Beyond Performance: Why Leaders Still Matter

Issue Date April 2025
Volume 36
Issue 2
Page Numbers 20–22
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In their response to “Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding,” Francis Fukuyama, Chris Dann, and Beatriz Magaloni defend the proposition that democracies’ failure to deliver is a primary cause of democratic backsliding. Yet evidence that poor economic performance correlates with citizen dissatisfaction with democracy falls short as an explanation of backsliding. Democracy has persisted in some faltering economies while eroding in various strong economies. Moreover, the leaders driving the rise of electoral autocracy were often elected promising to reform, not dismantle, democracy. A focus on the methods and motivations of such leaders, and the failure of existing guardrails to constrain them, remains essential to explaining democracy backsliding.

About the Authors

Thomas Carothers

Thomas Carothers is the Harvey V. Fineberg Chair and director of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His most recent book is Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization (2019, coedited with Andrew O’Donohue).

View all work by Thomas Carothers

Brendan Hartnett

Brendan Hartnett is a research associate at Longwell Partners.

View all work by Brendan Hartnett

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