The Myth of Democratic Recession

The Myth of Democratic Recession Steven Levitsky (bio) and Lucan Way (bio) A near consensus has emerged that the world has fallen into a “democratic recession.” Leading observers and democracy advocates characterize the last decade as a period of democratic “rollback,” “erosion,” or “decline,”1 in which new democracies have fallen victim to a “powerful authoritarian undertow.”2 In an article entitled “The Great Democracy Meltdown,” for example,...