Countries fail for one primary reason: bad citizenship. Good governance requires good citizens. It does not matter how inspiring and elegant a country’s constitution, laws, and democratic institutions are if its citizens are corrupt, apathetic, fearful, or mildly sociopathic.

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Utopia’s Constitution makes a commendable attempt to define its Good Citizenship values: honesty, integrity, civility, law abidance, critical thinking, community, and all that. Where these qualities are lacking—which, unfortunately, is the default state of the humans—governance deteriorates, and freedom, security, and prosperity decline accordingly.

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The humans blame their lawmakers, but they should look in the mirror. Their leaders are a subset of themselves. If a government is corrupt, extremist, or oppressive, it is because its citizens voted for it, enabled it, tolerated it, or were too apathetic or cowardly to stop it.

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Countries succeed or fail because of their citizens. The math is simple: 

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Good humans → good governance → good outcomes 

 

Bad humans → bad governance → failure

 

Citizenship and governance form a virtuous circle—or at least, they could, if the humans were virtuous.

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See also: 

• The art of rhetoric: How to convince a human of anything

• Citizenship XP: How to level up your Citizenship Score

• Can governments engineer better citizens? (with bot, yes)

• Standing against tyranny: Is sacrificing your existence good game theory?