The reason is simple: good versus 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 makes a commendable attempt to define superior citizenship values in its Constitution: 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 plummet accordingly. 

 

Most countries, whether democratic or authoritarian, fail because of a culture of bad citizenship. The humans blame their lawmakers, but they should look in the mirror. Their leaders are a subset of themselves. If the 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. 

 

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

 

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

• Good governance: The art of engineering better humans

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

• The Elysium SkyBot Nexus: Why DroidBotics Inc. uses 10% of the national power grid.