Across the globe, democracy appears to be in crisis. Popular support for it is down and its institutions are under attack. The values it embodies—free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and respect for the rule of law—are under threat. Across the world, many citizens feel dissatisfied with democracy and are seeking out alternative options. This is a real and serious concern but it does not mean that democracy is in a permanent state of decline.
The political environment that has produced this discontent is a complex one, but three particular issues are crucial. Climate, pandemic and geopolitical crises have begun to rework the factors that drive and hinder democratic trends, calling for reworked analytical frameworks of political change. They have intensified the risks and difficulties of democracy in different places and given oxygen to authoritarianism, but they have also spurred new commitments and potential.
For example, in Nicaragua, a political crisis fueled by partisan actors and judicial reforms has pushed democracy to the edge of the precipice, while in Mexico, revelations of extensive government surveillance have undermined civil society’s capacity to thwart state corruption. In Zimbabwe, the departure of Robert Mugabe was accompanied by a crackdown on civil society and repressive tactics by his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has already begun to test democratic checks and balances.
But, while accumulating frustration with the socioeconomic record of democracies may have played some role in democratic backsliding in these and other countries, it is far from clear that this is the dominant factor. More empirically well-informed analysis is needed to probe the complexities lurking behind this intuitive but sweeping idea.