Political crises as challenges to democracy: Will it be possible to avoid “confidence traps” again?

Abstract

The development of democratic political systems inevitably presupposes dealing with crises. The challenges of democracy are both external factors associated with the activity of other political regimes, changes in the world order, and internal factors determined by a combination of socio-economic and political aspects. Often, such internal factors become critical and can determine a dangerous state — the “confidence trap”. The article discusses the concept of the Cambridge political scientist David Runcimen, which expresses firm confidence in the ability of democracies to overcome the crisis with dignity and preparedness for new tests. The seven main crises of democracy of the twentieth century highlighted by Runcimen are events that influenced the nature of the functioning of democratic systems. In addition, overcoming these crises has demonstrated the presence of a serious resource for the strength of political and social institutions, the formation of survival and reflection skills in the state system. The most important challenges to democracy are: war (the tendency of democracies to be drawn into military confrontation, which can result in serious costs), finance (irrational use of public funds), environmental threat (climate change due to vigorous economic activity, depletion of resources), rivals (activities of those states, which can seriously limit the expansion of democracy). Special attention is paid to assessing the role of China and Russia in the formation of the “confidence trap” of modern democracies.