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Larry Kramer

October 21st, 2024

Democracy in the age of fragmented identity

0 comments | 10 shares

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Larry Kramer

October 21st, 2024

Democracy in the age of fragmented identity

0 comments | 10 shares

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Democracy worldwide is in retreat. One of the main reasons behind this decline is that for democracy to work, people within a state need to feel a sense of belonging to the same political community, argues LSE President and Vice Chancellor Larry Kramer. Reimagining what such a shared political identity might be without at the same time sacrificing political progress is one of the greatest challenges of our time. 


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When it comes to social science, identifying clearly what the problem to be solved is can be as big a challenge as finding a solution. Yet some challenges are so big and so obvious that they’re hard to deny, no matter what your values or political orientation. The future of our democratic systems is one of these.

Democracy as popular government

The concept of “democracy” is both highly contested and slippery. Political philosophy offers versions of democracy linked to the protection of individual rights, and versions that are not. There are versions that link democracy to capitalism and versions that hold the two in opposition to each other. There are versions that are direct, versions that depend on representation through elections, and versions that rest on representatives chosen by indirect means other than elections. And on and on.

Instead of “democracy,” I think it’s more useful to start with a looser and broader construct of “popular government.”

In actual practice, there are almost as many forms of democratic government as there are governments claiming to be democratic, with different structures, rules for elections, forms of political parties, levels of participation, and more. And, of course, none of these systems meets its stated aim, in that all reflect popular will imperfectly at best; all invariably exclude certain groups, as a practical matter and sometimes formally; and all tolerate degrees of inequality of political power that cannot be squared with theory.

Instead of “democracy,” I think it’s more useful to start with a looser and broader construct of “popular government.” By which I mean a government that satisfies two minimal conditions. First, as a normative matter, the government is established on principles (say, in a written or customary constitution) that formally commit it to govern by the will of the people, and, as best it can, to reflect their collective decisions about what to do and not do. Second, as a descriptive matter, the government does this well enough that people can realistically seek to improve the system, in whatever ways it falls short of this normative commitment, through processes set up in the system itself. That is, change remains credibly possible without having to resort to extra-legal or illegal actions.

If that seems like a low bar, let’s not forget how incredibly difficult it was even to get there, and how fragile and short-lived every effort to establish such governments proved to be from the time of the Ancient Greeks to the late-18th century. Even then, it was not until after the two World Wars that governments meeting my minimal definition of popular ceased to be exceptional.

Using this as a starting point leaves room for the kind of work that constitutes most of the research about democracy, and it does so in a way that steers clear of often fruitless definitional arguments, in favour of a pragmatic approach focused on what practices can bring our always flawed democracies closer to what they should be. A great many LSE students and scholars are engaged in this important work. And democracies around the globe can and are benefiting from their efforts to help make governments more inclusive and to improve their capacity to meet the desires and preferences of their peoples.

Abundant evidence shows rapidly declining faith in democracy and a pronounced drop in support for the idea that even having such a government matters—especially among younger people.

Democracy in retreat

But democracy faces an even bigger challenge today, namely, the risk that we could lose even this minimal form of popular government. Such a claim would likely have been ridiculed as recently as, say, 2016. But it would be naïve to do so today. Abundant evidence shows rapidly declining faith in democracy and a pronounced drop in support for the idea that even having such a government matters—especially among younger people. Moreover, by almost every measure, democracy is in retreat globally.

There is also a precondition for popular government in any form to exist and persist—namely, that the people within a state or nation share a sense that they are part of the same political community, notwithstanding their differences and disagreements.

The reason for this is not, I think, the kinds of shortfalls that are the focus of traditional scholarship in the field. Those concerns matter, as I just noted, and they call for research and reform efforts, but efforts to improve along these lines are insufficient and, paradoxically, can make popular governments less robust and stable.

The reason is that there is also a precondition for popular government in any form to exist and persist—namely, that the people within a state or nation share a sense that they are part of the same political community, notwithstanding their differences and disagreements. If, instead, they see disagreements within their own communities as coming from enemies and antagonists, if they see outcomes they oppose as an effort to take “their” country, deny their identity, or destroy their way of life, there is no possibility for any kind of shared government.

The point is as old as the Bible. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all quote Jesus saying that “every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against itself falleth,” language Abraham Lincoln quoted prophetically in 1858, two years before the American Civil War.

In search of a new, shared political identity

We have long taken this sense of shared political identity for granted. Yet we now see it collapsing everywhere. Political scientists talk about polarization, and we’ve seen divisions within our nations deepen over the past decade or two from ideological polarization (that is, disagreement over ideas) to affective polarization (that is, hatred and animosity toward political and ideological opponents) to outgroup loathing accompanied by hopelessness. As this happens, societies around the globe, though most pronouncedly in the developed world, are becoming divided houses that cannot stand.

The critical question is: what will it take to rebuild a sense of shared political community in fragmented and fragmenting societies?

As for causes, there are many. One of the things you learn doing historical research is that, in retrospect, major developments seem always to be overdetermined. So take your pick: Demographic changes, including immigration; social changes empowering or seeming to empower formerly subordinated groups, most especially women; media fragmentation; social media; wealth inequality; lack of civics education; physical sorting of where people live; the erosion of social capital; etc., etc. All have been identified by scholars as “causes” of the current crisis of democracy.

The critical question is: what will it take to rebuild a sense of shared political community in fragmented and fragmenting societies? And a second question: how can we do that without giving up desirable changes and progress—such as increased diversity and giving voice to those who have lacked it—that nevertheless have contributed to the problem? Because one of the hard truths about politics today is that efforts to improve the process have themselves been sucked into the polarization maw and become yet one more factor contributing to deepening our divides.


This is an extract from the inaugural lecture of LSE President and Vice Chancellor of LSE Larry Kramer, “What is needed is hard thinking”: five challenges for the social sciences, held at the London School of Economics on 14 October 2024

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credit:  Shutterstock


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About the author

Larry Kramer

Professor Larry Kramer took office as President and Vice Chancellor of the London School of Economics and Political Science on 1 April 2024. He served as President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation from 2012 to 2024. Under his leadership, the foundation significantly adapted its strategies to meet changing circumstances and seize new opportunities, including new efforts to respond to pressing and timely challenges related to democracy, economics, climate change, and racial justice.

Posted In: Global Politics | History | LSE Comment | Political Theory