Democracy in the Headwinds: The Rise, Erosion, and Defence of Liberal Democracy

In Democracy in the Headwinds, Andreas Busch examines the growing threats to democracy worldwide and outlines the principles needed to safeguard it.

A mob storms the United States Capitol. A Hungarian strongman hollows out courts, media, and civil society for sixteen years, then is voted out in a landslide. Brexit exposes the fragility of a constitution built on unwritten conventions. In Germany, one in five voters chooses a party classified by the state’s own security apparatus as a suspected threat to the democratic order. What is going on―and should it concern us?

Drawing on evidence from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the wider democratic world, Andreas Busch tells the story of liberal democracy’s rise, its erosion by elected leaders who dismantle institutions from within, and the defenses that hold it together. He traces how economic dislocation, digital disruption, and the polarization of political life have converged to put mature democracies under pressure they were assumed to have outgrown.

At the heart of the book lies a deceptively simple argument: the procedural core of democracy―free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power―is the foundation on which everything else rests. Protect the mechanics, and everything else can be rebuilt. Lose them, and nothing can.

Andreas Busch is professor of political science at the University of Göttingen and a fellow of the Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.