How Great is the Current Danger to Democracy? Assessing the Risk With Historical Data

• Published date: 01 October 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140231168363
• Author: Daniel Treisman
• Date: 01 October 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2023, Vol. 56(12) 1924–1952

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140231168363

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How Great is the Current

Danger to Democracy?

Assessing the Risk With

Historical Data

Daniel Treisman

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

Abstract

Inf‌luential voices contend that democracy is in decline worldwide and threat-

ened in the US. Using a variety of measures, I show that—while there has been

some recent backsliding—the global proportion of democracies remains close

to an all-time high. The current rate of deterioration is not historically unusual

and is well explained by the lower income and unseasoned institutions of many

new democracies swept upwards in the ThirdWave. Historical datasuggest the

probability of democratic breakdown in the US is extremely low. Western

governments are seen as threatened by weakening popular support for de-

mocracyand an erosion of elite norms.But systematic evidence for theseclaims

is very limited. While eroding democratic quality in some countries is indeed a

cause for concern, the fear of a global slide int o autocracy appears premature.

Keywords

democracy authoritarian backsliding, democratization and regime change

Democracy is widely thought to be in danger both globally and in the US.

Around the world, popular government is said to be in “recession,”

“decaying,”“in retreat,”and “beleaguered”(Abramowitz & Repucci,

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University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Corresponding Author:

Daniel Treisman, Department of Political Science, University of California, 4289 Bunche Hall, Los

Angeles 90095, USA.

Email: treisman@polisci.ucla.edu

2018;Diamond, 2015;Rachman, 2016;Zakaria, 2018). According to one

former US Secretary of State, fascism poses “amoreseriousthreat…than

at any time since the end of World WarII”(Albright, 2018). Recent books

offer Western readers tips on “surviving autocracy”and resisting “tyr-

anny”(Gessen, 2020;Snyder, 2017). (Among other useful advice: “Listen

for dangerous words,”“Make eye contact and small talk,”and “Be wary of

paramilitaries.”) Op-ed pages abound with allusions to Weimar Germany

and Chile under Allende (Cohen, 2015;Dorfman, 2017). Academic as-

sessments have often been more measured, or even skeptical (e.g.,

Levitsky & Way 2015,Carothers & Youngs,201 7). Still, leading scholars

have recently expressed “dread”over the state of American politics,

warned that “democracies are always fragile,”and suggested that the US

may be on the verge of civil war (Levitsky & Ziblatt 2018,1;Walter 2022).

How serious are current threats to democracy? In this paper, I examine a

range of historical data in search of answers. Of course, patterns could

change, and the data available are far from perfect. But comparisons to past

cases seem to be fueling current alarm, so a systematic review seems

warranted.

I begin with description, charting the historical rise of democracy, and

assessing the dimensions of the current “democratic recession.”

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Ithen

turn to risk analysis. I f‌irst examine what factors best account for past

breakdowns. Broad public support for democracy and elite norms of

cooperation and tolerance are often thought vital for democratic survival.

Although plausible, these claims are hard to test, and—as I illustrate with

data from two major studies—evidence for them is far from unequivocal.

While falling support for democracy might help explain failures among

weak electoral democracies, such effects cannot easily explain recent

backsliding in most liberal democracies. On elite norms, the most sys-

tematic analysis I could f‌ind shows only that in Latin America a radical,

authoritarian military increases the risk of anti-democratic coups—a

f‌inding with few obvious implications for the partisan polarization of

Washington. By contrast, I show that advanced economic development

and long-established democratic institutions correlate robustly with

democratic survival. Using all available historical data, I estimate the

hazard that particular states will revert to authoritarianism. For a country

with the US’s income and political history, the odds of this turn out to be

extremely low.

The next section surveys historical trends in the emergence and survival of

democracies. The Looking Ahead section explores evidence on the correlates

of democratic survival and uses the result to forecast reversions to autocracy.

The f‌inal section concludes.

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Treisman 1925