Brendan Hartnett

Brendan Hartnett is a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program.

July 2024, Volume 35, Issue 3

Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding

If democracies did a better job “delivering” for their citizens, so the thinking goes, people would not be so ready to embrace antidemocratic alternatives. Not so. This conventional wisdom about democratic backsliding is seldom true and often not accurate at all.