Across the World, Leaders Brace for Discontent and Upheaval

DAVOS, Switzerland — Protesters in Moscow and Cairo fill public squares to demand representative government. Yet on the streets of Madrid and New York — or of Athens, which gave us the very word for democracy — discontent is almost as rampant.

The only consistent messages seem to be that leaders around the world are failing to deliver on their citizens’ expectations and that Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools allow crowds to coalesce at will to let them know it. This is not a comforting picture for the 40 heads of state or leaders of governments who are attending the World Economic Forum here, including such disparate leaders as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany’s multiparty democracy or Meles Zenawi, the prime minister of the authoritarian state of Ethiopia.
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No one can predict with confidence what kind of societies will emerge from the turmoil. The superiority of American and European democracy no longer seems as clear-cut as it did a decade ago. Political views in the United States are polarized, and public confidence in Congress is at a low level. The euro zone debt crisis drags on as European leaders quarrel endlessly about how to solve it.
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Hungary, in fact, is an example of how fragile democracy can be, even in the middle of Europe. A symbol of resistance to Soviet dominance after its 1956 revolt, Hungary was one of the first former Communist countries to join the European Union.

Now Prime Minister Viktor Orban faces accusations that he has used his majority in Parliament to mute criticism by the news media, weaken rival centers of power like the courts and the central bank and perpetuate his party’s dominance by rewriting the Constitution.