In Europe there seems to be less and less democracy. There’s more and more presidential government; members of parliament simply don’t have any power any more. People in the Middle East read about the West as we read about the Middle East. They are aware of conversations about the ‘democratic deficit’; they are aware of the degree to which voters in the West seem increasingly distanced from their representatives. So a lot of the people I talk to in the Middle East are asking why we are trying to preach democracy when we don’t have a lot ourselves.
There’s a good deal of cynicism about the word.
