Background
 
The ideal of representative government finds its modern origin in the eighteenth-century enlightenment. Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu, Hume and Adam Smith wanted a system of government based on reason. They looked to the natural sciences for inspiration and particularly to the way Isaac Newton built from first principles. In searching for analogous first principles they looked to human nature. They wanted a system of government that built on human capacity for rational thinking.
 
In making an analogy with the methodology of the natural sciences, enlightenment thinkers deliberately moved away from tying the structures of government to religion. There were two main reasons for this. First, they wanted to get away from the recent historical experience of religious warfare in Europe. Secondly, they wanted to get away from arbitrary forms of power based largely on hereditary monarchs and aristocracies, supported in many cases by religious authority. They were not opposed to religious belief. They were opposed to it as a foundation for a political order based on reason. 
 
The analogy with the methodology of the natural sciences has continued as representative forms of government spread from a limited enfranchisement of the electorate to mass adult voting. At the same time the analogy with science has changed from an account of human nature to one based on hypotheses tested by observation and predictive reliability and always open to question and falsification. The cognitive shortcomings and biases of electors and electorates standing in the way of rational thinking in democratic politics have increasingly been recognised. They have been countered not just by an independent judicial branch that could apply the specialised reasoning of the law to settle disputes but also by specialised agencies such as independent central banks and regulators with their own epistemic reasoning.
 
By contrast, religious belief does not rest on scientific reasoning or any analogy with it. It claims its own revealed truths.
 
Against this background the continuing power of religion in modern politics would no doubt have surprised enlightenment thinkers. By placing political authority on secular foundations, they might have expected religious authority in the political domain to have declined more than it has done. 
 
There appear to be four main reasons why religious belief has persisted as a source of political authority. One class of reason, the value attached to human dignity, is fully consistent with the democratic structuring of politics. The remaining three, the importance of religion in creating and maintaining social bonds, the persistence of patriarchal attitudes and the shared self-interest of those with authority in the state and religious communities to support each other, involve progressively more questionable relationships.
 
Dignity
 
The idea of the dignity to be attached to individual human life is perhaps the main legacy and positive contribution to democratic political thought drawn from medieval religious thought. Dignity can be framed in mainly procedural terms – the need for each individual to be treated as possessing equal worth including for example having equal standing in front of the law. Dignity can also be framed in much more expansive terms – each individual merits collective policies that provide the material and educational resources allowing for the expression of the capabilities of each individual. 
 
Either interpretation of what dignity entails is consistent with democratic theories of government. The difference between the two interpretations is about the role of government in collective provision and how far a broader role should be reflected in the constitutional framework itself. 
 
Associative bonds
 
Underlying the life of political associations, whether expressed in terms of federal unions, or the nation state or devolved regions within a federal or nation state, is a sense of shared location, history, social and political togetherness between citizens that transcends any differences over public policies. There is a two-way interchange. People want forms of government that they feel part of and can be active citizens of. At the same time, systems of government that are answerable to their citizens want to provide people with the sense that the system works to satisfy their individual and collective interests. Concepts such as the sovereignty of the people assume that in the first place there is ‘a people’ with sufficient common ties to want to form and maintain a political association.
 
Shared religious beliefs can help foster this sense of togetherness. However, religious belief as a source of the feelings of association with others becomes problematic when it is used as the defining feature of the association. Used by religious fundamentalists for definitional rather than descriptive purposes it risks becoming exclusionary, or a reason to create divisions in the treatment of the people, or a reason to think of the common good or collective interest in terms of that defining feature. It is used to define ‘the other’. It downplays the contribution of ‘others’ to the other bonds of political association. 
 
In today’s political associations within which people hold different value and belief systems, the use of a particular religious belief as a defining feature works against the pluralism, accommodation and tolerance required of democratic societies. Religious belief is an inescapable part of feelings of association but cannot be used to define political association without damaging consequences for other essential democratic values. 
 
Patriarchy
 
Abrahamic (Judaic, Christian, and Islamic) belief systems are patriarchal. They have struggled to accept equal status for the role of women in the broader social and political setting and continue to struggle within their own systems of religious authority. This establishes a tension with the values of democratic societies where each person, male or female, has equal status. Democracy is gender neutral and gender fluid.
 
There is no easy path to resolve this question about the role of women. It cuts across both the structure of democratic institutions and social policies pursued under them. Democratic institutions require women in senior positions. Democratic societies also have to question patriarchy as they promote educational opportunity for all and tackle abuse within the family.
 
Elitism
 
Church authorities were part of the elite that was being challenged at the time when representative government was being established to replace hereditary and aristocratic forms of government. Nevertheless, it has remained strongly in the interest of the leadership of religious communities to have continued to cultivate close ties with those with political authority. The religious leadership wants to be able to influence public policies that affect their communities. On their side, political leaderships and parties have seen benefits from association with religious authority. Although the self-interest in association among leaderships is understandable, any perception of a shared elitism is arguably damaging to both political and religious leaderships and runs counter to the idea of authority answerable to the people.
 
Conclusion
 
Religious belief is not incompatible with democratic values and structures and has never been so. Concepts of human dignity rooted in religious belief are supportive of democratic values. However, religious belief can become in practice a source of incompatibility. When religion is used to define a democracy, its society, institutions and policies it becomes incompatible. The patriarchy and elitism of religious authority also are sources of incompatibility.

Institutional deference and the separation of powers
 
The separation of powers in modern government between executives, legislatures, the judiciary and a branch of expert agencies, provides an overall institutional structure consistent with democratic values together with the resilience to handle shocks and unexpected change. The separation between branches is not intended to be complete. The links between them are intended to provide for mutual checks in the way they exercise their powers.
 
In addition to any formal links between the different branches of government, relationships also depend on practice and convention. The different branches are expected to act with self-restraint and not test too far the boundaries of what they can do. They are also expected to show deference in the sense of respecting the powers of other branches.
 
Deference in the context of democratic practice thus includes such practices as presidencies showing respect for the powers of legislatures, juridical authority showing respect for the other branches and expert agencies recognising the limits of the powers that have been delegated to them by legislatures. 
 
Deference as an institutional practice provides a way of recognising that the boundaries of what belongs to the law and what belongs to politics and what belongs to expert judgement and what belongs to political judgement can never be rigidly or precisely defined. It is about recognising the role of practice in setting boundaries and the values that should inform that practice. President Trump is criticised because he neither respects the practice nor recognises the democratic values that underlie the practice.
 
Deference as a social practice
 
As a social practice deference can also simply involve respect for some different and relevant role, capability, experience or knowledge of another person or group. For example, we may defer to the knowledge of a health professional. 
 
At the same time, deference tends to be seen as a conservative value associated with respect for the status quo and traditional roles. This leads to an unhealthy relationship with social distinctions such as class or wealth where capability and knowledge meriting deference is not necessarily present. In the UK, the spoken accent remains a pernicious marker of education and class and acts as a false trigger for deference.
 
Deference can also be contrasted with other less conservative social values. Victorian England embraced the idea of ‘self-improvement’. Adam Smith saw ‘esteem’ as a driving motivator for individual advancement. He attributed the striving for wealth in the market to the desire for esteem. In today’s world the value attached to entrepreneurship is seen as lacking in Europe as compared to the US and a reason why Europe lags in innovation and start-ups. A more entrepreneurial Europe might be a less deferential one.
 
The misuse of deference
 
In the separation of powers
 
Deference is misplaced in political structures when for example legislatures do not question acts of the executive that require scrutiny, for example over the use of Presidential war powers in the US. While concern about presidential or executive overreach is a traditional as well as current concern, it has also been joined in recent times by concern about judicial over-reach. Propelled in part by human rights law, the judiciary is alleged to have encroached into areas of distributional politics that traditionally belongs to the elected legislative and executive branches.
 
In the US the role of deference is also currently in question over the role of expert agencies. They operate under the authority of the powers delegated to them by Congress but at the same time they possess their own epistemic authority which guides them in the interpretation of those powers. Congress and the judiciary have tended to defer to them and give them considerable latitude in the exercise of their epistemic authority. 
 
In the recent 2025 Loper Bright case the Supreme Court has reaffirmed that the judiciary has the authority to review the scope and meaning of the legislation delegating powers thus potentially limiting the latitude open to expert bodies in the way they interpret powers delegated to them. Judicial reasoning thus has been reasserted alongside epistemic reasoning in order to determine actions of agencies that might be declared beyond their powers.
 
It remains to be seen how far the judiciary will reassert its role of review. Courts lack the expert knowledge of agencies and they will need to respect this division of authority. There is now a greater responsibility passed back to legislatures to be clear about what powers they are delegating and how they intend that they be used.
 
The rule of law
 
Deference as a form of social authority is misused in two main instances. The first is when it is used to support a political reward system, and secondly when it stands in the way of the rule of law principle that everyone is equal in front of the law. 
 
Deference is exploited in politics when status is conferred through an honours system where honours reflect political connections rather than merit or capability. In the UK membership of the House of Lords can serve this purpose. It provides a fulcrum for a supply chain of a self-perpetuating elite. Such elitism has in turn contributed to the long list of public sector failures in modern British government at the nexus of politics, regulation and the law – from the Post Office mismanagement scandal to the HS2 waste of infrastructure funding.
 
A misplaced deference in relation to the rule of law is illustrated not only in the case of the PO disaster, where it seems the law has not been properly applied and where accountability in front of the law remains incomplete, but also by two further examples in the UK. 
 
In the UK it is clear that the law has been slow to be applied to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor in part because of a misplaced deference to his social standing and family position. Hereditary authority has no place in the contemporary world and the deference shown brings the law into disrepute. It further undermines the concept of hereditary authority itself. Arguably a similar misplaced deference has been shown in the case of Peter Mandelson, former minister, former member of the House of Lords, and ambassador to the US. His position over many years among the rich, politically powerful and well-connected has possibly shielded him from the law that applies to others.
 
Conclusion
 
The practice of deference plays an important and positive role in the structures of democratic politics. It recognises that the different fields of authority can never be precisely defined and that constant fighting over fields of authority would be damaging to the different branches and to the authority of the system of government as a whole. At the same time deference can be carried too far. The misuse of executive power is both a traditional and a current concern. Overreach by the judicial branch is a more recent concern as is concern about overreach by unelected expert agencies. 
 
Deference as a social practice can also play a positive role in social relationships in recognising areas of specialised skill, ability and experience. However, it is open to misuse when it is used to buttress a political rewards system and more importantly to undermine the fundamental principle that everyone is equal in front of the law.

 
​The internal settlement: Land
 
Russia insists that settlement of the conflict requires that it obtains control of the whole of the Donbas and has its earlier seizure of the Crimea confirmed. Together they account for about 9 % of the area of Ukraine. For Ukraine the loss of this land and its resources means that its territorial integrity is irredeemably compromised. 
 
Constitutional theory suggests that for deeply divided societies such as Ukraine a substantial devolution of power coupled with minority veto rights are justified. Devolution could be structured as a form of self-government for the oblasts of the Donbas and for Sevastopol and the Crimea. They would have their own devolved governments, elected under their own system, their own civil administration responsible for their own public policies in such areas as health and education. They would accept both the Russian currency and Ukrainian currencies as official currencies and could be established as free trade zones with no tariffs or taxes on trade between the rest of the Ukraine and Russia. Both languages would be accepted as official languages. They would be responsible for their own internal security and policing. 
 
Minority veto rights in any devolution of powers become crucial in respect of foreign policy. Ukraine’s current government calls for the country to seek accession to the EU and NATO. Minority veto rights could provide that any negotiation affecting external relations with international organisations should require endorsement by 80% of the regional departments of Ukraine. Assuming that the Donbas and Crimea could account for 7 out of 27 administrative regions, they would together have a potential veto power over any proposals to pursue an accession process to the EU and NATO and veto power over the terms negotiated for any proposed accession if they were firmly against.
 
The constitutional justification for devolution and minority veto rights is in terms of the need for the framework to demonstrate inclusiveness. Ukraine’s history of relationship with Russia and its historical importance as a centre for the Russian orthodox church means that this history and its significance for an important minority in the Ukraine needs to be recognised. Subject to these devolved powers and minority veto rights, the government of Ukraine will be able to act on behalf of the whole and maintain its overall territorial integrity. 
 
Enforcing the peace
 
Even if an internal settlement involving agreement on devolved powers and minority veto rights can be reached, neither Russia nor Ukraine will trust the other to observe the terms of the agreement. In theory there are two pathways to recognise and make up for the absence of trust. The first is to call on external guarantors to hold standby powers to enforce the settlement in the event of any infringement. The second is for some kind of international recognition of a neutrality status for the Ukraine. 
 
Guarantees
 
The provision of guarantees seems at first sight to be the most straightforward way to guarantee the peace. The guarantor power or powers (such as the US or an international ‘coalition of the willing’) would be ready to intervene if the conditions for the internal settlement were not complied with. For example, the US could provide the Ukraine with a guarantee for its continued territorial integrity against any attempts to increase the size and number of administrative regions with devolved powers and minority veto rights. At the same time, Russia could provide guarantees to the devolved administrative regions so that their minority veto rights would not be eroded. 
 
Unfortunately, in politics guarantees are not as simple as they initially appear. The difficulties can be illustrated through a comparison of guarantees in politics with guarantees in financial markets.

The first problem is that the conditions under which the guarantees may be called are not straightforward. In financial markets the conditions under which a guarantee can be called are clear. For example, a missed payment of principal or interest may trigger the guarantee. This clarity may be lacking in real world politics. Ukraine’s territorial settlement may be subject to gradual erosion rather than clear breaches. The dark arts of ‘hybrid’ warfare and political coercion may be preferred to more overt actions involving force. 
 
The second area of difficulty is that the incentives to call on the guarantor power are different. In financial markets the entity that is the subject of the guarantee, for example a public sector borrower, has an incentive to ensure that the guarantee is not called. Otherwise, its credit standing in the market will be generally impaired. In connection with a political settlement the incentives may work in the opposite direction. The incentives might favour calling on the guarantor rather than trying to avoid the call. In the case of Ukraine, the subjects of the guarantees, the Ukrainian government or its administrative regions exercising minority veto rights, may each feel an incentive to call on their guarantor at the first opportunity. 
 
Thirdly guarantees in the context of a political settlement are inevitably confrontational. The interests of the guarantor powers are clearly opposed. In financial markets the interests of different classes of creditors with different types of security, including the security of a guarantee, may also conflict or compete. But there are also strong incentives and established procedures for financial ‘work-outs’ that aim to protect the interests of each of the parties involved and to distribute fairly any burden-sharing costs. There would be no such setting or established work-out procedures in the case of conflicting interests in the case of Ukraine. Guarantees risk entrenching a continual state of great-power confrontation rather than a path to work-out or compromise.
 
Thus, despite the immediate appeal of guarantees in the case of the Ukraine a different type of assurance about maintaining the status as agreed under the settlement may be needed. Two precedents are relevant. One is provided by UN trusteeships. The other is provided by declarations of internationally recognised neutrality. In each case, the UN, the Security Council and the members of the General Assembly would recognise the international status of Ukraine as a neutral state. Russia would not face a Ukraine belonging to what it sees as a potentially hostile Western alliance. Ukraine would have its territorial integrity preserved against what it sees as a potentially hostile Russia. 
 
International Recognition
 
UN Trusteeship arrangements would involve reestablishing the UN Trusteeship Council originally set up to guide colonial territories to self-governing status. The work of the Trusteeship Council came to an end in 1994. International recognition of the settlement for Ukraine under remodelled UN trusteeship arrangements could give the UN a direct role in overseeing the settlement and in monitoring respect for the terms of the settlement while Ukraine provides the government. This monitoring role could be useful also in connection with the administration of reconstruction aid where, in the absence of supervision by an international body, bilateral aid may simply be used to build destructive client relationships and foster corruption. A strictly monitoring role is also a less intrusive form of involvement compared with direct UN administration such as in Kosovo & E. Timor, unlikely to be acceptable to Russia and possibly to Ukraine as well.  
 
The Trusteeship Council is comprised of each of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. This would possibly be an advantage in providing an institutional framework for containing disputes between the great powers about whether or not the terms of Ukraine’s settlement are being observed. The internalisation of disputes might not offer resolution. Even in this case, talk remains better than war. The Trusteeship Council could provide for a work-out procedure in the case of disputes..
 
UN sponsored neutrality could avoid the kind of direct involvement associated with trusteeship or other forms of UN administration. Neutrality has been recognised under international law since the Hague Convention of 1907. Switzerland is the best-known example. Under conditions of neutrality Ukraine would undertake not to align with either Russia or NATO in world diplomacy and particularly in the case of conflict. UN endorsement of Ukraine’s neutrality would provide a way of recognising its unique history and relationship with Russia.
 
A country may choose to change its status and join an alliance. In the case of Ukraine sanctions would therefore be needed to enforce neutrality. For example, it could be agreed that if the conditions for neutrality were to be breached by an application of the Ukraine for NATO or EU membership without allowing its Russian oriented administrative regions to apply their minority veto rights, then individual UN member states might apply sanctions in terms of restrictions on trade or financial flows. 
 
Conclusions
 
There are limits as to how far constitutional theory can be applied to situations like the Ukraine. Ultimately the test is a human one. It applies equally to both sides. Ukraine’s political leaders have to face families that have lost members and be able to state that their sacrifice was justified by the maintenance of its territorial integrity even with devolved internal power arrangements and by the international recognition of its neutrality. Russia’s political leadership also has to face families that have lost members and be able to state that the recognition of devolved powers and minority veto rights in the settlement coupled with Ukraine’s future neutrality also justify the sacrifices made.

International politics: the models
 
There are three main perspectives influential in viewing the structure of international and global politics. In the first, there is the concept of a global order where individual states operate under a common canopy of supranational institutions and values. In the second, the international order is comprised of national states in whose national interest it is to cooperate and avoid conflict. Supranational institutions act as their agents. The third brings in all actors, private and public, in whose interest it is to network together from the global level to the local. They engage with both state and supranational institutions as potential networking partners.
 
In current circumstances it is the second perspective that seems to prevail - a plurilateral world where states are the dominant players, the common canopy has faded, and networks are being decoupled.
 
The domestic connection
 
In a world where nation states are the dominant players the nature of the domestic regime becomes all-important for international co-existence. In this context it has long been held that two features of a regime are conducive to international harmony. The first is a commitment to free trade. The second is democracy. Trade enables different countries to find their own areas of mutual economic advantage and to build trust in relationships. Democratic countries are seen as less likely to go to war because governments have to win re-election and body bags are not vote winners.
 
In present circumstances both of these suppositions seem to carry much less weight. Trade and international supply chains are increasingly seen as related to national security concerns or bring unwanted dependencies. They also may be seen as vehicles for ‘unfair competition’ in the form of national subsidies or low environmental standards and disregard for human rights norms. At the same time democratic values are under pressure as a new authoritarianism infects previously democratic countries including the US and some European states. With trade and democracies no longer providing a stable foundation for the international order, other values rise in importance.
 
Tolerance, accommodation and moderation
 
For democracies to function well at the domestic level certain values are of crucial importance. There must be a level of tolerance for internal differences even if fundamental values are not shared; there must be ways found to give space in order to accommodate difference and views may need to be moderated in order to find accommodation and tolerance. These values are found in practical form in such conventions as ‘losers’ consent’ where those on the losing side of electoral choices accept the electoral authority of those whose views they disagree with. 
 
With the weakening of other forms of international tie, such values have also become critical at the international level. An international order where nation states are the key actors will require tolerance for views that are not universally accepted, the accommodation of differences and moderation in pressing national interests. ‘Live and let live’ rather than insistence on universal values becomes the guiding norm.
 
Compromise
 
Tolerance, moderation and accommodation may all require compromises to be made. The question that arises is whether there are any limits to such compromises and ‘live and let live’. If there are limits, the question is how to formulate and apply them. 
 
In the domestic context democracies provide a number of important procedures and institutional protections that encourage compromise. Policy change tends to occur gradually, power alternates, parties debate, and the different branches of government, including judiciaries and epistemic agencies, each may have their own say. At the international level a parallel infrastructure has been eroded by the decline of multilateralism and its processes and institutions.
 
The weakening of the multilateral infrastructure encouraging compromise at the international level makes conflict more likely and also sharpens the question of where the limits to compromise arise. 
 
The limits of compromise
 
At a highly theoretical level two suggestions have been put forward as setting the limits to compromise. 
 
Outlaw states   
 
One suggestion (associated with John Rawls) is that the need for compromise does not apply to ‘outlaw’ states. ‘Outlaw’ states are those that do not conduct themselves and relationships with others according to the norms of public reason.
 
The difficulty with this criterion is that the norms of public reason are not universally accepted. Not everyone accepts the same standards of reasoning or regards the same reasons as ‘good’ reasons. There are fundamental differences in beliefs and values around the world. Compromises may well be justified even with those states who reason according to different standards and values. 
 
‘Rotten compromises’
 
A second suggestion (associated with Avishai Margalit) is that the value attached to compromise does not apply in the case of ‘rotten’ compromises. According to Margalit, ‘rotten’ compromises are those for example that allow for crimes against humanity and the flouting of basic human rights. For example, it would be justified to intervene with force against a country committing genocide against its neighbours or against part of its own population.
 
The difficulty with this criterion is that there may be differences of view about what constitute crimes against humanity and ‘rotten’ compromises. 
 
We see conflict in the Ukraine, Gaza and with Iran. In each case all parties to the conflict fear ‘rotten’ compromises. In addition, each party to the conflict is likely to regard its opponent as an ‘outlaw’ state or would-be state in the case of Israeli views of a Hamas controlled Palestine.
 
‘Peace’ as an absolute value
 
It may be argued that unless clear limits are set on where compromise is justified and where it is not then a higher value is being placed on peace or peaceful co-existence. Margalit takes the position that ‘rotten’ compromises may be justified in order to avoid war. This would not contradict the longstanding case that there are circumstances where war is just – for example in combatting Nazi Germany. But it places the burden of proof on those who are prepared to break the peace and argue that a war is justified.
 
Conclusion: no clear limits
 
Today’s plurilateral world is an unstable one. The acceptance of difference and the need to find accommodation of difference is critical. At the same time, the uncertainties also motivate a desire to have clear definitions of what constitutes international behaviour where accommodation and compromise is not justified. There are no such clear public boundaries. Individuals have to arrive at their own moral judgements. How far they should be prepared to argue in public for them depends again on the value attached to moderation and accommodation.

The Draghi Report: The diagnosis
 
The Draghi diagnosis of the challenges facing the EU highlighted the technology and productivity lag behind the US; the drag of a declining work force, and the challenge of new security burdens. It pointed to regulation as an impediment to growth, particularly to start-up firms and venture capitalists. 
 
In the 18 months since the report was published, awareness of these challenges has come into even sharper focus. 
 
Trump’s actions have shown how Europe can no longer rely on US security protection and that American interests as defined by Trump may conflict with those of Europe (as in Greenland). 
 
At the same time the implications of Europe’s technology lag are becoming more visible as AI applications extend. Traditional white-collar work is becoming unstable. In addition, within 20 years car ownership may be a thing of the past as self-driving cars can be summoned to the doorway as and when needed. With car production accounting for about 20% of Germany’s manufacturing output and about 6% of its GDP, a declining market for car ownership leaves a major gap in employment opportunities to be filled not only in Germany but across the European supply chain. In France, domestic car output has already fallen from a high of 370,000 units in 2002 to 91,000 units in 2024. In the UK vehicle production in 2025 was the lowest since 1952. In the US, Tesla’s shift from EV production to robots is a sign of the future.
 
The Draghi report views the EU and global decarbonisation drive as ‘a growth opportunity’ for Europe. However, whether the stimulus for innovation will compensate for higher energy costs in Europe is extremely doubtful. The Wall Street Journal recently confirmed that in 2024 electricity prices for industry in Germany, Poland, France and Italy remain between 2-3 times higher than in the US. The full costs of Europe’s decarbonisation efforts are in part concealed by the border tax adjustment mechanism – protectionism in another guise. 
 
The Draghi report confirmed how Europe continues to rely on bank financing for investment rather than equity investors prepared to back start-ups and risk venture capital. The report has been followed by European Commission initiatives to simplify EU regulatory processes through the introduction of omnibus legislation in eight areas with more to come. It has also been followed up by the Franco-German Task Force on Financing Innovation (FIVE) that has looked in particular at the need for finance for scaling up innovation and start-up ventures. In addition, the Commission published a report on financial market integration in Dec. 2025 intended to promote the concept of a Saving and Investment Union. 
A recent 2025 report (373) from the European Central Bank noted that it took European firms 23 years to reach Initial Public Offering (IPO)stage compared with 10 years in the US and that the availability of venture capital in the US is three times greater than in Europe. It has been reported that The City of London is no longer keen to see closer ties with EU financial markets at the cost of adopting EU regulations. Ability to compete with US financial markets is more important. According to the World Bank, compared with the US the market capitalisation of domestic firms in the UK was 93% of GDP compared with 216 % in the US, 44% in Germany and 85% in France.
 
The policy prescriptions: What was wrong
 
It the diagnosis was largely correct and even understated the challenges, what was not correct in the Draghi report were the policy prescriptions set out in response to the diagnosis. The report resorted to the tired old functionalist refrain that the answer consisted in the benefits of more being done by everyone at the European level instead of looking to a more differentiated and flexible EU. The refrain is about more ‘collective’ policies, more ‘coordination’ and more acting as a ‘community’ – all euphemisms for more common policies. It calls for more ‘delegation’ of public policies to the EU level obscuring that what is intended is more powers transferred up to the EU level. With the exception of the need for a new approach to skills, it failed to confront the need for Europe’s social market model to be reformed. Instead, it endorsed Europe’s welfare states by lamely pointing out that income inequalities are worse in the US. It recognised the need for democratic endorsement for change but failed to address the political drag of the EUs own democratic deficit. 
 
With the challenges to Europe even more profound than diagnosed by Draghi a much more radical reform agenda is needed. Europe’s social market model needs to be rethought; the EU’s preference for common policies rather than differentiated integration needs to be abandoned and its ‘democratic deficit’ needs to be addressed.          
 
The alternative reform agenda 
 
1. Rethinking the social market
 
Europe’s social market philosophy dates back to the 1930s and 40s when German and Italian ordo-liberals looked for a system of government that would provide an alternative to the collectivism of both communism and Nazism. They argued that a system that applied rules of behaviour to both politics and the market was needed. The rules needed to address income and wealth disparities as well as power disparities. The two forms of inequality were seen as interconnected.
 
Credited for Germany’s post war economic ‘miracle’ the social market model now needs to be updated. Instead, the Draghi report seemed to regard it as untouchable. Even on its own terms the model is not delivering to address inequalities. The share of net household wealth of the top 10% across Germany, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands is above 50 % while that of the bottom 40 % is about 1% in Germany and outweighed by household debt in Norway and the Netherlands. The high level of public indebtedness of EU member states associated with the current pattern of benefits provided by the social market limits its ability to fund new priorities.
 
Social benefits need to be retargeted to reflect an aging population, changing patterns of inter-generational dependencies, and the need to incentivise the acquisition of new skill sets. The most obvious economies are the most difficult – for example, raising the minimum state pensionable age to at least 70. Larger personal contributions to the costs of education and health care and reductions in benefits paid to young adults will also be unpopular. Switching the emphasis of pension schemes from state funded Pay as you Go to occupational and private pension schemes (as recommended by FIVE) may also encounter resistance. But entrenched interests in current configurations of social benefits and the disincentives they place in the way of change have to be challenged if new needs are to be met and if the social market is to become fit for purpose in supporting those most in need. 
 
2 Coalitions of the willing
 
Instead of a model of European union where the goal is that all members should agree on the same policies at the European level backed by integration through the law, the model should be one of flexible and differentiated integration allowing member states to reform their social markets in their own ways and for different groupings of states to act together in different policy areas. Any negative externalities arising from the pursuit of policy goals in different ways should be adjudicated by tribunals of the members themselves instead of by a central court (the ECJ). 
 
The report of the FIVE provides two examples of where coalitions of the willing could emulate member states that have experimented successfully with policy change in critical areas. Sweden has pioneered pension reform with a hybrid system where occupational and private pensions play a much larger role. France and Germany are pioneering centres for scale-up financing. In such areas experimentation is required rather than common policies. Not every member state may want to apply the same model. 
 
Such differentiation by policy area should apply to support for rural populations where an ending of CAP is long overdue; immigration; climate goals and the regulation of the Internet and AI. In such areas there is no single common policy that can claim to be ‘right’. Where groups of member states see eye to eye, they should be free to discover what works and to assess the costs and benefits of their own joint approaches. Such groupings of the like-minded should include those outside the formal structures of the EU and include, where it makes sense, such jurisdictions as Canada, the UK, Switzerland and others. An example of this kind of differentiated policy making is the joint wind farm project in the North Sea which includes both Norway and the UK.
 
3. Addressing the democratic deficit: Beyond functionalism
 
Since its foundation Europe has followed a functionalist approach to integration where the pursuit of democratic values follows on in the wake of successful examples of common policies. One of the key weaknesses in this approach is that those institutions such as the Commission that drive common policies aim to control the evolution of political procedures in ways that boost their own powers. Integrationist parties in the majority in the EP see advantages in an alliance with the Commission. Both institutions abuse and misinterpret the ‘precautionary principle’ to justify EU common policies. It is used to justify measures to counter predictions of possible harms as against the original intent of the principle to warn against basing public policy on uncertain predictions.
 
There are a number of disadvantages to this functionalist approach that leads to what is usually referred to as a ‘democratic deficit’ in the EU. It feeds a sense of distance between the agenda of ‘Brussels bureaucrats’ and the priorities as felt and perceived by citizens. It contributes to the sense that there is a lack of genuine representation in Brussels where those in command of legislative processes fail to mirror the shape of the electorate and its concerns. The Draghi report calls for ‘self-restraint’ by EU institutions and for national parliaments to play a larger role. The call for self-restraint rings hollow alongside the call for much more in the way of common policies. The report does not acknowledge that no government is prepared to put the institutional structure to a referendum to check that it passes the ultimate test of legitimacy – that it rests on popular consent. Member states fear a negative vote.
 
The costs of the democratic deficit in whatever way it is framed are increasingly apparent. It feeds the growth of right-wing populist parties within member states. It makes the mobilisation of EU majorities more difficult. An overhaul is needed where the Commission’s right of initiative is transferred to the Council of Ministers, national parliaments have the power to stop initiatives that infringe on their own prerogatives, interpret in their own way what precautions are justified in the case of technological innovation and where tribunals of national courts adjudicate on any negative externalities arising from differentiated integration. The ideals of the EUs Charter of Fundamental Rights should be interpreted by national courts according to their own interpretations of fundamental values and not referred to the ECJ. A pluralist approach is essential to allow both for differences in interpretation and for reforming social policies. A democratic learning structure would itself underpin a differentiated Europe built around coalitions of the willing. 
 
Conclusion
 
This alternative reform package means that Europe needs much more radical reforms than European Union institutions seem currently prepared to contemplate. In their absence Europe will continue on its path of relative decline. There is however nothing inevitable about Europe’s decline. Possibly Trump’s presidency will give Europe the shock it needs. At the same time nothing in the way of reform should be ‘off limits’ including abandoning the fixation with common policies, reforming the hallowed ‘social market’ and changing the institutional structure of the EU itself.

Plurilateralism
 
A plurilateral world is one where big powers are in strategic rivalry but no single centre dominates. The big four that count are the US, China, Russia and India. Around these big powers there are alliances of the weak such as the EU, The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) & the African Union. Alliances of the weak come together because they are afraid of big power dominance, by Russia in the case of the EU, the US in the case of CELAC and by former colonial powers in the case of the AU. In addition, there are two city states with a global reach – Singapore and London/UK. They exert soft power as conduits, convenors and host locations.
 
The big powers aim to assert their individual interests on the global scene. They aim to project their differences in identity, distinguished by history, religion, ethnicity and sense of nationhood. Common or shared values are missing. They do not invoke mutual assured destruction but engage in hybrid warfare. When conflicts of interest occur, they prefer to engage in war by proxy rather than face-to-face. The US looks to Israel in the Mideast and to the EU and its member states in the case of the Ukraine. They are proprietorial towards what they see as their own backyards. 
 
The EU attempts to use the size and wealth of its market to leverage its presence alongside the great powers. Regulatory difference is the instrument. It is a self-defeating strategy because over-regulation ensures that the EU’s own economic prospects lag behind those of the big four. In the name of the social market, it downplays the importance of what Adam Smith referred to as our desire for esteem and approbation reflected in entrepreneurship, aspiration and venture. More than perennial talk about closer integration between national capital markets, a change of social attitudes and business culture is required.
 
What the big powers share is authoritarian governments. In the case of Russia and China the authoritarianism takes a traditional form where the party and leader has a monopoly of force. India and the US under Trump exemplify a new form of authoritarianism where the domestic electorate is divided between friends and enemies, the ‘them’ and the ‘us’. The division reflects ethnicity, religious belief and ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The power of the majority ‘us’ is used to define the common good on its own terms and to its own benefit. 
 
Communication is through the social media in both styles of authoritarianism. The social media is manipulated to tell the stories that the leadership and its allies want. The different modes of communication and authority are blurred. Politics signals bias not debate. The judiciary is weaponised not used as an instrument to achieve accommodation. Epistemic knowledge in public policy formation is a convenience to be discarded when it does not conform to the narrative of the majority. 
 
The global canopy
The plurilateral world stands in contrast to post second world war aspirations for nations to operate under a universal canopy of shared values, expressed as fundamental human rights, common agreement on major objectives such as free trade and efforts to combat global poverty, supported by multilateral institutions such as the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions.
 
The rhetoric remains observed but the reality is different for different reasons. Fundamental human rights are commonly listed in national constitutions but not observed in practice. Trade is now an instrument for strategic advantage rather than one where each party benefits from their areas of comparative advantage and where trade builds trust in relationships. The Bretton Woods and other multilateral institutions cannot function when great power rivalries are internalised within their governing bodies. The effort to combat global poverty has also been undermined by national rivalries exemplified by China’s belt and road initiative. It has also been undercut by the US withdrawal from the aid business as part of its ‘us’ versus ‘them’ moulding of public policy priorities.
 
The rhetoric is deployed in international gatherings where so-called existential threats are discussed. These used to centre on climate change. Nowadays, AI and quantum computing hold centre stage. Action on global warming can wait. Action on AI is national. The rhetoric provides cover.
 
The multilevel
 
A different way of conceptualising the global scene is in terms of multi-level governance where networks of private and public actors all interact at the global, national and subnational level. No one single level of action predominates. No particular kind of actor dominates. Together the different actors spin a web of global connections that link interests between different levels.
 
However, a feature of the plurilateral world is that leading national governments have reasserted themselves as the main actors on the international stage. Instead of becoming an increasingly networked world we see a world of decoupling and selective relationships.    
 
Hegemony
 
For long periods of history international relationships have been shaped by hegemonic actors, notably the UK and the US. In the period 1814-2015 they could operate with considerable freedom in how they acted and could impose their own priorities on the recalcitrant. In their own eyes they were a benign force. In the multipolar world there is no hegemon, benign or otherwise. 
 
Unilateralism
 
The world is moving away from visions of a canopy of global rules that apply to all and from the substitute vision of an integrated network form of governance across the world. The end destination of this dynamic does not necessarily equate to an unrestrained unilateralism. In a plurilateral world governments of great powers can still be restrained by caution over how others may react, by what is not predictable in possible outcomes from their behaviour, and because in the long run, the great powers prefer domestic acquiescence to what they are doing compared to having to undertake active domestic repression of opposition. 
 
Prospects
 
The prospects for the plurilateral world are for hybrid wars, proxy wars and the backyard flaunting of power to become all-out conflict. Not all conflicts can be held at bay by proxy; not all rivalries contained by hybrid warfare; there is no agreed definition for what constitute backyards. The trigger and source of all-out conflict may be obscure. In 1938 UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain infamously referred to ‘a quarrel in a far-away country, between people of whom we know nothing’.
 
Is there a less gloomy prognosis? In one word – democratisation. An active citizenry in the US and India can restore the vision of forms of representative government where the diversity of individual and group identities within their borders is given space for expression and seen as a plus, not as a negative. An active citizenry in Russia and China can press for a world where their government rests on their consent and not on imposition. With democratisation comes moderation and accommodation. Unlikely? The alternative is worse.

Background
 
Liberalism has come in many varieties since its origins in the eighteenth-century enlightenment. It has stood against a conservative politics and an approach to government based on tradition and custom. It has stood for a search for a ‘third way’ between fascism and communism. It has stood for a ‘social’ liberalism where the need for government to provide welfare services and infrastructure could be recognised alongside a market economy.
 
Cutting across these different formulations has been a unified opposition to authoritarian government where those in authority could exercise arbitrary power and monopolise the means of enforcement.
 
The new authoritarianism
 
In recent years the liberal tradition has been criticised by both eminent economists and political scientists as representing an approach to government whose time has passed. The basis for this criticism is that despite its stance against old style dictatorships, liberalism has contributed to the rise of the new authoritarianism that now threatens to undermine all democracies.
 
According to its critics, liberalism has promoted an uncompromising individualism that has fed a ‘them against us’ style of politics. Wealth in a free market has not ‘trickled down’ as promised and the costs associated with open borders in trade and people have not been recognised and compensated for. Social safety nets have been distrusted by liberals because the ‘social’ label is said to have encouraged over-extended and intrusive state powers. In advocating a ‘spontaneous’ order proclaiming the superiority of institutions that have simply evolved into their present positions of authority and eminence, liberalism has helped to entrench existing elites at the expense of ordinary people.
 
Each of these features attributed to liberalism have contributed to a situation where many people feel ignored and excluded. The perception is that the everyday needs and concerns of ordinary people have been sacrificed to the predispositions and biases of elites in politics, the law and expert agencies. Whoever considers themselves to be outside the elites in centres of power feel they have nothing to lose by confronting ‘insiders’ in Washington or Brussels. The result is the rise of a new authoritarianism speaking for all those who are like-minded in their self-perception as ‘outsiders’. They are ready to try to form majorities that can override conventional political party elites, the judiciary and insider ‘experts’. 
 
Liberalism to blame?
 
The rise of a new kind of authoritarianism in the US, Europe and elsewhere is not in doubt. What is in question is how far liberalism is to blame for its rise and, if it is not, what alternative explanation can be brought forward. 
 
The defence of liberalism turns on how its main dimensions are defined. Its central elements make it possible to distinguish between the core of liberalism and the particular distorted version associated with trickle-down economics and the spontaneous order usually referred to as ‘neo-liberalism’. The core tradition has four main dimensions. Neo-liberalism reflects only one of them.
 
1. Cognition
 
The main liberal tradition has always been in favour of systems of government and policy making based on reason. In its early days this meant building from ideas about individual rationality to a social and political whole that also reflected reason. The tradition came to be associated with the need for institutions and policy making to replicate an evidence-based method of observation and testing, as well as to recognise that policy judgements were inevitably subject to failure and would need to be corrected. In the mid nineteenth century the liberal political philosopher JS Mill was the first to recognise the importance of taking the bias and predispositions of individual judgements into account. He also saw the importance of mobilising epistemic knowledge outside the machinery of central government. 
 
Neo liberalism respected this tradition by pointing out how much knowledge lay dispersed among individuals outside government. However, it failed to recognise the need to correct for the shortcomings in individual judgement and the need for independent agencies to mobilise knowledge.
 
2. Rules
 
The main liberal tradition has always recognised the importance of what is termed ‘rule-based’ government where different institutional roles are distinguished and defined. In this way what were originally referred to as ‘factions’, or ‘sinister interests’ or associations of the wealthy could not turn the legislative or executive power of governments to their own advantage, including the power to manipulate rules in the marketplace. Rule based government requires design. 
 
At the same time the liberal tradition calls for active citizenship to support the designed order and for individual moral integrity in pointing out where government policies and practices diverge from the principles of justice. 
 
Neo-liberalism denied the role of design. It favoured evolution as a means to embody rationality in institutions. It thus ran counter to the mainstream liberal suspicion of tradition and custom which held that venerating tradition was likely to disguise who was really benefitting from government.
 
3. Enabling values
 
The mainstream liberal tradition has since the time of David Hume and Adam Smith emphasised the importance of values such as moderation and accommodation. They can be seen as ‘enabling’ values, or democratic norms of behaviour that make it possible for democracies to work. So-called ‘losers’ consent’ where those defeated in an election respect the results is one of the better-known examples of this kind of behaviour. 
 
Neo-liberalism pays no attention to such norms. Individuals aim to achieve what they consider to be best for themselves and produce a ‘spontaneous’ order.
 
4. Fairness
 
A final dimension of mainstream liberalism is to respect the need for fairness. This means fair procedures in politics and the law where everybody has to be treated as equal at the ballot box and in front of the law. It means fair treatment in respect of identity where different identities need to be given space for expression. Originally this was reflected by defining space as geography and in liberal support for federal structures. Now, when different identities co-mingle in shared urban, workplace and corporate settings not defined by geography it involves space defined by corporate, institutional and political procedures that allow for and embrace difference. Fairness also means fair treatment in terms of income and wealth. The main tradition has always been concerned that the wealthy could overturn representative government. Institutions need to face the test of who benefits from the system of authority - billionaires or the greatest number. 
 
Neo-liberalism treated the need for fairness with suspicion. For them, ‘social’ policies are a disguise for counter-productive government interventions in the market and the spontaneous order.
 
It is clear that neoliberalism misrepresents the mainstream liberal tradition. It disregards the need for design in the political and economic order, the need for social norms such as accommodation, the need to create institutionally supported space for different identities, to measure who is benefitting from power and to address inequalities. Mainstream liberalism cannot be blamed for today’s swing to the right. 
 
However, two questions remain. The first is where to attribute the impulse behind the rise of authoritarianism. The second is what mainstream liberalism has to offer to resist this rise.
 
What else to blame?   
 
Authoritarianism has two faces. There is the old – it is exemplified by leaders and parties that suppress any opposition and monopolise the means of enforcement. Putin and Xi are the faces. There is also a new authoritarianism. It is exemplified by Trump in the US. It uses the power of majorities to suppress political dissent, to intimidate the law and to override epistemic bodies. 
 
The new authoritarianism owes its rise to the advent of the information society. The information age changes the relationship between the market and politics, changes traditional distinctions between the institutions of politics and the market, and changes the way the roles of each are traditionally divided between the provision of private goods in the market and public goods through politics. 
 
In addition, the arrival of a super-abundance of information through the internet and social media changes the way preferences are formed in politics and the way people group together to get their hands on political authority. 
 
The costs of obtaining information are those of time and attention. People economise on these costs by aligning with those who are like-minded. They signal their preferences in so-called ‘echo-chambers’ or ‘filter bubbles’. Forget about checking the reliability of sources and views or debating with those who may not agree with you. 
 
In order to get their hands on political power ‘inclusive’ clubs of the like-minded are formed that overlook any of their internal differences. They are prepared to take risks alongside all those others who feel on the outside in order to gain power. Thus, Trump’s majority includes both the super-wealthy and lower income groups. They are united by a negative view of the world beyond their own like-minded group. They reprise fascist distinctions by dividing the world into friends and enemies. They are prepared to use their majority to override alternative sources of authority in the judiciary and epistemic agencies. Their leading instruments of control are to manipulate the social media and to weaponize the law. 
 
What remains relevant
 
Liberals have always been opposed to the exercise of arbitrary authority characteristic of traditional authoritarian government. The mainstream liberal tradition also remains relevant in opposing the new authoritarianism. Its insistence on measuring government by the yardstick of ‘who benefits’ provides a way of seeing whether the interest of the greatest number is being served or whether it is being used in the interest of Trump and his cronies. Liberalism’s insistence on protecting the different sources and forms of authority that enter into policy making including the judicial and the epistemic is a defence against the manipulation of information. Its insistence on activist citizenship and the importance of individual integrity provide a rallying call to stand firm on the principles of justice and against the weaponization of the law. At the same time, liberalism has to combat the direct policy appeal of the new authoritarianism. This means a focus on redressing income and wealth inequalities and on using anti-monopoly powers against those few who control the new media and internet search channels. 
 
Democracy is under threat. The mainstream liberal tradition cannot be blamed. It still stands as a bulwark against authoritarian government.

Introduction
 
In the immediate post second world war era there was hope for a universalist approach to international relations based on common values, supported and enforced by global institutions. The hope was symbolised by the UN’s Declaration of Universal Human Rights and by the creation of the UN and its specialised agencies. The hope was immediately dashed by the descent of the ‘Iron curtain’ and peace only prevailed though the threat of mutually assured destruction. 
 
Hopes revived again at the beginning of the 1990s when Soviet communism collapsed. There seemed reasonable prospects for growing international integration through trade, a global acceptance of market principles for economic organisation and the hope that democratic principles for political organisation would also gradually be accepted world-wide.
 
In recent years these hopes have also been dashed. Major powers remain fundamentally divided by political values; international trade is being ‘decoupled’ and has become a leading source of tension; market principles themselves are challenged by the transition from the world of scarcity depicted by conventional economic models to a world characterised by a superabundance of information and platform delivery. 
 
The question therefore is about the dynamics that might encourage a return to some form of universalism.
 
Common values
 
The root of universalism is that there are some values that are common to everyone in the world and should be recognised and respected by all. This is the motivation underlying the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
 
The difficulty with this foundation is that there may not be agreement on these values. Even if there is agreement at some basic level there may be many different interpretations given to them. It is difficult to imagine a world order that does not allow both for different values and different expressions of values.
 
Global superstructure and enforcement
 
A second basis for universalism lies in the idea that in the same way that a political and economic order can be constructed for nation states so too can it be constructed at a global level standing above nations or federal states. In their internal construction, nations have to allow space for differences through, for example, federal or consociational structures including minority vetoes. A global order could be constructed in the same way. 
 
The difficulty with this basis is that there is no agreement on what the supranational framework would look like. It is not sufficient to offer international platforms for political grandstanding. Giving equal weight to each state in the world is hardly realistic. At the same time, the institutions should be capable of implementation and enforcement. At the moment the impetus behind supranational rule making has all but collapsed. Implementation and enforcement are virtually nowhere to be seen from peacekeeping to the environment and to trade.
 
Peaceful association between states
 
In the absence of a global superstructure for universal government the alternative is to look to a form of association between the different states and federations in the world that would aim to keep the peace and focus on problem solving as the need arises. It is picture animated by national interest to avoid conflict rather than shared values.
 
The difficulty with this approach is that the world is composed of many small or medium sized states. leaving the power blocs of the major states to assert themselves and to compete with their own agendas and national priorities. It is an unstable world prone to miscalculation of where lines are drawn. Even in the eras of the so-called ‘pax Brittanica’ (1815-1914) and the ‘pax Americana’ (1946-2011) significant conflicts and bloodshed continued in most parts of the world conducted in large part by those responsible for the ‘pax’.
 
The indirect: trade: AI
 
A further platform for universalism that aims to get around national conflicts is to point to indirect routes to universal peace, co-existence and cooperation. 
 
The time-honoured avenue since the eighteenth century has been to point to international trade as allowing all countries to participate to their mutual advantage. Since all participants benefit from exchange the edge is taken off national rivalries. Trust and confidence can be built that can be applied to other areas beyond trade as well. After the Second World War there was a widespread assumption that free trade would provide the means to avoid the protectionism and rivalries of the inter-war years. Free trade was seen in particular as a way to lock a pacified Germany into a peaceful Europe.
 
The difficulty with this route is that the benefits of trade are distributed unevenly and some countries and constituencies within countries may see themselves as losers. Trade is now used for strategic purposes and political leverage by the major trading powers including the EU.
 
In recent times a different indirect avenue has potentially opened up with the rapid advance of AI. AI is seen to pose possible existential threats to society as we know it. In theory all countries have a self-interest in cooperating in the management of AI in order to avert such existential threats.
 
The difficulty with this route is that advance in AI is also seen as a matter of national technological advantage and key to national security. Both limit the motivation to cooperate even in the face of existential threats.
 
Accommodation
 
A final avenue to a more universalist world is to return to shared values. These are not the values expressed in comprehensive declarations of rights but the values that enable countries to live side-by-side. Coexistence is the aim. The key values involve the toleration of difference, moderation in pursuing goals and a willingness to look to accommodate the desires and objectives of others. 
 
Even this avenue has its limits. Toleration is said to have its limits in relation to what the American political theorist John Rawls referred to as ‘outlaw states’ and by other authors in relation to ‘crimes against humanity’ such as genocide. There is often seen to exist a duty to protect, even if overlooked in places such as Gaza and Darfur.
 
Integrity
 
A completely different way of looking at universalism is to set aside the framework of states and their relationships and to revert back to Kant and his notion of individual moral integrity. According to Kant we can test our moral propositions against the benchmark as to whether they are universalizable or not. 
 
Even this approach to universalism needs to be treated with caution. Religious beliefs and patriarchal views project irreconcilably different views of what is universalizable in terms of individual moral integrity.
 
Nevertheless, notions of individual moral integrity remain of fundamental importance as a way of thinking about universalizable values. They are important not least for the limits they may set on accommodation and tolerance for what governments do. At the moment moral integrity is singularly lacking in Washington DC as lawyers and others fail to stand up to the authoritarianism and unilateralism of President Trump.

Direct delivery in the market
 
Goods
 
We have become used to a world where if we want something we go on-line, make comparisons, look at ratings, read reviews, order what we want and get immediate delivery to our doorstep. As a result of our search, algorithmic feeds to other sites offering similar products will appear on our screens. 
 
Services
 
Not everything can be delivered in this way. Services remain the main exception. We still need to go to the local high street or shopping centre to get our hair cut. We still may want a face-to -face meeting with a doctor. But services involving information, for example, about travel or an educational course, are usually immediately available online. Knowledge-based information, including health enquiries, is also readily available. If we have a question, we can Google it or go to Wikipedia or Google Scholar or to ChatGPT. We may need to check the reliability of the information that is fed us and its sources. But often we are simply looking for information that is adequate and sufficient rather than full and complete.
 
Delivery in politics
 
By contrast, delivery that comes from the world of politics and collective choice is inevitably slow and indirect – the end result of electoral calendars, party political compromise, and long delivery chains with multiple intermediaries. Even if the government of the day reflects our own electoral choice, and our own public spending priorities, nevertheless between our vote and the actual provider – the road builder, housing provider, health hub and school, there stand multiple layers of commissioners, certifiers and inspectors as well as regional and local authorities. Private and public insurance of provision may not mesh. Choice may be limited. The symbol of non-delivery is the unfilled roadway pothole or the cordoned-off roadworks where no-one is actually working on-site.
 
The costs of delivery
 
In the information economy the delivery of information is not only direct but it appears costless to the consumer. Information is monetised in ways that the consumer does not see. The costs to us that we notice are those of paying attention. We economise on those costs by looking for opinions supportive of our own and by networking with like-minded people and sources. We follow the feeds our networks provide. If we are buying goods we return and get reimbursed for what we do not like. 
 
By contrast, the costs of obtaining delivery in politics are highly visible. Civic and political activism is costly in terms of our time and attention. The tax payments we make are visible and felt. There are no returns for poor product.
 
Speeding up political delivery
 
Efforts in the public sector and politics to produce a world of collective provision more immediately responsive to our demands range from the good to the bad and to the ugly.
 
The ugly: populism
 
The ugly face of the response comes from politicians who indeed offer immediate solutions. Instead of the hard task of encouraging interculturalism for modern culturally diverse societies the response is to ban immigrants and reduce mobility. Instead of investing in collective provision in education their answer lies in home-schooling. Instead of investing more in science-based approaches to the health of vulnerable groups, there is denial of the relevance of science-based diagnoses. They try to evade or twist the arms of local authorities. Simplified responses are also given to questions around economic competitiveness. Instead of looking at how to reduce the costs and increase the incentives for entrepreneurship and venturing, while helping those on low incomes, the answer comes in the sledgehammer form of tariffs from the US or border taxes from the EU regardless of who pays.
 
An equally ugly response comes from those politicians who access and make available the personal information collected and stored on official sites. Personal information is weaponised rather than privacy respected. 
 
The bad: attitudes and the erosion of norms
 
Discontent with collective delivery is also expressed in the negative imagery and narratives increasingly attached to the world of politics. Particular politicians and political parties may be the legitimate target of well merited criticism. What crosses a different boundary is the disregard and abuse of democratic processes themselves. These processes may stand in the way of the immediate gratification of our wishes but they are there for a reason. They include the need for accommodation of those with different views, the need for moderation in expressing our own desires and the need for tolerance if things do not go our way. 
 
Imagery that blames ‘conspiracy’, ‘the deep state’ or ‘insider elites’ may symbolise something that has gone wrong in the system of collective choice and representation. But relying on negative meta-narratives to mobilise public opinion erodes qualities that systems of democratic choice must display. It avoids the hard choices around reforming electoral and voting systems and institutions that need to be more representative.
 
The good: the strategies
 
More than fifty years ago the political economist Albert Hirschman wrote an influential treatise distinguishing between three strategies: exit, voice and loyalty. According to this terminology, populism represents an exit strategy from democratic systems of public choice. It states that what matters are results and not how we get there. 
 
By contrast, the strategies that are good from the perspective of a democratic system of collective choice are those that focus on ways to strengthen ‘voice’ and those that show ‘loyalty’ to the system by trying to reform its delivery system through remodelling governance and the way things are done.
 
The good: strengthening voice
 
Ways to strengthen ‘voice’ are in part specific to particular democracies. Those that are relevant to all include limits on electoral expenditures, compulsory voting and the greater use of referendums with high majorities required for major decisions. Specific to the US is the need to halt gerrymandering. Specific to the UK is the need to replace the House of Lords with a chamber drawn from the different regions and nations. Specific to the EU is the need to transfer the so-called ‘right of initiative’ from the Commission to the Council of Ministers and to strengthen the role of national parliaments.
 
The good: loyalty: remodelling governance
 
‘Loyalty’ in this context means embracing the behaviour supportive of democracies, such as moderation and accommodation in the expectation of what democratic politics can delivery. At the same time, it also means a preparedness to remodel the administrative state in order to address the disparity between the direct delivery of the information economy and the indirect delivery of public provision. This means moving away from the so-called ‘New Public Management’ with its roots in the 1980s to a model more supportive of direct delivery. 
 
It is tempting for governments and the public sector to assume that the introduction of AI and portal-based apps can themselves achieve the directness of services expected by citizens. In practice they may have the opposite effect. They draw attention to the multiple intermediaries involved in delivery and replace the directness of face-to-face contact with the anonymity of BOTS. Remodelling governance requires much more.
 
Remodelling governance
 
There are three components of a direct delivery model of governance that stand out. Simplification and the need to shorten intermediation; the need to structure the delivery of public services on a platform basis rather than a sector basis; and the need to shift from general tax and spend policies towards a greater alignment between life-cycle delivery and payment. 
 
Simplification and removing intermediaries
 
In July 2025 the UK Prime Minister announced the intention to get rid of over 200 intermediaries involved in the delivery of health services in the NHS. The problem of excessive intermediaries stretches across all democracies and many public services. Drastic reduction is needed. ‘Simplification’ is now a regulatory objective for all members of the OECD. 
 
Platforms not sectors
 
Many public services, notably those involving regulation, are provided on a sector specific basis. In the information economy delivery is increasingly organised on a platform basis that crosses traditional borders between products, services, companies and sectors. A similar cross-boundary form of delivery is needed in respect of government delivery. For example, community libraries can be delivery hubs for other social services; health services could be offered in super-markets. Regulation should be organised across sectors so as to encourage platform rather than sector delivery.
 
Life-cycle delivery
 
Thirdly, collective provision needs an overhaul so that there is a closer connection and more easily visible link between collectively funded welfare provision and personalised need. Europe’s welfare systems are showing their age with their origin in the early post war period and responding to the problems of the 1930s. 
 
In today’s world collective provision needs to be tuned to a more direct connection with personalised life-cycle earnings and balance sheets. For example, to reflect the longer life expectations of societies, welfare benefits could start later (say not before the age of 25). Education benefits could cover the need for through-life updating and reskilling. In health, publicly funded support should focus on the very young (the under 5s) and also be concentrated more on security against large end-of-life expenses on health and home-care (say for those above the age of 70). Between these ages the connection between collective provision and individual payments could be made more visible by modest threshold payments for access to all collective services such as education and health with exceptions only for the very low income earners. 
 
It is relatively easy for democratic governments to tackle simplification. Adapting sector-based regulatory systems to the platform economy and post-war welfare states and social markets to the shape of today’s earning cycles and personalised balance sheets are much more difficult. Yet the frustration caused by the contrast between the direct delivery of information-based markets and the indirect delivery of politics will remain to feed anti-democratic sentiment unless the contrast is addressed by these more fundamental reforms.

 Two types of authoritarianism
 
There are two types of authoritarianism in today’s world. There is the old, exemplified by Putin in Russia and Xi in China. And there is a new, towards which a number of democratic countries are being drawn including Mohdi’s India and Trump’s United States. 
 
The old
 
The old style of authoritarianism is associated with the rule of an autocrat or autocratic party that controls all significant aspects of life, directly or indirectly. It controls the police and armed forces, the media, the courts and strategic sectors of the economy, both public and private. Elections are for show. Opposition is snuffed out.
 
Features of new
 
The new style of authoritarianism is widely labelled as ‘populist’ reflecting power achieved through majorities at the ballot box. News and the information available through the digital world are manipulated. Inconvenient facts are denied. The framing of news in the digital media is based on a ‘them against us’ style of politics. The ‘them’ is defined through negative messaging. The style of messaging divides the world into friends and enemies. The independence of the different branches of government represents obstacles to be overcome. Electoral districts are there to be redrawn and redistricted. Courts are packed with allies, independent epistemic agencies from health care to financial services are brought to heel through the appointments system or through direct interference. Trump’s America reflects all these features. 
 
The division of the political world into friends and enemies and scorn for the delays inherent in democratic processes echoes the political thought of the German political theorist and Nazi supporter Carl Schmitt (Professor in Berlin until 1945).
 
Old labels: new parties
 
The new authoritarianism may adopt new party labels such as Reform in the UK. But very often old labels persist, such as Republicans and Democrats in the US. Despite the persistence of old labels, the politics has changed underneath. The old party labels reflected mainly a broad divide about how much societal welfare should be left to market forces and how much social provision required government intervention to support public provision of infrastructure, other public goods and to regulate the excesses of the market and its negative ‘externalities’ such as polluting emissions. 
 
What has changed is that in the new information economy old distinctions between what belongs to the market and what belongs to the world of collective choice and politics are no longer relevant. Both private firms and public bodies face a common organizational challenge in how to reduce uncertainty in a world of an over-abundant supply of information. At the same time, easy distinctions between price signals of the market channelling demand for private goods and the political signalling channelling demand for social provision have eroded. Private platforms that monetise information produce public and common goods as well as private. The new models are Starlink, Wikipedia, ChatGPT, and producers of open-source software. Moreover, common goods are not supply constrained. The old ‘tragedy of the commons’ does not apply when platforms supplying common goods experience an increase in their usage. More users increase value and utility.

The new model information economy crosses the old boundaries between the private and the public and promises direct delivery of what people want rather than the endless chains of intermediaries involved in old style collective provision. In this world, old parties have to reformulate their messages and deliver them in new ways mainly through digital media. 

Like-mindedness
 
In contemporary politics the world of information dominated by supply has to be brought together with and translated into the world of political choice dominated by demand. This is achieved through the creation of new meta-narratives. The meta-narratives may be presented in broad brush terms of outsiders v insiders or in narrower terms for example targeting immigrants. The meta-narratives bring together those who share the same view of the world and are ‘like-minded’. 
 
The world of the like-minded is not a world of debate with those with whom we might disagree, where there is a willingness to change our minds in the light of debate and where we show respect for those with different views. Models of rational deliberation, communicative action and Town Hall forums offered by models of deliberative democracy are increasingly divorced from the contemporary world. Like-mindedness serves two purposes. It signals preferences. It sorts out those who are with us and those who are not.
 
This world is frequently referred to through the metaphor of an ‘echo chamber’. The metaphor captures the sense in which we listen to views similar to our own and the absence of debate and deliberation. It does not catch the way in which like-mindedness also acts as a sorting mechanism for making demands in the world of political choice. 
 
The inclusive/exclusive
 
In order to make their demands on politics effective, like-minded electors and interests have to group together. Two very different strategies can be seen. Some groups are ‘inclusive’ and bring together dissimilar interests united only under a broad meta-narrative often framed in the negative such as anti-elitism or anti-insiders. Trump supporters range from billionaires to the low income. Other groups are ‘Exclusive’ and want under their umbrella only those who are 100% committed to the same cause. Some environmental or green parties in Europe might fall into this category. What divides the two groups and their attitude to the formation of political alliances is ‘risk aversion’ or the fear of damaging their own cause. Inclusive groups are prepared to take risks with an alliance of dissimilars, united only by their self-perception as outsiders. Exclusive groups feel they have too much to lose by diluting commitments to their cause. 
 
Each type of group will pursue power in their own way using separate strategies. Inclusive groups will favour majoritarian politics. They will promise direct delivery of what people want. They will use their broad base of support not only to dominate politics but also the other branches of government. Exclusive groups will favour coalition governments where they have a greater chance of getting their views accepted as a necessary component to provide a coalition with a majority (the so-called ‘hold out’ power.). They too will want to use the other branches of government to help achieve their own ends and political objectives. They will try to find ‘linked ecologies of interest’ in the law, judiciary and epistemic bodies who share their own views and will use their different forms of authority to promote them. Either strategy is damaging to the different kinds of reasoning that go into making public choices – electoral, judicial and epistemic.
 
Resisting the new authoritarianism
 
The new authoritarianism puts democracies on the backfoot. Public consent that underpins the legitimacy of democratic forms of government is used to justify undemocratic aims and behaviours. Old political parties have to find new narratives and new governance models that offer more direct forms of delivery.
 
Defences against the drift towards the new authoritarianism can be divided into two – formal protections and the informal. 
 
Formal protections
 
Formal protections are those familiar from America’s separation of powers and centre on clearly defined institutional roles where each branch defers to others in their respective fields of responsibility. In today’s world, these roles distinguish and protect the different sources of information that protect society and the way societal choices are made. The key distinctions are between electoral sources of information, judicial expertise, and the knowledge base of independent government agencies.
 
Informal attitudes
 
Democracies depend on informal attitudes and practices as well as formal institutional protections. One of the best known is ‘Loser’s consent’ when the losing party or candidate accepts their defeat and agree to await their next chance at the polls. It is way of symbolising the legitimacy of an elected government and the electoral process itself. When Trump disputed the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election, he was attempting to undermine the system itself. 
 
There are other informal features that enable democracies to work. These enabling values include attitudes that encourage tolerance, accommodation, providing space for difference, and moderation in expressing views and making demands. These are not heroic values of the sort proclaimed by would-be charismatic leaders or by Trump and his MAGA supporters. Neither are they the kinds of values that get more than a passing reference in constitutional declarations of fundamental rights. But they are essential if democracies are to serve their purpose in keeping a society together despite containing a multiplicity of interests, values and identities.
 
Neither formal protections, nor the informal, offer direct delivery - the promise of populism. On the contrary they guard against it. Institutions in the judicial or epistemic branches may check the legislative. Enabling values may require us to moderate our own  demands and accept those that others make even if we do not go along with them.  

Vitality
 
In the final analysis, democracies depend on the willingness of the people to standup for democratic institutions and practices and to support both formal institutional values and the informal attitudes that enable democracies to work. The nineteenth century political philosopher John Stuart Mill referred to it as ‘vitality’. In practice this means relying on each person’s sense of personal integrity in doing their job and their civic sense when they go the polls. Trump is already anticipating adverse polls in the 2026 congressional election. We can expect his support for gerrymandering and news manipulation to crescendo. It is up to the American people to call him out for what he is – an utterly discreditable aberration from a great American tradition.