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Century</title></head><body>
<div
>https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2018-04-16/end-democratic-ce<span
></span>ntury</div>
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<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000"><b>The End of the Democratic
Century<br>
</b><i>Autocracy's Global Ascendance</i></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">By Yascha Mounk and Roberto
Stefan Foa<br>
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color="#000000"> </font></div>
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<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">Citizens across the world were
attracted to liberal democracy not simply because of its norms and
values but also because it offered the most salient model of economic
and geopolitical success. Civic ideals may have played their part in
converting the citizens of formerly authoritarian regimes into
convinced democrats, but the astounding economic growth of western
Europe in the 1950s and 1960s, the victory of democratic countries in
the Cold War, and the defeat or collapse of democracy's most powerful
autocratic rivals were just as important.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">Taking the material
foundations of democratic hegemony seriously casts the story of
democracy's greatest successes in a different light, and it also
changes how one thinks about its current crisis. As liberal
democracies have become worse at improving their citizens' living
standards, populist movements that disavow liberalism are emerging
from Brussels to Brasília and from Warsaw to Washington. A striking
number of citizens have started to ascribe less importance to living
in a democracy: whereas two-thirds of Americans above the age of 65
say it is absolutely important to them to live in a democracy, for
example, less than one-third of those below the age of 35 say the same
thing. A growing minority is even open to authoritarian alternatives:
from 1995 to 2017, the share of French, Germans, and Italians who
favored military rule more than tripled.</font></div>
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<div><font face="Arial" color="#000000">The big question now is
whether Russia will remain alone in its attempt to influence the
politics of liberal democracies. The answer is almost certainly no:
its campaigns have proved that outside meddling by authoritarian
powers in deeply divided democracies is relatively easy and strikingly
effective, making it very tempting for Russia's authoritarian peers to
follow suit.</font></div>
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