Religion was another source of cultural conflict. The 2015 European refugee crisis intensified this split, and anti-immigration parties enjoyed a surge of popular support. Some citizens-mainly urban and highly educated-welcomed this others did not. As globalization intensified and the significance of national borders declined (especially within the European Union), the pace of immigration accelerated and national populations became more diverse. Public discontent went well beyond economic issues. The grindingly slow recovery and the premature adoption of fiscal austerity fed public discontent, as did the growing inequality between geographical regions as well as economic classes within countries. As the manufacturing sector struggled, many working- and middle-class citizens became victims of globalization and the rise of the information economy.
The global financial crisis that began in 2008 undermined confidence in the neoliberal consensus that had dominated politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The catalogue has become clear, even if the respective weights to be attributed to specific causes remain in dispute. Scholars and political analysts have extensively studied the causes of the current liberal-democratic backsliding. They are a condition to be managed, not a disease to be cured. Wise leadership can mitigate these weaknesses, but it cannot eliminate them. These weaknesses reside in liberal democracy’s genetic code, handed down through the generations, the expression of which varies with circumstances. Like every other form of government, liberal democracy has inherent structural weaknesses that the difficulties of the moment exacerbate but do not create. 3ĭespite their currency in today’s politics, these indictments are neither new nor, in the main, true. If everything is a matter of choice, they argued, then everything is permitted, and nihilism is inevitable. 2 Cultural traditionalists claimed that liberal individualism eroded moral and religious communities and that liberal freedom erased the distinction between liberty and license. Nationalists alleged that liberalism bred international institutions and laws that invaded nations’ sovereignty and hobbled the pursuit of legitimate national interests. Populists charged that liberalism had become a cloak for antidemocratic elitism that took power away from rank-and-file citizens while undermining their economic interests. Well before the covid-19 outbreak, antiliberal politicians and intellectuals had issued a complex bill of particulars against liberalism. Freedom of the press is under threat, as are the rule of law and the peaceful coexistence of ethnic and religious groups within diverse societies. Many of these leaders have seized on the covid-19 pandemic to expand their emergency powers, which they will be reluctant to yield when the crisis abates. From Hungary and Turkey to India and Brazil, authoritarian-minded leaders brandishing democratic credentials have sought to curtail minority rights and political competition. 1 Many liberal democracies have lost vitality and public support some have shed key feats ureof the liberal-democratic form of government a few have abandoned it outright. After a three-decade global surge that brought the number of liberal democracies to a historic peak in 2005, the past fourteen years have witnessed a steady decline. Liberal democracy is under pressure and on the defensive. Portions of this essay are adapted from his Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (2018). Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. Like every other form of government, liberal democracy has inherent structural weaknesses that the difficulties of the moment exacerbate but do not create. Yet these populist, nationalist, and cultural-traditionalist critiques are based on misunderstandings of liberalism. Cultural traditionalists claimed that liberal individualism eroded moral and religious communities and that liberal freedom erased the distinction between liberty and license.