Are Western democracies becoming ungovernable?

A SPECTRE IS haunting the rich world. It is the spectre of ungovernability. “Ungovernability in Italy is a great risk,” averred its former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, in 2017. “It will be impossible to govern Spain until they face the political problem in Catalonia,” predicted the spokeswoman of the Catalan regional government in February (just before that government was closed down). Emmanuel Macron, for whom to govern is to reform, warned that “France is not a reformable country”, evoking the spirit of General de Gaulle who once asked how anyone could govern a nation with 246 kinds of cheese.

When you survey the political landscape of rich countries, you see an unusual amount of chaos and upheaval. Prague has seen the largest demonstrations since the overthrow of communism. More than a quarter of the current parliaments in Europe were elected in polls that were called early. In Britain the mother of parliaments has been at the gin bottle and opinion polls everywhere show increasing numbers of people losing patience with democratic niceties and hankering after a strongman.