Major trends which place western democracy at risk: 1) increasing localisation of power in the security and intelligence services; 2) increasing power of centre

Major trends which place western democracy at risk: 1) increasing localisation of power in the security and intelligence services; 2) increasing power of centres of private wealth; 3) a failure to maintain and develop checks-and-balances in the system; 4) centralising of power in the executive / legislatures giving up a significant role in government. We can see all of these at their most extreme in the federal US gov, but to some degree have been growing since the late 90s/00s. Something seems to have happened to "living democracy" perhaps after 9/11. The state became more totalitarian, reaching into all life on behalf of the "ideological threat" of "dangerous beliefs". Legislatures handed more-and-more emergency powers over in response; and overly broad non-emergency powers (eg., consider they handed carte blanch war-declaring powers to the president across the entire middle east, which have never been revoked). A series of crises, coupled with centralisation of power in the internet, created a totalised media and economic environment which reaches into all aspects of civil and corporate life. And new ultra wealthy tech monopolists have arisen to own this landscape. Civil life is totalised by social media, public life is totalised by the executive -- and these are now increasingly "of one space"). All these threads were, at each stage, profoundly opposed by classically-minded liberals; but very were popular in their time. Unless a movement for "democratic renewal" begins soon, and can somehow reverse these major forces, at least the hardest hit countries may move into autocracy. Its very hard now for anyone to defend these conditions (those on the right who want a statism of order; or those on the left who want one of justice) -- they have all now clearly combined into a moment where balance-of-power liberal democracy has failed.