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Between the December 2019 elections in the United Kingdom and the November 2020 elections in the United States, the major global tech platforms will probably scramble to neutralize calls for their regulation or dismemberment.

Under the oxymoronic rubric of self-regulation, Facebook, Twitter and Google are already considering ways to appear responsible and protective of the integrity of those two elections. Twitter has pledged to stop running political ads, and both Google and Facebook are considering suspending precise targeting of political ads.

In 2016 Facebook played pivotal roles in the election of Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, the Brexit referendum and the electoral college victory of Donald Trump in the United States.

The shocks of 2016 awakened journalists and regulators to the ways that social media undermines democracy. After a decade of shallow proclamations of their democratic potential, its clear that Facebook, Twitter and Google are, in fact, major threats to democracy.

First, their targeted advertising services sever any sense of democratic accountability from the campaigns and parties that deploy them. Ads only reach the eyes for which they are intended and thus never face scrutiny or response from opponents, critics or journalists.

Second, their algorithms amplify divisive, emotionally triggering content that can distract or disgust voters and undermine trust in democratic politics, institutions and ethnic or religious minorities.

And third, Facebook, Twitter and Google are designed to motivate people to do things like shop or vote. They undermine efforts to deliberate or think deeply about problems. Democracies need both motivation and deliberation.

The fate of Trump lifted into office in 2016 in part by the power of Facebook to motivate and organize his core white nationalist supporters preoccupies both critics and champions of Facebook, Twitter and Google.

But more than 60 countries will hold elections in 2020. Facebook and Google will be important variables in almost all of them. The first of these elections will be in January in Taiwan, where more than 89% of adults use Facebook regularly a much higher percentage than almost any other country. With an eye on the unrest in Hong Kong and the mainland governments brutality toward Muslim groups in western China, tensions will be high. Expect agents of the Peoples Republic of China to flood Facebook with propaganda.

Other 2020 elections where Facebook and Google are likely to play a role include those in Poland, Greece, Moldova and France. The French senate elections are likely to be flooded by propaganda from ethno-nationalist forces domestically and anti-European Union efforts from outside. Parliamentary elections in Serbia, Lithuania, Georgia, Peru and Venezuela are also sure to be fraught.

But developed countries like France and the US should be able to take care of themselves. Their public spheres are robust and diverse. Citizens of both countries have many sources of information and many ways to communicate with each other. Despite seeing its two major postwar parties crumble in recent years, voters in France have managed to keep proto-fascists out of power in most of the country. And Trumps unpopularity is firm, widespread and could grow as impeachment efforts progress.

Instead, we should attend to the places where citizens have little but Facebook through which to view their countries, governments and the world.

Myanmar and Sri Lanka will both hold parliamentary elections in 2020. Both countries also have Buddhist majorities that have grown violent and defensive in recent years. Sri Lanka only recently emerged from a decade of civil war against its Tamil, mostly Hindu, minority. In Myanmar, nationalists use Facebook to stoke hostility toward a minority Muslim ethnic group, the Rohingya.

Despite years of pleas and warnings by human rights groups, Facebook has failed to make any major changes to how it operates in Sri Lanka or Myanmar.

In an effort to head off serious regulatory scrutiny in Europe and North America, the big three Facebook, Twitter and Google have all lately taken to proposing various internal reforms. Yet their efforts have been focused on the experiences of Europeans and North Americans.

Dont judge their efforts by how things go for Donald Trump in 2020. Look to Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

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Digital democracy will face its greatest test in 2020 - The Guardian

As a longtime resident and educator in Clarke County, Ive been following the recent discussions over how much authority local school councils should have in relation to the authority of the superintendent, district office and school board. The Clarke County School District is one of the first designated charter school districts in Georgia and has a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate what our local schools can do when they truly belong to their local community of students, educators and parents. Charter district designation allows schools to gain waivers from state regulations in order to use better forms of student assessment and evaluation, curriculum, staff development, resource and staff allocations, teaching methods and creative partnerships with businesses and nonprofits.

Allowing decision-making at the school level is the one best way of reviving democracy. In an age where political incivility dominates the newsfeed, young people and adults across America are increasingly questioning the importance of democracy itself. Recently, The Atlantic magazine devoted its entire issue to the theme, Is Democracy Dying?

Our public schools have done little to support the health of our nations democracy, and school-based educators are not to be blamed. What we have experienced is the misguided prevailing belief that top-down mandates with rewards and punishments would improve academic achievement, reduce the achievement gap between groups of students and show progress on underlying social and economic issues in our country. However, after almost two decades of state, federal and district accountability measures and ratings, overall achievement in our nation is no better, and children are now living with the greatest economic disparity since the Great Depression. What we dont need is more of the same.

School-based educators, students and parents want to see more relevant school work. They want students learning to connect to pressing issues in their communities and make their world a better place to live. Our local schools in Clarke County, with the exception of a few buildings still to be renovated, have attractive and modern facilities, an abundance of talented and incredibly hard-working educators, caring and engaged parents and generous, forward-looking community leaders in our Classic City. What our schools lack is clearly delineated authority to act upon their local concerns and aspirations. CCSD being a designated a charter district can provide the means to give each school the latitude and resources to carry out their plans. This can only happen if district agents willingly shift authority to support and facilitate decision-making at the local school community level.

Our children need us to listen to their concerns. We need to commit to making their lives better. We need to help them use their education to make important and lasting changes in their communities. And we need to help them learn that their leadership and civic engagement are at the very center of resuscitating a faltering democracy.

Glickman is a professor emeritus of education at the University of Georgia, author of 11 books and advisor to two governors.

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Letters to the Editor: School-Based Education Is Essential to Democracy - Flagpole Magazine

While it may seem like in UK politics couldnt get any more confusing right now, Netflixs new documentary takes a look at what has been happening in recent times in South America. The Edge of Democracy explores how in Brazil over the last few years one president was impeached, another ex-president was imprisoned and democracy was left hanging in the balance.

The Edge of Democracy is available to stream on Netflix now.

The documentary chronicles the scandals that have hit two of the biggest names in Brazilian politics in the last few years, resulting in impeachment, prison and a nation teetering on the edge. This is all explored through the lens of filmmaker Petra Costas own political and personal history, resulting in a highly intimate study of not only Brazilian democracy and two disgraced presidents, but the impact this has had on a young filmmaker and her family.

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Is The Edge of Democracy on Netflix? What is it about? - Radio Times

Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Globalization and Digital Capitalism

Nathan Gardels & Nicolas Berggruen

256 pages, University of California Press, 2019

Buy the book

In our new book, Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Globalization and Digital Capitalism, we address the three greatest challenges on the horizon: how the participatory power of social media has been a game changer for democratic governance, the impact of digital capitalism on the future of work and social equality, and the challenge that China presents to a polarized and paralyzed West. The authors present three chief responses, the three ps: participation without populism, predistribution of wealth instead of only the redistribution of the industrial welfare state era, and positive nationalism as the precondition of global cooperation. It is not enough, they argue, for the dysfunctional democracies of the West to stand up to the growing influence of authoritarian states like China and Russia; they must in the first place, and above all, seek to repair themselves or risk ending up on the wrong side of history. Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen

The rise of populism in the West, the rise of China in the East and the spread of peer-driven social media everywhere have stirred a rethinking of how democratic systems workor dont. The creation of new classes of winners and losers as a result of globalization and digital capitalism is also challenging how we think about the social contract and how wealth is shared.

The worst fear of Americas Foundersthat democracy would empower demagogueswas realized in the 2016 US presidential election, when the ballot box unleashed some of the darkest forces in the body politic. Similarly, in Europe an anti-establishment political awakening of both populism and right-wing neonationalism is consigning the mainstream centrist political parties that once dominated the postWorld War II political order to the margins.

Donald Trumps election and the populist surge in Europe did not cause this crisis of governance. They are symptoms of the decay of democratic institutions across the West that, captured by the organized special interests of an insider establishment have failed to address the dislocations of globalization and the disruptions of rapid technological change. To add danger to decay, the fevered partisans of populism are throwing out the baby with the bathwater, assaulting the very integrity of institutional checks and balances that guarantee the enduring survival of republics. The revolt against a moribund political class has transmuted into a revolt against governance itself.

Because neither the stakeholders of the waning status quo nor the upstarts of populism have offered any effective, systemic solutions to what ails the West, protracted polarization and paralysis have set in.

These trials of the West are bound up with, and to a significant extent driven by, two related developments: the growing fragmentation of mass society into diverse tribes fortified by the participatory power of social media, and the advent of digital capitalism, which is divorcing productivity and wealth creation from employment and income.

We argue that these shifts present twin paradoxical challenges for governance.

First, the paradox of democracy in the age of peer-driven social networks is that, because there is more participation than ever before, never has the need been greater for countervailing practices and institutions to impartially establish facts, deliberate wise choices, mediate fair trade-offs, and forge consensus that can sustain long-term implementation of policies. Despite expectations that the Internet Age would create an informed public more capable of self-government than ever before in history, fake news, hate speech, and alternative facts have seriously degraded the civic discourse.

Second, the paradox of the political economy in the age of digital capitalism is that the more dynamic a perpetually innovating knowledge-driven economy is, the more robust a redefined safety net and opportunity web must be to cope with the steady disruption and gaps in wealth and power that will result.

To meet these challenges, we propose a novel approach to renovating democratic institutions that integrates new forms of direct participation into present practices of representative government while restoring to popular sovereignty the kind of deliberative ballast the American Founding Fathers thought so crucial to avoiding the suicide of republics. We further propose ways to spread wealth and opportunity fairly in a future in which intelligent machines are on track to displace labor, depress wages, and transform the nature of work to an unprecedented degree.

When populists rail against globalization that has undermined their standard of living through trade agreements, they mostly have China in mind. Few reflect that China was able to take maximum advantage of the postCold War US-led world order that promoted open trade and free markets precisely because of its consensus-driven and long-term-oriented one-party political system. China has shown the path to prosperity is not incompatible with authoritarian rule.

In this sense, Chinas tenacious rise over the past three decades holds up a harsh mirror to an increasingly dysfunctional West. The current US president, who rode an anti-globalization wave to power, relishes battling his way through every twenty-four-hour news cycle by firing off barbed tweets at sundry foes. By contrast, Chinas near-dictatorial leader has used his amassed clout to lay out a roadmap for the next thirty years.

If the price of political freedom is division and polarization, it comes at a steep opportunity cost. As the Westincluding Europe, riven now by populist and separatist movementsstalls in internal acrimony, China is boldly striding ahead. It has proactively set its sights on conquering the latest artificial intelligence technology, reviving the ancient Silk Road as the next phase of globalization, taking the lead on climate change, and shaping the next world order in its image. If the West does not hear this wake-up call loud and clear, it is destined to somnambulate into second-class status on the world stage.

This is not, of course, to suggest in any way that the West turn toward autocracy and authoritarianism. Rather, it is to say that unless democracies look beyond the short-term horizon of the next election cycle and find ways to reach a governing consensus, they will be left in the dust by the oncoming future. If the discourse continues to deteriorate into a contest over who dominates the viral memes of the moment, and if democracy comes to mean sanctifying the splintering of society into a plethora of special interests, partisan tribes, and endless acronymic identities instead of seeking common ground, there is little hope of competing successfully with a unified juggernaut like China. Waiting for China to stumble is a foolish fallback.

Unlike the Soviet Union at the time of the Sputnik challenge in the late 1950s and early 1960s, China today possesses an economic and technological prowess the Soviet Union never remotely approached. Whether in conflict or cooperation, China will be a large presence in our future.

It is in that context that we examine the strengths and weakness of Chinas system as a spur to thinking through our own challenges. To turn the old Chinese saying toward ourselves, The stones from hills yonder can polish jade at home.

To set the frame for rethinking democracy and the political economy, we argue that the anxiety behind the populist reaction is rooted in the uncertainties posed by the great transformations under way, from the intrusions of globalization on how sovereign communities govern their affairs, to such rapid advances in technology as social media and robotics, to the increasingly multicultural composition of all societies. Change is so enormous that individuals and communities alike feel they are drowning in the swell of seemingly anonymous forces and want to take back control of their lives at a scale and stride they can manage. They crave the dignity of living in a society in which their identity matters and that attends to their concerns. Effectively aligning political practices and institutions so as to confront these challenges head-on will make the difference between a world falling apart and a world coming together.

Critics of globalization argue that nation-states and communities must retrieve the capacity to make decisions that reflect their way of life and maintain the integrity of their norms and institutions, decisions the maligned cosmopolitan caste has handed over to distant trade tribunals or other global institutions managed by strangers. Those decisions, they rightly say, ought to be made through democratic deliberation by sovereign peoples. Yet that neat logic ignores the reality of decay and dysfunction we have already noted. Therefore, taking back control must, first and foremost, mean renovating democratic practices and institutions themselves.

The most responsible course of change in modern societies is renovation.

Renovation is the point of equilibrium between creation and destruction, whereby what is valuable is saved and what is outmoded or dysfunctional is discarded. It entails a long march through societys institutions at a pace of change our incremental natures can absorb. Renovation shepherds the new into the old, buffering the damage of dislocation that at first outweighs longer-term benefits. In the new age of perpetual disruption, renovation is the constant of governance. Its aim is transition through evolutionary stability, within societies and in relations among nation-states and global networks.

In this book, we propose three ways to think about how to renovate democracy, the social contract, and global interconnectivity in order to take back control:

These proposals, of course, do not exhaust the answers to the panoply of daunting challenges we have raised. But they do suggest ways we might think about how to change present social and political arrangements for addressing those challenges. We do not insist that we are somehow the font of all wisdom but regard our endeavor as a point of departure that deepens and expands the debate. Without concrete propositions to criticize and amend, the discourse about change is only an airy exchange that fails to move the needle.

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Rethinking Democracy, the Social Contract, and Globalization by Nathan Gardels & Nicolas Berggruen - Stanford Social Innovation Review

President Donald J. Trump (R) and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu (L) deliver remarks to members of the news media during their meeting in the Oval Office of the White House March 25, 2019 in Washington, DC.

Michael Reynolds | Getty Images

Israel's prime minister has now been formally indicted for bribery and corruption. Benjamin Netanyahu is calling the charges against him false and part of a coup attempt.

Sound familiar?

There are a lot of differences between Israel's parliamentary democracy and the American republic. But both nations are now in the midst of long-running attempts by the left to unseat their leaders based on charges of illegal conduct. Correspondingly, both President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are facing these efforts just as national elections for both of them loom around the corner.

But not everything is similar in this scenario. Because while both Trump and Netanyahu are extremely polarizing figures in their home countries, Israel is not beset by a real left-right partisan divide.

In election after election since the so-called "Second Intifada" began in 2000, the Israeli public has continued to blame the political left for allowing the security situation to deteriorate. Virtually every Israeli either lost a close friend or relative in those Palestinian suicide bombing campaigns. So beginning with the late Ariel Sharon's election as prime minister in 2001, every election in Israel has seen the majority of the votes going to a combination of right wing or center-right parties. That doesn't mean the Israeli people aren't divided over a lot of political issues. But when it comes to the most crucial issue of security, there is no significant divide in the Israeli electorate.

This holds true even when you include the results two national elections Israel has held already this year. Israeli political math is a little tricky, because while Arab-Israelis can and do vote with equal voting rights, Arab-Israeli party members of the parliament have never agreed and will likely never agree to join with any sitting government. So the percentages of seats in the parliament can only fairly be counted based on all the other seats.

With that in mind, note that in the April national election, center-right Israeli parties took 59% of the parliamentary seats not including those Arab parties. In the September "do over" election, the opposition Blue & White Party got one more seat than Likud to claim the title of the top vote-getter. But again, the center-right Israeli parties took 59% of all the non-Arab party seats. So all the Likud Party seemingly has to do is replace Netanyahu with another right wing leader and then complete the easier task of forming a government with someone so many Israelis don't personally object to.

Here's the problem: because Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has no clear successor in his own party, that clear majority of Israelis who support more right wing policies are left hanging.

Much of this is nobody but Netanyahu's own fault. For a myriad of reasons, including what appear to be jealousy and paranoia, he has groomed a number of capable successors but has fallen out with each of them. In addition to some of those Blue & White Party leaders, those former proteges are on the mastheads of almost every other center-right party in Israel. They include people like Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman, and New Right Party leaders Naftali Bennett and Ayalet Shaked.

Because of the Israeli left's long-running failures at the polls, Netanyahu's "coup attempt" claims can't be dismissed completely. But even if some kind of anti-Netanyahu political sentiment has unfairly goosed this indictment process along, it doesn't change the fact that it will be much harder for him to govern under this indictment cloud.

There is some precedent in Israeli history for Netanyahu to step down even as he vehemently asserts his innocence. That's what Yitzhak Rabin did during his first tenure as prime minister in the 1970s after it was revealed he and his wife held small, but technically illegal, bank accounts in the U.S. It was never a really serious charge, but Rabin ultimately felt he couldn't juggle the legal fight and his leadership duties. Three years before that, then-Prime Minister Golda Meir resigned after official government reports found her government had made serious errors that led to Israel's lack of preparation for the Yom Kippur War. Meir never agreed with most of those conclusions, but she knew she couldn't continue to govern effectively in the face of them.

On the other side, the problem for Gantz and his Blue & White Party is this: what if these indictments do their job for them? Will the Israeli voters still feel the need to vote for a party bent primarily on getting rid of Netanyahu if the legal charges do it anyway?

Again, here we have another similarity with the American political situation. It's hard to deny the current impeachment process against President Trump has taken a lot of air out of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates' efforts to grab more attention for themselves. They all know the anti-Trump voters likely support this impeachment process and will vote for one of them. But how can any of them get the attention needed to be the nominee in the midst of so much focus on impeachment in the year before Election Day?

More than anything else, the word to describe the political situations in both countries is "failure."

The partisan divide in America has at least partially fed into murky impeachment efforts by the parties out of the White House twice in the last 20 years. In Israel, the failure to form a viable coalition government and Netanyahu's failure to set up a viable successor has led to an ongoing political impasse on top of an indictment controversy. It's all just the latest evidence that democratic governments are rarely defeated by foreign invaders. Rather, they usually just end up destroying themselves.

Jake Novak is a political and economic analyst at Jake Novak News and former CNBC TV producer. You can follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.

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Netanyahu indictment and the Trump impeachment process are both the products of democracy's failures - CNBC