The Hague major Jan van Zanen: ‘If you want to strengthen democracy, start close to home’
symposium
What is the current state of democracy and how do we understand the effects of public support on democracy? The two-day symposium 'Support for Democracy: Measurement, Explanation, and Effect' on 6 and 7 March sought to analyse and discuss our understanding of these topics.
State of democracy
Leiden University’s Dual PhD Centre organised and hosted the symposium in The Hague. Henk Dekker, emeritus professor of political socialisation and integration, welcomes a room full of expertise.Researchers from all over the world partake in the two-day event to discuss the current state of democracy.
In his opening speech, Dekker hopes ‘to better understand the public support for democracy and its effects. Only a small part of the world lives in a democracy, so we must realise it’s rather an exception than a rule’.
He wishes to create a basic set of questions to measure democracy and calls ‘for a new initiative to join forces for a theory-based, truly international comparative explanatory empirical research of citizens support for democracy’.
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Henk Dekker discusses different forms of democracies -
Major Jan van Zanen and Henk Dekker answer questions from the audience -
Part of the symposium was a visit to ProDemos, house for democracy and the rule of law -
Richard Wike, director of global attitudes at Pew Research Center -
Participants from all over the world introduce themselves
Global attitudes
Much of this measuring is done at Pew Research Center in Washington. Richard Wike, director of global attitudes at Pew, takes the audience on a journey through the current global opinion on democracy. One of greater patterns they detected was the growing dissatisfaction for democracy.
This raises the question: why are people unhappy? According to Wike ‘there are a lot of factors that drive people in their support for democracy, but one of the main findings is that being unhappy with the economic situation influences how well people regard the current state of their country. Hardships such as the eurocrisis, covid, recessions and inflation effect how people think about democracies’.
Visit major of The Hague
Wike’s keynote is shortly interrupted by a visit from Jan van Zanen, major of The Hague. Van Zanen gives the participants a warm welcome and calls The Hague ‘the ideal location for a discussion on democracy, since the city is the heart of the Dutch government and the international city of peace and justice’.
To strengthen democracy, Van Zanen thinks ‘we have to start close to home, especially with our youth. It is important to make children and youngsters aware that it is more pleasant to live in a democracy than an autocracy’. He emphasises the importance of local governments in this process, since they stand closer to the people.