Non-stop campaigning rather than governing
Party-political polarization between "the left" and "the right" has increased in almost all countries. Populist parties are further intensifying this trend in many national legislatures. The authors criticize some governments for their role in hardening, rather than softening or breaking down, lines of conflict in society. Related to this, the report states, is the fact that many governments are increasingly less inclined to engage in the broad-based consultation of societal actors during the planning phase of reforms. Eighteen countries – including the United States, Poland and Hungary, but also countries like Iceland and the Czech Republic – have performed more poorly in this area, some significantly so, since the 2011 and 2014 SGI. Only ten countries, including South Korea, Ireland and Malta have actually improved here. Some governments, such as those in Hungary, Poland, or Turkey, are deliberately circumventing legally established consultation procedures or excluding key actors in the process. Along with the narrowed scope of stakeholder inclusion, governments' communication abilities and implementation efficiency are also on the decline. "In many countries, we're witnessing a kind of permanent election campaign," elaborates Schraad-Tischler. "Governments no longer manage to communicate their objectives coherently or build a consensus around the facts. In the end, the implementation and quality of long-term political solutions suffer."
Given the pressing political challenges, this diminished capacity to solve problems weighs heavily on these states: "Despite economic stabilization since the financial crisis, social inclusion in many OECD and EU countries – especially in the hard-hit Southern European countries – hasn't yet returned to prior levels," says Schraad-Tischler. "In the face of weak R&D investment, or the absence of efforts to address demographic change, we're also seeing numerous political and economic problem areas in which progress is often too slow."
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