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ddressing inequality among citizens is one of the most important challenges that democracies like Indonesia faces today. According to a World Bank study, only 20 percent of Indonesians benefitted from the growing economy during the last decade, while 80 percent — or about 205 million people — were left behind. According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), wealth disparity has narrowed slightly in Indonesia.

This development is attributed to several matters, including rising earnings among Indonesia’s middle-income segment. Likewise, government-led labor-intensive infrastructure projects have played a part in this development.

On Dec. 7 and 8, ministers and heads of state gathered in Serpong, Banten for the Bali Democracy Forum (BDF), Indonesia’s foreign policy flagship event. This year the BDF asked, “Does democracy deliver?”

Citizens assess the quality of democracy based on the state’s ability to deliver public goods and to foster development and prosperity. The failure to provide services — clean water, health care, education, welfare safety net, job opportunities, security and access to justice — undermines both the legitimacy of state institutions and support for democratic governance.

Moreover, recent media reports and public opinion polls are warning of the apparent growing threats to democracy, suggesting that democracy is in decline. There are certainly reasons to be concerned — democracies are facing complex challenges like food scarcity, climate change, terrorism, organized crime, populism and corruption, all of which are testing democracy’s resilience. That is, however, not the whole truth.

This November, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) published a report titled “Global State of Democracy Report, Exploring Democracy’s Resilience,” which provides a health check of democracy worldwide. Contrary to negative views of democracy in decline, when looking at democracy globally and over time, the picture is positive based on findings of the indices.
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Democracy has proven resilient, able to recover from societal crisis and backsliding.

We see that democracy has made considerable progress since 1975, and while the progress has slowed since the 1990s with worrying developments, this does not yet indicate that democracy is declining or regressing at a global level. On the contrary, democracy has proven resilient, able to recover from societal crisis and backsliding.

Indonesian indices mirror the global development — Indonesia has seen sharp improvement in representative government, fundamental rights and participatory engagement.

There is, however, a stagnation regarding checks in government over the last 10 years and no progress in the indices on impartial administration (absence of corruption) — the same is true globally as well.

The world has also made huge progress in reducing extreme poverty and improving basic welfare around the world. However, rising inequality within countries has become the defining challenge of the century. The way wealth, power and privilege are distributed affects the quality of governance and undermines the sturdiness and resilience of a democracy by limiting effective service delivery, social cohesion, political representation, the legitimacy of political institutions and driving violence and armed conflict.

There are no easy answers on how to counter economic inequality. Inequality is an individual as well as collective phenomenon; it exists between individuals and households, but also between social groups. It is thus economic, political, social and cultural in nature.

A renewed focus on local governance capacities to deliver essential services such as energy, water and sanitation is needed. Other required measures include state capacity, elite commitment, effective political parties, reform coalitions, innovations and ideas and from below, and the framing of shared national visions and destinies. International cooperation is required to fight tax avoidance and capital flight. In brief, democracy is necessary even if not a sufficient precondition for targeting inequality.

Perhaps the best change that democracy has to counter inequality is grounded in its principles and values — an equal voice, solidarity and the fact that in a democracy we can raise our concerns and make governments accountable. The world’s most equal countries, including Slovenia, Norway and Finland, are also amongst the world’s best functioning democracies. More democracy, not less, is what is needed.

Indonesia is heading toward important elections in 2018 and 2019. Hopefully, instead of personalities and issues of identity, it will be policy choices on addressing inequality and increase in accountability that will dominate electoral debates at that time. Voters should be worry of candidates offering easy solutions to the complex challenges Indonesia is facing.
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The writer is director for Asia and the Pacific region at International IDEA, based in Canberra.