INTRODUCTION

When examining the world today, we can see that a large majority of modern nation-states utilize and embrace some form of democracy. Democracy has been practiced sporadically throughout world history prior to the 18th and 19th centuries. Democracy has also taken many forms historically, where the voters were restricted to a certain class or where the elected administration held power underneath a central monarchical figure. The 20th century served as a sort of “golden age” for democracy thanks to the Allied democratic powers becoming victorious in both World Wars. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 CE served as another big transition to democracy across the world that seemed to be relatively promising.

That being said, the 21st century has displayed a number of democratic and democratic-leaning countries backsliding into authoritarianism. Countries across the Eurasian, African, and American continent have begun to swing towards autocracies due to political, economic, or social factors that have plagued the region. Recent examples of this can be seen in Syria, Turkiye, Hungary, Nicaragua, and Myanmar. These trends aren’t localized into one region, but are the result of a catalyst of differing factors that affect a given country. To help us formulate our own conclusion, let’s look into the factors that show a rejection of democracy and an embracing of authoritarianism.

ACTIVITY

To start, let’s take a look at the chart provided in this link.

Now let’s explore the map of countries that embrace authoritarianism

Lastly, let’s take a look at the video below that talks about the factors and reasons that democracy failed in the Weimar Republic:

Now that we have gone through this activity, let’s answer the following questions in the comment section:

1) Based on what you learned from the activities, why do you think democracies fail?

2) Do you believe that there are groups of people that naturally reject democracy?

3) What might make someone want to embrace authoritarianism?