IS POLARIZATION & POPULISM MAKING DEMOCRACY UNMANAGEABLE?

IS POLARIZATION & POPULISM MAKING DEMOCRACY UNMANAGEABLE?

A PUBLIC SOURCED ARTICLE FOR MATASII (SUBSCRIBERS & PUBLIC ACCESS) READERS  REFERENCE

MATASII SYNTHESIS:

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM at this years DAVOS Meeting Cited Nationalism As One Of The Biggest Threats To Global Stability

• The WEF is worried that the world won't be able to nimbly cooperate and respond to threats if something isn't done about the increasingly "state-centered" politics (that is growing populism and  nationalism),
• To quote them in their Annual Global Risks report presented at DAVOS in January:

Is the world sleepwalking into a crisis? Global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them appears to be lacking. Instead, divisions are hardening. The world’s move into a new phase of strongly state-centered politics, noted in last year’s Global Risks Report, continued throughout 2018. The idea of “taking back control”— whether domestically from political rivals or externally from multilateral or supranational organizations— resonates across many countries and many issues. The energy now expended on consolidating or recovering national control risks weakening collective responses to emerging global challenges. We are drifting deeper into global problems from which we will struggle to extricate ourselves.

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If another global crisis were to hit, would the necessary levels of cooperation and support be forthcoming? Probably, but the tension between the globalization of the world economy and the growing nationalism of world politics is a deepening risk.

• In searching for something - anything - to blame for the rise of populism (that is, aside from policy decisions dictated by increasingly out-of-touch elites) - the report hits on the growing occurrence of mental illness around the world, though they elide over the drivers of the "societal changes" that the WEF researchers believe are at the root of this problem.
• In my opinion the driver behind much of the growth in populism, nationalism, mass migrations and much of the social unrest is INEQUALITY - recently made much worse by failed Monetary Polices to stem the end of the Debt Super-Cycle.