Rachel Beatty Riedl is professor of public policy and government at Cornell University and the Peggy J. Koenig ’78 Director of the Brooks Center on Global Democracy. Her latest book (edited with Valerie Bunce, Thomas Pepinksy, and Kenneth Roberts) is Global Challenges to Democracy: Comparative Perspectives on Backsliding, Autocracy, and Resilience (2025).
Democracy across the world is being undermined by the very forces that once made it possible: the liberal economic order and political competition. The global concentration of wealth has made democratic governance less effective and stripped the people of their power.
In Senegal, voters, civil society, and the media remain active and engaged, but as the reelection of Macky Sall showed, the president’s ability to limit competition and centralize power remains formidable.
