There is something explosive about an era in which interest in politics grows while faith in politics declines. As we observe the state of democracy globally, we see how this system of governance faces increasing challenges around the world. What does it mean for the stability of a country if more and more people warily keep track of the activities of an authority that they increasingly distrust? How much derision can a system endure, especially now that everyone can share their deeply felt opinions online?

If we look at the dawn and peak of democracy, 50 years ago – 30 for South Africa – there was greater political apathy yet greater trust in politics. Now there is both passion and distrust. These are turbulent times. And yet, for all this turbulence, there has been little reflection on the tools that our democracies use. It is still regarded as something akin to heresy to ask whether elections in their current form are a badly outmoded technology for converting the collective will of the people into governments and policies. 

Take for example, the modern way of engaging with referendums. The Brexit referendum is a prime example of how our referendums today focus on the discussion and debate of its outcome instead of the discussion of its principles. This should be surprising. Technically, in referendums, people are asked directly what they think when they have not been obliged to think – although they were certainly bombarded by every conceivable form of manipulation in the months leading up to the vote. 

Arguably, the problem is not confined to referendums: in an election, you may cast your vote, but you are also casting it away for the next few years. This system of delegation to an elected representative may have been necessary in the past – when communication was slow and information was limited – but it is quickly becoming outdated based on the way citizens interact with one another today. Jean-Jacques Rousseau observed in the 18th century that elections alone were not a guarantee of liberty: “The people deceive themselves when they fancy they are free; they are so, in fact, only during the election of members of parliament – for, as soon as a new one is elected, they are again in chains, and are nothing.” 

In their current format, referendums and elections are becoming arcane instruments of public deliberation, and if we refuse to update our democratic technology, we may find our system beyond repair. We are in an era of democratic fatigue syndrome. Symptoms may include referendum fever, declining party membership and low voter turnout; or government impotence and political paralysis – under relentless media scrutiny, widespread public distrust and populist upheavals. 

But democratic fatigue syndrome is not so much caused by the people, the politicians or the parties – it is caused by procedure. Perhaps democracy is not the problem; the way we vote is. It is understandable that young people believe their vote won’t make a difference, because it can sometimes feel like the reasoned voice of people in a vote is nowhere to be found. Where do citizens get the chance to obtain the best possible information, engage with each other and decide collectively upon their future? Where do citizens get the chance to shape the fate of their communities? 

For some, the voting booth is not the place. We have got to a point where the word ‘election’ has become synonymous with ‘democracy’. After all, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states as much: “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.” 

The words “this will shall be expressed” are typical of our way of thinking about democracy: when we say ‘democracy’, we mean only ‘elections’. But isn’t it remarkable that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains such a precise definition of how the will of the people must be expressed?

Furthermore, it would appear that the fundamental cause of democratic fatigue syndrome lies in the fact that we have all become electoral fundamentalists, venerating elections but despising the people who are elected. Electoral fundamentalism is the unshakeable belief in the idea that democracy is inconceivable without elections, and that elections are a necessary and fundamental precondition when speaking of democracy. Electoral fundamentalists refuse to regard elections as a means of taking part in democracy, seeing them instead as an end in themselves, as a doctrine with an intrinsic, inalienable value. 

This blind faith in the ballot box as the ultimate basis on which popular sovereignty rests can be seen most vividly of all in international diplomacy. When Western donor countries hope that nations ravaged by conflict – such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen and Sudan – will become democracies, what they really mean is this: they must hold elections, preferably based on the Western model, with voting booths, ballot papers and ballot boxes; with parties, campaigns and coalitions; with lists of candidates, polling stations and sealing wax, just like the West. Then they will receive money from the West.

The fact that elections can have all kinds of outcomes in states that are fragile, including violence, ethnic tensions, criminality and corruption, seems of secondary importance; that elections do not automatically foster democracy, but may instead prevent or destroy it, is conveniently forgotten. We insist that in every country people should traipse off to polling stations. Our electoral fundamentalism really does take the form of a new, global evangelism. Elections are the sacraments of that new faith, a ritual regarded as a vital necessity in which the form is more important than the content.

Elections are the fossil fuel of politics. Whereas once they gave democracy a huge boost – much as oil did for our economies – it now turns out that they cause colossal problems of their own. If we do not urgently reconsider the nature of our democratic fuel, a systemic crisis awaits. If we obstinately hold on to a notion of democracy that reduces its meaning to voting in elections and referendums, at a time of economic malaise, we will undermine the democratic process.