system to follow because it promises the fastest improvements in living standards in the shortest period of time. Moyo cites China’s astonishing record of poverty alleviation and improvement in living standards. While the US and China have vastly different political and economic systems, they have an identical Gini coefficient — the measure of income inequality. In fact, China’s income inequality is improving while the US’s is getting worse.

And then there’s China’s legendary infrastructure — 85,000 kilometers of roadwork, surpassing the United States. And it extends beyond their own borders; for instance, China has tarred the 9,000 miles between Cape Town and Cairo. China has also used state-owned enterprises to deliver healthcare to previously unreachable areas. No surprise, then, that in a 2007 Pew survey, Africans in 10 countries said China was doing amazing things to improve livelihoods. “People are pointing at China and saying ‘I like that, I want that. That’s a system that seems to work.’”

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Moyo points to another shift in perception: people are starting to doubt that democracy is a prerequisite to growth. She argues a different angle, that economic growth is a prerequisite for democracy, citing a study that suggests that only after a country achieves $6,000 per capita income can you expect your democracy to last forever “come hell or high water.” This suggests that the key for a solid democracy is a solid middle class — and raises doubt about rushing around shoehorning democracy into countries that are not ready for it. This runs the risk of ending up with illiberal democracies, those with restricted freedom of speech and movement — worse than the governments they seek to replace.

There’s evidence that this schism in ideology will likely widen, espeically as China becomes the largest economy in the world, which it’s set to do in 2016. Moyo gives us a glimpse of what kind of world we’ll be living in: one with a bigger state role, more state capitalism, increasing protectionism, and fewer political rights and individual freedoms.

How should the West respond? Moyo says it can choose to compete with the Chinese model or cooperate. If the West chooses to compete, it would have to convince many countries in the emerging world to take its side, which is likely to widen the schism. Cooperation would mean allowing emerging countries to make their own choices for what works for them. Could this be considered ceding to China? Moyo suggests cooperation is the best way for the US and Europe to maintain their influence in a changing world, and compete in the long term.

So what should the West be doing? It should be expanding trade and investment around the world, demonstrating how western liberal democracy and free markets are a good choice, and allowing other countries to decide which political and economic systems work best for them. In short, it needs to take a page from its own history and practice patience — after all, it took the US almost 170 years from signing the Constitution to achieving universal suffrage.

Moyo argues that people naturally pivot towards economics and politics in a rational way, seeking better living standards in a short amount of time. As individuals, it’s up to us to be open-minded, she says. To illustrate, she tells the story of her birth in 1968, in Zambia, where, at the time, black people were not issued birth certificates. In 40 years, if Moyo could go from being unrecognized as a human being to standing here delivering her ideas to the world, it’s possible to tear up preconceived structures and strictures, and instead look at options and seek the truth. “It’s about transforming the world and making it a better place.”

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Born in Shanghai in 1968, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Eric X. Li grew up hearing a story: All human societies develop in linear progression, beginning with primitive society, moving through capitalism to socialism and, finally, Communism. Sooner or later, all of humanity, regardless of creed or culture, will reach that final stage of political and social development. The world’s peoples will be unified in this paradise on Earth and live happily ever after. Meanwhile, we are engaged in a struggle between the good of socialism and the evil of capitalism. One third of the world’s population lived under this meta-narrative, distilled from the theories of Karl Marx. The story was a best-seller. “We were taught that story day in day out,” says Li. “It was part of us, and we believed it.”

But then, he says, showing a slide of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the world changed overnight. “Disillusioned by the failed religion of my youth, I went to America and became a Berkeley hippie.”

There, as he came of age, Li was told another story, one where all human societies, regardless of creed or language, develop in linear progression, progressing from traditional societies where groups form the basic units to modern societies in which atomized individuals are the sovereign units. And they all want one thing — the vote. With the vote, they produce good government and live happily ever after — paradise on Earth. Sooner or later, electoral democracy will be the only political system for all countries and all peoples, with a free market to make them all rich. Meanwhile, we are engaged in a struggle of good against evil. Good belongs to those who are democracies, charged with the mission of spreading it around the globe — sometimes by force — against the evil of those who do not hold elections.

This story was also a best-seller: according to the Freedom House, the number of countries practicing electoral democracy grew from 45 in 1970 to 115 in 2010. Today, says Li, Western elites endlessly trot this prospectus around the globe as the path to salvation for the long-suffering developing world.

Li, now a venture capitalist based in Shanghai, considered these meta-narratives and compared them to his experience of childhood in China, living on food stamps, versus his experience in the city now — entrepreneurship booming, a fast-growing middle class. In 30 years, China has gone from one of the poorest agricultural countries to the world’s second largest economy — and 80% of the world’s poverty alleviation during this period happened in China.

“So I asked myself, what’s wrong with this picture?” According to the metanarrative, none of this should be happening, Li says. “So I did the only thing I can do: I studied it.”

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

What he found punches holes in our assumptions about China’s limitations. People think that the one-party system must be operationally rigid, politically closed, morally illegitimate. In fact, he argues, the opposite is true: what defines China’s one-party system are adaptability, meritocracy and legitimacy.

1. Adaptability: Political scientists say that one-party systems are incapable of self-correction. Li counters this with the fact that the Party has self-corrected dramatically in the last 64 years, more than any other country in recent memory. The Party’s policies encompassed land collectivization, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms, and Jiang Zemin opening Party membership to private businesspeople — “something unimaginable during Mao’s rule.” And the Party self-corrects in dramatic fashion. New rules get enacted to correct past mistakes, such as term limits with mandatory retirement rates. We also often hear that China is in dire need of political reform, but Li argues this is rhetoric — even if critics don’t see the reform they want to see, political reforms have never stopped. Chinese society is unrecognizable today as compared to 30 years ago. In fact, Li says, “I would venture to suggest that the Party is world’s leading expert in political reform.”

2. Meritocracy Another assumption is that one-party rule leads to a closed political system in which power gets concentrated in the hands of the few, leading to bad governance and corruption. Li argues that actually, the Party is one of the most meritocratic political institutions in the world. Only one fifth of Politburo members come from privileged backgrounds, and in the Central Committee of more than 300, the percentage is even smaller. This is thanks to a body little known to Westerners — the Party’s Organization Department system that guides candidates through integrated career tracks for Chinese officials, recruiting college graduates into entry-level positions and promoting them through the ranks, including high officialdom — a process requiring up to three decades. While patronage plays a role, merit is the underlying driver, says Li. “Within this system,” Li says, “and this is not a put-down – merely a statement of fact: George W. Bush and Barack Obama, before running for president, would not have made small-county chief in China’s system.”

3. Legitimacy Westerners assume that multiparty elections with universal suffrage is the only source of legitimacy. When asked how the Party justifies legitimacy, Li asks, “How about competency?” He cites the fact that since 1949 when the Party took over, China was mired in civil war and foreign aggression, and its average life expectancy was 41. Today, it’s the second largest economy in the world, an industrial powerhouse, and its people live in increasing prosperity. Pew Research polls of public attitudes suggest consistently that citizens are highly satisfied with how the country and nation are progressing. A Financial Times survey recently released suggests that 93% of China’s Generation Y are optimistic about their country’s future. Says Li: “If this isn’t legitimacy, I don’t know what is.” Contrast this, he suggests, to the dismal performance of many electoral democracies around the world: “Governments get elected and then fall below approval a few months later and stay there or fall until the next election. Democracy is becoming a perpetual cycle of ‘elect and regret.’”

Of course, Li concedes the country faces enormous challenges: pollution, population, food safety, and on the political front, corruption, which is widespread and undermines moral legitimacy. But the argument that the one-party system causes corruption doesn’t hold water. According to the Transparency International index of corruption, China has recently ranked between 70 and 80 among 170 countries and moving up, while India, the largest electoral democracy in the world, is at 95 and dropping.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Li is not out to condemn democracy. He acknowledges its role in creating the modern world. He’s not speaking against its ideals but its universal claim — the hubris — at the heart of the West’s common ills, he says. He suggests that if the West spent less time pushing their meta-narrative on others and focusing more on political reform at home, democracy might have a better chance of success.

China’s system does not pretend to be universal — it cannot be exported, says Li. But that’s the point. Neither is an alternative to supplant the other, but simply a demonstration that alternatives exist. “Let us draw to a close this era of meta-narratives,” he says. “Let’s stop telling our children there is only one way. It’s wrong, it’s boring. Let’s let universality make way for plurality. Perhaps a more interesting age is upon us.”

Zahra' Langhi: Why Libya's revolution didn't work -- and what might

Activist Zahra’ Langhi was part of the “day of rage” that eventually led to Gaddafi’s toppling. But the cost was high — a six month war in which almost 50,000 people lost their lives. In today’s powerful talk, Langhi turns her eye to the incredible task of rebuilding the country.

“Gaddafi left behind a heavy burden — a legacy of tyranny and corruption. For four decades, Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime destroyed the infrastructure, as well as the culture and moral fabric, of Libyan society,” says Langhi. “I was keen — along with many other women — to rebuild Libyan civil society, calling for an inclusive and just transition to democracy.”

To that end, Langhi co-founded the Libyan Women’s Platform for Peace (LWPP), a group lobbying for women to be included as the Libyan government was reformed. In this talk, Langhi explains the “zipper list,” an initiative the group championed which called for political parties to alternate male and female candidates, weaving both genders onto their ballots. At first, this worked remarkably well.

“However, bit by bit, the euphoria of the elections — and of the revolution as a whole — was fading out, for every day we were waking up to the news of violence,” says Langhi. “Our society, shaped by a revolutionary mindset, became more polarized and driven away from the ideas and principles — freedom, dignity, social justice — that we first held. Intolerance, exclusion and revenge became the post-math of the revolution.”

Today, Langhi questions whether “rage” was the right path out of dictatorship. In this talk, she posits that perhaps what her country needed more than quantitative representation of women in government was the qualitative representation of traditionally feminine values like compassion, mercy and consensus building. To hear Langhi’s important thoughts on what needs to happen after a revolution, watch her talk.

Here, more TED Talks about revolution in the Middle East.

Wael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolutionWael Ghonim: Inside the Egyptian revolution Google executive Wael Ghonim helped galvanize Egypt’s revolution by creating a Facebook page memorializing a man who was tortured by Mubarak’s regime. Still, he says, in the Egyptian revolution, no one was a hero — because everyone was a hero. In this talk from TEDxCairo, Wael Ghonim tells the story of the first two months of the revolution — a story we now know is still in progress.

Bahia Shehab: A thousand times noBahia Shehab: A thousand times no In Arabic, there is a phrase: “No, and a thousand times no.”  As revolution spread through Egypt, art historian Bahia Shehab took up her stencil and proclaimed “a thousand times no” to dictators, to military rule, to violence against women. In this brave talk from TEDGlobal 2012, Shehab shares her previously anonymous work with the world.

Srdja Popovic: How to topple a dictatorSrdja Popovic: How to topple a dictator Why was 2011 such a pivotal year for people-powered revolutions? In this talk from TEDxKrakow, Srdja Popovic — himself a part of the movement that toppled Milosevic in 2000 — looks at why these revolutions gained so much footing. He outlines the skills and tactics needed to oust a dictator. Most surprising: a sense of humor.

Wadah Khanfar: A historic moment in the Arab worldWadah Khanfar: A historic moment in the Arab world The former head of Al Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar has a unique perspective on the Arab Spring. “Change was imposed on us and people rejected that because they thought it was alien to the culture,” he says in this Talk from TED2011.  “Always, we believed, change should spring from within.” Here, Khanfar speaks with great optimism about revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond.

Dalia Mogahed: The attitudes that sparked Arab SpringDalia Mogahed: The attitudes that sparked the Arab Spring It’s the opposite of what one would expect: as Egypt grew in wealth, its people’s satisfaction plummeted. This was what Dalia Mogahed, the director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, saw even before the Arab Spring. In this talk from TEDxSummit, she shares some of the grievances she saw in survey data — which sprung not out of distrust of the West, but admiration.

All around the globe, people are feeling increasingly skeptical and mistrustful of their leaders. According to one global trust barometer, only 52% of survey respondents said that they trusted their government to do the right thing in 2011 and, in 2012, the number plummeted to 43%. As recent surveys reveal, only 18% of Italians believe their vote matters, just 15% of Greeks says that pulling a lever makes a difference and a scant 20% of Americans agree that their government makes good decisions. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea suffered 26- and 17-point declines in government trust ratings this year, respectively.

These are all democracies. Which means that citizens do not trust the very people they voted into office.

In his new TED Book, In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders?, political scientist Ivan Krastev takes a deeper look at why this is happening and what can be done to turn the tide. While his thoughts often aren’t optimistic (“I’m Bulgarian,” he says in his TED Talk, “and we are the most pessimistic people in the world”), they are hugely important. In this book, he sounds a loud warning bell on a stark change in perception.

We gave Krastev a call to talk more about what he calls “democracy in crisis,” and to see what he thinks can be done to improve the relationship between citizens and their leaders.

Why is the concept of a democracy in crisis?

Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often complain about their leaders and their institutions. The gap between the ideal democracy and the existing one cannot be bridged.

The movie legend Cary Grant once arrived at a Hollywood charity function and, deploying every ounce of his charm told the difficult woman at the welcome desk that he had forgotten his ticket. Without looking up she cut him short, “You don’t have a ticket, you can’t go in.” “I understand,” he said, “but . . . I’m Cary Grant.” The woman looked up at him and gave her final verdict, “You don’t look like Cary Grant.” “Nobody does,” responded the actor. And he was right. In real life nobody — not even Cary Grant himself — looks like Cary Grant on the screen.

Democracy we dream about is never the same as democracy we live in. But the fact that the existing democracies as a rule are imperfect has never been a reason to prevent us from respecting them, making use of them, improving them and even being ready to die for them. What makes me worry today is the alarming decline in the trust in democratic institutions — political parties, Parliaments, political leaders. Less and less people are going to the polls in most advanced democracies. The people least interested in voting are the poor, unemployed and the young — those who should be most interested in using the political system to improve their lot. What makes current crisis of democracy special is that today democracy seems to fall victim not of its failures but of its successes. Our societies are more democratic than ever but our public institutions are less trusted; the citizens in the West are freer than ever before but voters feel less powerful than yesterday.

When you push people to reflect on, “Do you feel empowered? Do you really believe that you can influence politics?” many people in very well-established democracies don’t believe that their voice matters anymore. For example, the latest data for Greece and Italy is that only 15% of Greeks and 18% of Italians believe that their voice really matters.

If democracies are so problematic, why do so many countries aspire to become democracies?

You do not always need to fall in love with somebody else in order to leave your wife or husband. The crisis of democracy in the West is not the result of falling in love with another system. In Europe and America people who are disillusioned with democracy do not dream about the Chinese model or any other form of authoritarian rule. They do not dream about government that controls Internet and puts in prison those daring to disagree.

Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.

Paradoxically, part of the problems of democracy is that today almost everybody claims his sympathy for the principle of self-government. Elections are the only source of legitimate government. Even religious fundamentalists who still insist that power derives from God tend to agree that the best way to interpret God’s will is to count the ballots on election day. In short, democracy is the only game in town but many people start asking themselves: is it a game worth playing? Do the voters have the power to bring meaningful change? Could they change, for example, economic policies or could they only change governments who at the end of the day implement the same economic policy? Today politicians often insist that when it comes to economy “there is no alternative” but if there are no alternatives, could there be democracy? When politicians justify their policies not with the argument that these are the best policies — or even the better policies — but simply with the argument that these are the only possible policies … the meaning of democracy is changed.

What can be done to improve the interaction between our leaders and the citizens? 

The fact that a growing number of people are mistrustful of the politicians who govern them is good news for democracy. The critical argument of my book is that in order for democracy to function, people need to have a real choice and a shared purpose.

“It’s not the voting that’s democracy,” remarked the playwright Tom Stoppard, “it’s the counting.” In this sense, monitoring those in power is of great importance. But transparent policy is not the same as good policy. The book argues that the hope that transparency can revive the trust in democratic institutions and leaders is a dangerous illusion. Transparency will not restore trust — it will reduce politics to the management of mistrust. What we lack dramatically today is what I call democratic reformism — political actions that are not just control of those in power or pressure for a certain cause or in favor of a certain group, but a political strategy that tries to envision the improvement of society as a whole.

Has the advent of new technologies made us more or less trustful?

The current crisis of democracy is not the outcome of the new technologies but it is also naïve to believe that new technologies can by themselves present the answer to the agonizing questions that representative democracy faces today. The new technologies radically empowered the individual and made new ways of making politics and mobilizing society possible, but they also made politics more difficult because the citizen grew less interested in compromise and looking for the support of others in order to achieve what is most important for him.

Somebody asked me recently to try to imagine the fate of Desdemona in the age of the new technologies. Would it not have been easier for her to convince Othello of her innocence if she could have relied on the security cameras recording the movements in and out of her house? It might have been. But one can also imagine that in the age of technically superb manipulation, Desdemona’s fate would have been the same. Security cameras are not the ones that kill trust, but they also cannot be expected to resurrect it.

America just avoided going over the “fiscal cliff,” but it looks like our leaders have lost their ability to reach consensus. Is this a symptom of democracy in crisis?

In the last decade, American democracy has been turned into a game of chicken, in which preventing the other side from governing is more important than governing yourself. From 2008 to 2012, Republicans in Congress have used the filibuster as often as it was deployed in the whole seven decades between World War I and the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term. This fact alone makes democracy look ungovernable.

Viewed from Europe, the U.S. looks like a dysfunctional post-communist democracy in which politics is an ungovernable zero-sum game. Compromise has become more difficult than ever because most Congressmen and Senators come from a one-party state where you are rewarded for non-compromising.

Recently a friend of mine said that they’re working on software that, any moment a politician is giving a statement on an issue, automatically shows the different positions on the same issue he or she has taken.  And this is perceived as a great contribution to democracy because you can show that a politician is changing his view. But democracy is not about people not changing their views. The most important figure in democratic politics is not the guy who is not changing his view. The most important and positive hero for the democratic society is somebody who is ready to change his views after a rational argument. If I cannot change the politician’s view, even giving him a very strong argument against his position, he’s either an idiot or a fanatic. I’m afraid because these type of technologies are making consistency more important than reasonability.

Does if affect how European democracies view the Americans?

From the American perspective, European democracies resemble decaying semi-authoritarian regimes in which elites make all their choices behind the backs of voters. In some sense, the difference in the American and European elite responses to constraints on democratic politics in the age of globalization resembles the contrast between the Hollywood movie and the French experimental novel. American politicians hope to keep voters interested in politics by retaining a traditional plot, with black and white choices. European politicians, however, ditched the plot and worked instead to convince voters to focus on the style and sophistication of the writing. In the U.S., the risk is that voters will at some point realize that although their political representatives disagree on nearly everything, their economic policies are awfully similar. It is here where the anti-elite resentment skyrockets and people are ready to endorse radical platforms. In Europe, the risk is that voters will simply stop “reading”; in other words, the non-voter will become the protagonist of European politics.

What got you interested in thinking about problems with democracy?

It’s very personal. I was 24-years-old when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. And on one level, of course, democracy was extremely important for our generation. But on the other hand, we learned in 1989 how fragile the world is. For a long time, in my youth, we had been told that the problems of socialism could be cured with more socialism. So when I hear people talking about their problem with democracy, but we’re curing the problems of democracies with more democracy, I decided that I needed to look at what we’re talking about.

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In Mistrust We Trust is available for the Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone and get a subscription.

With his provocative new book, In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders?, political commentator Ivan Krastev explores this incongruity between our political head and heart. There has been a profound decline of the public’s trust in the performance of public institutions, he notes, which is an outcome of the voters’ sense of their lost power. Tech tools may help provide some openness to the machinations of the political machine, but they may just be putting a Band-Aid on an open wound. Ultimately, Krastev ponders whether we can enjoy the many rights of our society without enjoying real political choice or power.

His new TED Book looks at where to go from here. His bold question: can democracy survive?

In Mistrust We Trust is available for the Kindle and Nook, as well as through the iBookstore. Or download the TED Books app for your iPad or iPhone and get a subscription.

Last night at the TED offices, we held a special event: a miniature TED all about voting. Three amazing speakers took the stage to present ideas and stories related to our electoral process.

First up, was TED’s own Lisa Bu, our Content Distribution Manager, who spoke about her experience traveling from China in 1995 to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Because individual bank accounts are not the norm in China, Bu shared that she came with her tuition and living expenses money all in cash, stuffed in her pockets. She felt “very important” being able to open her first account.

Bu also found herself surprised to find that everyone — not just politicians and celebrities — get obituaries in American newspapers. “Every life, even a baby’s, is worth remembering publicly. I was moved deeply,” says Bu. “That kind respect and appreciation for individual life — for me, that’s the essence of democracy.”

Bu’s basic point: that if it isn’t a right you are born with, the fact that we all can vote is pretty amazing. After all, in China the American Idol-like television show Super Girl was canceled because officials worried it was promoting democratic fervor.

Computer scientist Barbara Simons, co-author of the book Broken Ballots: Will Your Vote Count?, spoke next, explaining why internet voting may not be such a good idea. “I call this talk, ‘If I can bank online, why can’t I vote online?’” said Simons. “My goal is to tell you it’s not safe to do either.”

As Simons explained, no website is immune from outside attacks — not the FBI, not Google and certainly not online voting systems developed by localities for elections. She shared what is referred to as the “DC Hack.” In 2010, Washington, D.C., did a pilot test of its online voting system, inviting computer experts to give breaking into the system their “best shot.” Students at the University of Michigan succeeded almost instantly, recoding the system to play their college’s fight song anytime someone cast a vote. Even worse — election officials didn’t realize the system had been hacked. They later discovered the attack after reading message boards.

And hacks and viruses aren’t the only issues with online voting. Online voting would make it too easy to disrupt voting in specific areas, by launching “denial of service attacks,” i.e. having outsiders intentionally overwhelm the network. Furthermore, it would make it too tempting for someone inside the election process — from those who code the voting system to poll volunteers — to tamper with results. If a voting system is comprised, there is no way to do a recount. That very situation happened in a recent election in Estonia, where 25% of the election ballots were cast online. Many believe that the voting system was rigged, as the online ballot results were inconsistent with paper votes, but there is no way to prove it.

Overall, Simons stressed that that any voting system has security risks. She called for us to be more thorough with post-election audits, even if it means an election cannot be called the same night. But, she said, her warnings are not an excuse to skip voting. “The easiest way to be disenfranchised is to note vote,” she concluded.

New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen, of the website PressThink.org, ended the evening with a talk about why he is continually drawn to — and repulsed by — election journalism. As he shared, only 33.5% of countries in the world are rated as having a truly free press. As one of the few, why does our press make the coverage decisions it does?

Rosen points to a few disturbing phenomena he has noticed in this election year — that while newscasters were once active voices, both in debates and in the framing of issues, they are letting themselves be pushed out of the frame by allowing candidates to do this work themselves.  In the past, Rosen says, journalists have been afforded respect on the principle of, “I’m on the scene, you’re not, let me tell you about it.” Recently, he sees journalists and broadcasters giving up this authority. One consequence: that for the first time since 1988, the issue of climate change was not brought up all election.

So what can be done? A lot, says Rosen. He would love to see citizens build the agenda for which issues are most important to them, and then have newscasters and journalists flex their reporting muscles to make sure answers are given. Second, he’d love to see a distortion index — that in addition to fact checking, there be some measure of how far and wide pieces of misinformation have spread. And finally, he wants news networks and publications to look to answer questions for the public, rather than letting talking heads from both sides debate without conclusion.

Overall, last night’s event was a lively discussion that made us excited to vote today.

Rory Stewart opens this talk from TEDxHousesofParliament with a joke:

“Little Billy goes to school and his teacher asks, ‘What does your father do?’ Billy replies, ‘My father plays piano in an opium den.’”

But when the teacher confronts the father about his occupation, she gets a different answer. As Stewart finishes the joke, “The father says, ‘I’m very sorry, yes, I lied. But how can I tell an 8-year-old boy that his father is a politician?’”

Stewart admits that people often look at him askew when he tells them that he is a Member of the British Parliament. And he believes that this is a very bad sign – that there appears to be a deep sense of disappointment with politicians across the globe. One of the issues, Stewart explains, is that in selling democracy to the rest of the world, several “side benefits” were promised – mainly, that democracy would bring peace, prosperity, security and non-violence. However, none of those things have proved true in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. In fact, these examples show that democracy can be compatible with deep instability.

“The point about democracy is not instrumental. It’s not about the things that it brings,” says Stewart. “The point about democracy is not that it delivers legitimate, effective, prosperous rule of law. It’s not that it guarantees peace with itself or its neighbors. The point about democracy is intrinsic. Democracy matters because it reflects an idea of equality and an idea of liberty. It reflects an idea of dignity of the individual — the idea that each individual should have an equal vote and equal say in the formation of their government.”

He adds, “Democracy isn’t a question of structures — it is a state of mind. ”

Stewart believes that it is possible to rebuild democracy from here. But to do so will take honesty. Politicians will have to admit when they don’t know answer and not pretend to be “omniscient beings.” They will have to be honest with their constituencies when they feel that something voters want is not something they can — or should — deliver. Meanwhile the public and media need to allow the space for this honesty.

To hear more about Stewart’s ideas for what can bring trust back to democracy, watch his talk. Below, four more talks about the current state of democracy.

Ivan Krastev: Can democracy exist without trust?
Political theorist Ivan Krastev says that we are witnessing a “crisis of democracy.” Over the past 30 years, trust in democracy has begun to erode, with people feeling less and less like their vote matters – and that while they may be able to change who is in power, they are not able to affect what actions their government takes. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, Krastev sounds a warning bell about what this erosion of trust could mean for the future.

Yasheng Huang: Does democracy stifle economic growth?
Under China’s authoritarian rule, the economy has flourished. Meanwhile, under democracy, India’s economy has stalled. But Huang does not believe that it’s the system of government that is to blame for the discrepancy –  he believes that it is simply an issue of comparing apples to oranges. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2011, Huang shares why democracy should go hand-in-hand with growth.

Jarreth Merz: Filming democracy in Ghana
Filmmaker Jarreth Merz filmed Ghana’s 2008 elections – which required two re-votes because the final tallies were so close — for the documentary “An African Election.” At TEDGlobal 2011, he shared what he learned in the process, both about himself and about the “other side of democracy.”

Clay Shirky: How the internet will (one day) transform government
Open-source enthusiast Clay Shirky believes that democracy has a lot to learn from computer programmers. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, he describes how GitHub could be used to make lawmaking a fully participatory affair.

What’s going wrong with democracy?

Iavan Krastev is a political scientist to speak about crisis in Europe. Not, in his words, an inspiring topic. And he’s here to talk about some of the problems with openness, in contrast to most of the talks. ”You people in the church of TED,” says Krastev, “are very optimistic. You believe in complexity, but not ambiguity.”

He asks us to imagine a rainy election day in any country. No one goes to vote before 4pm, then suddenly everyone comes — but three-quarters of the people vote with a blank ballot. That paralyzes the government and the opposition. They know what to do with protesters, but not this. So they hold it again, and this time 87% cast a blank ballot, to say they have no one to vote for.

That is the opening of a Saramago novel, but for Krastev it captures the problem of democracy. People don’t question that democracy is the best form of government, but they have lost trust. And hence, over the past years there has been a constant decline in electoral turnout. And more worryingly, the people who are least interested in voting are those who actually have the most to gain. Polls have shown that 89% of Europeans believe there is a growing gap between the opinions of the people and leaders.

How did this happen, asks Krastev, that in a technologically transformed world with more rights than ever before, this trust has collapsed?

What went right and what went wrong?

Krastev goes through a list of five revolutions that transformed the world over the past 50 years. First, he uses them to show what went right, then shows how the same revolutions are what went wrong.

1. The cultural and social revolution of the ’60s and ’70s. It opened the door to nonconformism and individuality, but it also gave the idea that individualism is easy, and lost the shared purpose of society.
2. The market revolution of 1980s. Though many on the left hate it, this was the revolution that led to the idea that the government knows best, and to a choice-driven society. It also lead to a huge increase in inequality in societies. Until then the spread of democracy was always associated with declining inequality. Now, that is reversed.
3. The 1989 revolution at the end of the cold war, a very good thing. But it also destroyed the social contract in the west between the elites and the people. During the cold war, the rich and powerful needed the people because they feared them. Now, “You have a strange situation where the elites got out of the control of the voters because the voters are not interested in voting anymore.”
4. The internet revolution. Wonderful, as this audience knows very well. But with all the benefits, the public space has been destroyed. There is more polarization, and a lack of common language. He asks: “Have you seen what the digital world has done to American politics these days?”
5. Revolution in neurosciences. This has totally changed the way we understand how people think. In particular, only 3-5% of decision is taken on the rational level, so there is no need to have a rational platform. Political operatives have learned not to talk about ideas or issues, but to manipulate emotions.

Krastev hammers home that point — what went right is also what went wrong. He warns that we have to get used to the idea that “Some of the things that we love most are things that can hurt us most.”

The dangers of transparency

There is an idea that transparency is going to restore trust in institutions. He is much more skeptical. Instead, this is going to fundamentally change politics. It will be much more about managing trust, not creating trust. Mistrust, of course, was always important to democracy, that’s why you have checks and balances.

But when managing trust is all you do, says Krastev, “Transparency seems like 1984 in reverse.” Instead of Big Brother watching us, we’re watching Big Brother. That seems like a great idea, to monitor and hold politicians accountable.

He asks us to think about the fact that we can check statements of politicians against their previous statements. Again, it seems like a great way to keep them accountable. But he warns, if we do that, we should expect consistency to become the most important virtue for a politician. “But that’s not what democracy is about, it’s about people changing their minds … based on rational arguments and discussions.”

Any unveiling is also veiling.

Krastev gives a final warning about transparency. If you ask governments to be “open,” they’re going to be selective about it. He tells the story of a nation that decided all discussions among ministers were going to be published online. Krastev asked the Prime Minister, “Why did you do it?” The answer: “This is the best way to keep the mouths of my ministers closed.”

He closes with a final warning — a quote from Goethe to keep in mind, “There is a big shadow where there is much light.”

Photos: James Duncan Davidson