This year, the European elections set for late May have continent-wide themes and a continent-wide significance, notes Anne Applebaum, a board member of the National Endowment for Democracy. Ironically, or perhaps absurdly,… Read more »
2019 stands a good chance of being the year that the populist project crumbles into incoherence, as it becomes increasingly clear that bad ideas have bad consequences, argues FT analyst… Read more »
Władysław Frasyniuk (above) championed democracy in the face of Communist rule in Poland in the 80s. Now, he warns the freedom he fought for is starting to slip away. (The… Read more »
France is the latest European country to experience an upsurge of anti-elitist sentiment ripe for exploitation by populist or illiberal forces. The demonstrators known as gilets jaunes — “yellow vests,” named after… Read more »
Populist parties have more than tripled their support in Europe in the last 20 years, securing enough votes to put their leaders into government posts in 11 countries and challenging… Read more »
Advanced democracies enjoy institutional defenses against would-be authoritarian leaders, analysts suggest, and even where they fall victim to illiberal or populist rule, they tend to demonstrate resilience and capacity for… Read more »
National populists operate within the shell of democratic institutions, and have weakened but not destroyed them, the FT’s John Lloyd writes in a review of Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the… Read more »
Portuguese “immunity” to populism has been strong, compared to the trends in other European Union member states, Isabel Marques da Silva writes for Euronews: But mainstream political parties should be vigilant… Read more »
Are there lessons for renewal from democracies that have faced executive degradation of pre-weakened democratic institutions, particularly countries with polarized populations? In What Comes Next? Lessons for the Recovery of Liberal Democracy, a report… Read more »
Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential victory in Brazil is part of a growing trend of authoritarian leaders being democratically elected across the world, notes Latin America expert Pablo Galarce. “[What] has happened… Read more »