The message of the German professor in "Public Square"/ "Don't trust the power, exercise control"

2023-12-15 19:16:00, Politikë CNA

The message of the German professor in "Public Square"/

German professor Wolfgang Merkel

The state of democracy and the crisis it is facing on the European continent and beyond were the topics of the discussion that Ditmir Bushati held today in "Publik Square" with Wolfgang Merkel, professor of political science at Humboldt University in Berlin and at the same time in "Berlin Center of Social Sciences".

Bushati and Wolfang discussed the definition of democracy, which they divided into minimalist, middle and maximalist concepts.

"Minimalist are simply democracies that organize equal and free elections. There is a middle concept that implies, on the one hand, free and equal general elections, as well as the rule of law, checks and balances between powers, on the other.

And the maximalist concept that means free elections, the rule of law, plus a kind of social justice and a spirit of honesty in government," says Wolfang.

Referring to crises, he added that we must distinguish between an acute crisis "where we have to fear the transformation of democracy into an autocratic regime, as happened in Germany in 1932, or in Italy when Mussolini came to power in 1922. We often talk about a hidden crisis, when there is erosion and regression in relation to the quality of democracy".

Both interlocutors focused on the "backward slide" of democracy.

"Since 2008, we have a gradual decline in the quality of democracy, even among the 30 most advanced democracies of Western Europe and North America. "Erosion, regression, and sometimes the term "autocratization" is also used, means loss of the quality of democracy , but not necessarily a transition to an autocratic regime".

But is it still fashionable to fight for democracy?

"We have to trust to a certain extent those we vote into power, but then we have to have a democratic distrust, which means we have to exercise control over them, and we cannot exercise control only every four years in general elections, but there should be intermediate controls", he says.

The development of technology and artificial intelligence from the perspective of democracy is a matter that should not be left only in the hands of the big players of information technology, such as Google, Microsoft and others.

"There must be public regulation by the state and even to some extent a supra-national regulation. The European Union, which we were talking about before, would be able to make this adjustment", said Wolfang./ CNA