Strasbourg’s Sermon on Democracy

When international institutions in Strasbourg start launching formal pacts to rescue rule of law, one can usually assume the patient is already on life support. Alain Berset, the former Swiss minister who now heads the Council of Europe as its Secretary General, has taken up the task of preaching civic virtue to an increasingly anxious West. Armed with a newly unveiled Pact for Democracy, the Strasbourg bureaucracy is attempting to push back against a visible surge in global authoritarianism.

Berset’s diagnostic is straightforward enough. A dense succession of economic and political shocks—from persistent inflation to warfare and social fractures—has severely eroded the trust required for stable governance. When state mechanisms fail to yield immediate stability, the appeal of strongman governance and populist shortcuts grows exponentially. Yet the primary response from Strasbourg consists of familiar procedural appeals for broader dialogue, strict adherence to established rules, and a willingness to embrace political compromise.

The former Swiss cabinet member naturally points to his homeland as a reference point. In Switzerland, direct democracy obliges competing political factions to find common ground and systematically integrate defeat into the system. Whether such habits can simply be exported to heavily polarized nations is questionable. Switzerland’s comfortable political culture developed under exceptional economic security, making its understated consensus style difficult to replicate where political combat has turned into a winner-take-all affair.

Berset’s sharpest remarks focus on the declining willingness of political leaders to accept election defeats, pointing directly to volatile dynamics in the United States. Refusing to acknowledge an official vote count, he noted, resembles a sprinter who finishes second in a hundred-meter race and simply denies the result. With American elections subject to intense political challenges and Donald Trump’s movement routinely questioning official outcomes, basic democratic mechanics face unprecedented strain.

Whether treaties cooked up in Alsatian conference halls can alter these trajectory lines is doubtful. Speeches on constitutional norms rarely satisfy citizens struggling with basic living costs. If democratic systems cannot deliver underlying economic efficiency and stability, institutional exhortations from international bodies will do very little to keep frustration off the streets.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com