Around the world, democracies are suffering from voter apathy, political polarization, anti-establishment sentiment and abuses of majoritarian rule that have facilitated the spread of autocracy. Now countries are increasingly experimenting with a new way forward: citizens’ assemblies put together by random selection.
Turkey’s election results came as a disappointment not only to Turkish voters who wanted to bring an end to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 20 years of increasingly autocratic rule. They also dashed the hopes of many outside observers that Turkey would become one of the countries where the global drift to autocracy begins to reverse.
The U.N. recently projected that India will replace China as the world’s most-populous country this year, fueling discussion about whether India’s swelling population could create a “demographic dividend” that would allow it to surpass China economically as well. But India has a lot of ground to cover to meet those expectations.
