I have been saying that the current system is a major cause for the decline in civic engagement, but I probably should qualify that it's not just that, and it may not be even the most important factor. The most important reason, I believe, citizens are becoming less and less engaged is that governments are less and less capable of doing the things that need to be done. Their constraints are incredible. The windows of opportunity that they have, the wiggle room that they have in entrenched systems is smaller than probably it has ever been in our history.
There are just too many complicated issues with international trade, monetary policies, and so forth, that make it very difficult for governments to say, “Okay, we're going to have a complete 180° turn and have all these new policies.” They get in power and they realize that they can't, and therefore, they're constrained. The public sees governments becoming less and less effective in their ability to do these things. It's not a simple question of making promises and not keeping them. I suspect that politicians are far more sincere than the public sometimes think. They actually do want to make those changes, but when they get into power, they realize just how incredibly difficult that is.
That is a huge question, and it won't simply be solved by electoral reform. This has been a perplexing question for western democracies for quite some time. A lot of people have been thinking very carefully about it, but I don't know anyone who has come up with an answer of how we move to a system where our governments are able to actually fulfill the mandates they set out for themselves.