This interesting article appears in Foreign Policy. Here is an excerpt:

For 15 consecutive years, Freedom House’s annual tally has recorded a decline in the number of democracies worldwide. It’s a steady loss of ground that Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford University, calls a “democratic recession.” And no event put the reality of democratic backsliding more dramatically on display than the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—when the world’s oldest liberal democracy endured the first violent presidential transition in its 245-year history. As we mark that event’s dubious anniversary, we’re reminded how fragile democracy really is.

Democracy is on the defensive, and the reasons are as deep as they are familiar. Growing inequality has fed a global mood that democratic institutions aren’t serving their citizens. The internet and social media have hypercharged political polarization and cultural divides, which populists easily exploit. Mass immigration and rapid demographic shifts have empowered extremists. Around the world, authoritarian regimes have seized the West’s weakness as an opportunity to expand their influence. Autocrats are winning admirers in the West, too: In an ever more complex world facing generational threats—from pandemics to climate change—the speed and totality with which autocracies can implement decisions has some wondering if messy, deliberative, compromise-seeking democracy can still do the job. In a June 2021 poll, a slight majority of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 had a favorable view of socialism, suggesting that younger generations in Western democracies are increasingly open to alternative systems of governance.

Read the full article here.