Across Europe and beyond, policymaking is increasingly defined by widening gaps: between expectations and people’s lived experience; between policy ambition and actual delivery; between rhetoric and action; between theory and the messy realities of implementation.
Most importantly, there is a growing gap between the scale, scope and speed of policy responses and the exponential nature of the challenges societies face. Progress is happening – but not fast enough, not comprehensive enough and not deep enough to match the problems. The result is what might be called a progress illusion: movement forward that still leaves societies falling behind.
These gaps are not unique to any ideology. Governments everywhere struggle with complexity, trade-offs and limited resources. But they pose a particular challenge for liberal democracies whose legitimacy rests on credibility – the belief that institutions governed by rules, accountability and the rule of law ultimately deliver better outcomes.
Illiberal forces thrive on exposing these gaps. They promise decisive action and simple solutions. In practice, however, they rarely deliver either. But unlike liberal democracies, they are far less constrained by credibility. Their political objective is the erosion of trust in democratic institutions and the rule of law.
They also dismantle the very frameworks that enable functioning policymaking: independent institutions, checks and balances and an evidence-based policy process. The result is a political system that becomes more erratic, more chaotic and less capable of delivering – regardless of who is in power.
For many illiberal actors, this is not an unfortunate side effect. It is the point.
Fabian Zuleeg is Chief Executive and Chief Economist at the European Policy Centre.
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