From Democracy Digest, the National Endowment for Democracy’s daily blog:

Anti-Americanism has surged in much of the world, according to new polling from the Pew Research Center. But unlike an earlier generation of detractors, critics are less concerned about the exercise of unrivaled U.S. power than they are about a U.S. retreat—from both global leadership and liberal democracy, notes Richard Wike, Director of Global Attitudes Research at the Pew Research Center.

In fact, a major driver of anti-Americanism today has less to do with geopolitics or foreign policy and more to do with the unease that currently pervades democratic societies amid a global “democratic recession,” in the words of the political scientist Larry Diamond (below),* he writes for Foreign Affairs:

According to International IDEA’s most recent assessment of the global state of democracy, “Democracy is ill and its promise needs revival.” The scholars Roberto Stefan Foa and Yascha Mounk have examined public opinion over time and found decreasing support for democracy and growing support for nondemocratic forms of government in a number of supposedly “consolidated” democracies. In many ways, liberal democracy is experiencing a crisis of confidence, as recent Pew data shows. A 2017 survey found a median of 78 percent across 38 countries saying representative democracy is a good form of government, but surprisingly high numbers were also open to nondemocratic alternatives, such as rule by experts (49 percent), rule by a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with parliaments or courts (26 percent), or even military rule (24 percent).

Read this interesting article here.