from 2025 V-DEM Report
The number of dictators is on the rise worldwide, and democracy is on the decline. According to V-Dem InstituteFor the first time in over 20 years, the world is Less democracy than dictatorship. Other estimates It refers to the same trend. At a global level, there are obviously many reasons why this is happening, but it stands out in the West: the rise of right-wing populism.
In many major economies, the main political disparities are increasingly rated between one or more right-wing populist parties and more mainstream parties on the centre or left. Of course, political popularity every year It may become volatileHowever, the trend is unmistakable. This is happening due to the growing popularity of the rebel populist parties (Rassemblement National and Reconquéte in France, Afd’s AFD, Fratelli D’Italia in Italy, British reforms) or the transition of mainstream rights to populist parties (US Republicans and UK Conservatives).
Of course, democracy can survive elections for right-wing populist parties to government. There are many examples of where it is (for example, Trump’s first term as Potus, Poland, and the UK). But the nature of right-wing populism also means that it may not be. Populism is about parties that declare themselves to represent “people” while other parties and institutions represent “elites” who work against people. As a result, populist right-wing governments tend to dismantle key elements of pluralistic democracy, such as independent media, judiciary and civil servants. They are dictatorial and usually place an unprecedented amount of power in one hand. In such circumstances, elections can easily be fair. This will effectively replace democracy with a dictatorship.
If major election contests in most major countries are between right-wing populism and more mainstream parties, right-wing populists could at least win some of these contests. If it sometimes leads to the end of a democracy, or if it steadily erodes the possibility of a fair election, then unless the dictators collapse into democracy at equal speeds, the number of democracies will steadily decline and the number of dictatorial governments will increase. This process is accelerated when dictators intervene in other democracies to support right-wing populism, as Trump did.
Why are right-wing populist parties increasingly popular? This is an issue I have discussed many times, but recently here. I think it would be helpful to distinguish between what we describe as supply and demand aspects (not just economists). The supply side is related to politicians, the media and money. For example, why mainstream politicians choose to adopt populist policies, or why billionaires fund populist politicians or political parties. In the past, I have spoken about why right-wing parties who want to promote unpopular neoliberal ideas would choose to focus on more social issues like immigration. The demand side is about why right-wing populism is becoming increasingly attractive to some voters. The latter is what I want to focus on in this post.
It is a familiar territory that class politics, once central disparities in most major economies, is gradually replaced by, and perhaps still, gradually replaced by, the division between social liberals and social conservatives. Of course, economic issues remain very important in elections, but resolved patterns of voting behavior are related to class and education. Socially conservative voters tend to get older, while socially liberal voters are more likely to have gone to university. The central issue that divides liberals from conservatives and is becoming increasingly important in elections is immigration.
To see why this is happening, we can focus on the decline in importance of class-based economic issues, or the increasing importance of social issues, such as immigration. First, the decline in manufacturing employment and the shift to employment in most major economies are part of the story. [1] This is one of the reasons why trade unions are less affected. I think that in the UK the end of Thatcherism’s victory and revenue policy was more important. It could also add the decline of the Soviet Union to the mix as an alternative to capitalism.
Immigration is becoming more important as a problem. Immigrants It’s increasing Quite well in all regions and in all countries within every region. However, it is too crude to suggest that higher numbers automatically generate higher concerns. Immigration concerns are often the biggest in areas with relatively low immigration, and vice versa. London compared to other parts of the UK An obvious example. A much more important determinant of attitudes towards immigration is where people lie on the spectrum of social liberalism/conservatism (e.g. here).
The key determinants of where you are on this spectrum are age and education. Two general trends in most societies amplify these sectors. First, over the past 50 years, more people have been educated at universities; This increases The scope of socially liberal views. aGraduates tend to form most of the political and broadcast media elites.He may be one of the reasons why social attitudes have become increasingly liberal in most countries since World War II, but with the rise in right-wing populism, this trend may have ended and even turned around. .
Second, the number of elderly people is steadily increasing due to medical care and other advances. A rough measure of this is the rate of old age dependence, dividing the number of people over the age of 65 to roughly work (20-64). 1960, OECD overall dependency rate It was 16%, but by 2020 it doubled to 30%. By 2075, this ratio is expected to be close to 60%. This means that the salience of job-based economic problems is less due to the increasing proportion of voters, but this effect is moderated to a mild degree with an increase in retirement age. Additionally, older people are more likely to vote. All this creates a growing pool of socially conservative voters that politicians can sue.
These trends may help explain the growing importance of social and cultural issues in elections, but there is additional step to explain why parties that aim to attract socially conservative voters are likely to be populist and autocratic. Socially conservative views tend to match authoritarian views.
Social scientists often refer to the social conservative/liberal axis as the authoritarian/liberal axis. Authoritarian views create impatience in independent sources of power (Or actually democracy itself). It also means that socially conservative voters are more likely to be attracted to the type of “strong” (charismatic) leader who generally leads populist parties.
This is all very broad brush accounts, please tell us what the important demand side is The factors I ignored. However, as long as it is effective, it creates a growing demand for socially conservative populism, suggesting that it can further advance the trend away from democracy.
[1] Another story about the rise of populism focuses on what has been “left behind” by this and other aspects of globalization. This economic mechanism appears to be very different from the social/cultural debate I focused on. These two alternative perspectives compete regularly when right-wing populism wins. For example, when Trump was first elected, there was a lot of debate between those who essentially wanted to condemn racist attitudes among white majoritys, and those who wanted to look down on the left of the once-prosperous industrial nation. Brexit saw a similar argument. You can see the exact same tensionn Discussion About Poland’s recent presidential election.
I took a similar line Dani Rodric This means that this tension can at least partially be resolved by distinguishing between levels and changes. Social/cultural issues provide the foundation for support for right-wing populists, but it is often economical that these populists can balance winning and losing election races. I naturally focus on social/cultural accounts, as this post is not about the reason why right-wing populists sometimes win, but about the steady rise in right-wing populism.
