The Signs of Deconsolidation

Issue Date January 2017
Volume 28
Issue 1
Page Numbers 5-16
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In recent years, parties and candidates challenging key democratic norms have won unprecedented popular support in liberal democracies across the globe. Drawing on public opinion data from the World Values Survey and various national polls, we show that the success of anti-establishment parties and candidates is not a temporal or geographic aberration, but rather a reflection of growing popular disaffection with liberal-democratic norms and institutions, and of increasing support for authoritarian interpretations of democracy. The record number of anti-system politicians in office raises uncertainty about the strength of supposedly “consolidated” liberal democracies and highlights the need for further analysis of the signs of democratic deconsolidation.

About the Authors

Roberto Stefan Foa

Roberto Stefan Foa is university lecturer in politics at the University of Cambridge, director of the YouGov-Cambridge Centre for Public Opinion Research, and co-director of the Cambridge Centre for the Future of Democracy.

View all work by Roberto Stefan Foa

Yascha Mounk

Yascha Mounk is associate professor of the practice of international affairs at Johns Hopkins University and the author of The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure (2022).

View all work by Yascha Mounk