Liberal democracy is under siege. Conservative and reactionary political forces are undermining democratic processes to such an extent that we may be witnessing the emergence of hybrid political systems composed of democratic and dictatorial components. Brazil since 2018 is presented as an example of this dangerous degradation of liberal democracy. The chapter identifies the four main components of this process: electing autocrats, the plutocratic virus, fake news and algorithms, and the hijacking of institutions.

Chapter 10 concludes the book by suggesting two potential lines of inquiry that emerge from the discussion of role-based constitutional fellowship. First, the chapter suggests that future research should consider how non-citizens should be treated in a liberal democracy. Second, the chapter suggests that future research should consider how liberal democrats should respond to liberal democracy’s enemies.

Which psychological orientations form the cultural foundations of political regimes? To answer this question, I demonstrate as a point of departure that (1) the countries’ membership in culture zones explains some 70% of the global variation in autocracy-vs-democracy and (2) that this culture-bound variation has remained astoundingly constant over time – in spite of all the trending patterns in the global distribution of regime types over the last 120 years. Furthermore, the explanatory power of culture zones over autocracy-vs-democracy roots in the cultures’ differentiation on 'authoritarian-vs-emancipative values'. Against this backdrop, regime change happens as a result of glacially accruing regime-culture misfits – driven by generational value shifts into a predominantly emancipatory direction. Consequently, the backsliding of democracies into authoritarianism is limited to societies in which emancipative values remain underdeveloped. Contrary to the widely cited deconsolidation-thesis, the prevalent generational profile in people’s moral orientations exhibits an almost ubiquitous ascension of emancipative values that will lend more, not less, legitimacy to democracy in the future.

This chapter engages with theories of democratic origin and persistence, late developing states (following Gerschenkron), and workforce dependencies in post-communist settings to suggest how understanding the genesis of the middle class/bourgeoisie in imperial Russia, and distinguishing it from a middle class that is state-fabricated rapidly as part of communist late development catch-up, could help refine theories of the links between the bourgeoisie/middle class and democracy. Based on analysis of author-gathered regional and district data on estate structure and voting for the imperial First, Second, Third, and Fourth Dumas and post-communist parliament, and ascertaining that the “old” middle class exhibits greater democratic proclivities than the “new,” I corroborate the theory of a two-pronged middle class. I first explain how unpacking the genesis, resilience, and political orientations of the multilayered stratum of the educated estates nuances ongoing debates about the interaction between distinct sets of legacies associated with pre-communist and communist regimes. Next, I present analysis that systematically extrapolates the insights from the dissection of the reproduction of the social structure to explain variations in subnational democratic quality in Russia. I also perform a placebo test demonstrating how the deportation of entire communities, the Volga Germans, wipes out the effect of a social legacy.

This chapter discusses how the preceding analysis has wider, portable, comparative implications for understanding the drivers of variations in shades of authoritarianism and illiberalism in other communist legacy countries. I structure the chapter as follows. I first sketch out an analytical framework for a comparative analysis of two new cases: Hungary and China. The section also delineates limitations of scope and restrictions in applications to the universe of communist states and beyond. I then proceed to analyze each case with reference to the key variables of interest. A final section concludes with reflections on the utility of the framework for understanding social inequalities and the long shadow of premodern societies in effecting democratic vulnerabilities and resilience in the present-day illiberal world.

This chapter presents some basic descriptive data on core behavior in international law, including the formation and interpretation of international law, participation in multilateral treaty regimes, the conclusion of bilateral treaties, and the willingness to bring disputes before international courts and tribunals. In every area, democratic governance shows substantially greater propensity to engage international law, relative to autocratic governments.

What happens to state bureaucracies when authoritarianism emerges? How do autocrats seek to use the administration to their ends? This chapter addresses these questions, analyzing Venezuela as a typical or representative case. Venezuela has been a (more or less) functioning democracy since 1958. Within the system of the so-called "Puntofijismo," major parties agreed to a consensual model of democracy, sharing offices and distributing revenues of the oil rent. The public administration supported and managed the distribution. This led to stability and wealth in regional comparison. In 1998, Hugo Chávez, a former military officer and failed putschist, assumed the presidency in Venezuela. In the following years, but especially under president Maduro, Venezuela experienced a severe decline of democracy and is today clearly an authoritarian regime. In this chapter, we analyze the strategies of the Chavista governments vis-à-vis the administration. We identify three main strategies to sideline the established bureaucracy: first, repression and firing; second, circumventing and neglecting, which means creating a "parallel state"; and third, militarization of the "civil" service.

The world responded in many different ways to the coronavirus epidemic. Why is that? Three obvious solutions present themselves: different understandings of the nature of the disease and how to tackle it, the nature of the political system in each nation, the history of how pandemics had been dealt with in the past in each country. Upon inspection, none of these explanations seems to work. The scientific understanding of the disease and its means of spreading were broadly similar in all nations. Only at the margins did unorthodox theories hold sway. Most nations claimed to be following expert advice, but what the experts advised differed. Politicians could pick and choose among the counsels they received. Both democracies and autocracies tried each of the three possible approaches to the pandemic, targeted quarantine, broad lockdown, or a hands-off approach. And nations did not obviously follow the tactics they had used in previous epidemics. The heavy hand of past public health interventions, with the state compelling citizens to follow behavioral prescriptions, was harder to implement today.

In the medieval and early modern West succession to the throne of monarchs proceeded by primogeniture, with some explicit legal basis. In medieval Russia political theory as such did not exist. Monarchy was understood in the context of Orthodoxy. The main form of discussion was in texts that provided images of good and bad monarchs, primarily chronicles, world histories, and the lives of saintly princes. In Russia succession was frequently collateral, a system that caused many disputes until the middle of the fifteenth century.