While most over 40 can agree that we need to protect the liberal democratic order, it is our young people that are the future. Unless we engage our students, and inculcate them with the values of citizenship, then the West and the democratic world face a crisis. From the USA to Germany, the youth vote is gravitating towards the extremes and it is a trend that is becoming increasingly alarming.
It is with this in mind that we are honoured to welcome Scarlett Lu (17), youth ambassador of the Liberal Democratic NGO Section 1 and our youngest contributor to date. Below is an abridged version of her shortlisted submission to the John Locke Global Prize Essay Competition (the most prestigious writing competition in the world for high school students), the results of which are announced today. We wish Scarlett good luck!
Please support our young inheritors of the liberal democratic tradition by liking, spreading and promoting this wonderful essay. Canada and the free world need far more Scarletts. - Daniel Clarke-Serret (Editor of Guerre and Shalom and Senior Fellow of Section 1).
For More on this Topic:
“A Twenty-First-Century Crisis: The Public’s Complicity in Autocratizing Democracies” by Scarlett Lu
Introduction
To assign the characterization of “in crisis” to the system of democracy is quite arbitrary. It is possible, of course, for democracy to die an unequivocal death. The coups d’état of the Cold War saw violent overthrows of democracy. When the Chilean military bombed the presidential palace and General Augusto Pinochet took over as an authoritarian dictator, the question “Is democracy in crisis?” would have seemed redundant to raise.
But in the twenty-first century, liberal democracies around the world are vulnerable to slow, nearly imperceptible deaths. Since the conclusion of the Cold War, “most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves… Democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box” (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2019). Elected governments and opposition parties alike manipulate human social psychology to advantage their own interests. Citizens’ responsibilities to a free and fair constitutional democracy are trivialized, transforming people from accountability agents to useful pawns (Biro, 2025).
Democracy is in crisis because democracies globally are not functioning as they should: with power vested in the people and with government merely a servant. Wunsch’s 2025 scholarly book on democratic backsliding contends that as political elites deliberately weaken judicial independence and undermine electoral competition, “citizens play a central role in supporting, or at least tolerating, such elected leaders… Their inability to fulfil their role as the ‘ultimate arbiter of the democratic game’ has been central to autocratizing elites’ ability to maintain—or, in the case of the United States, renew—their grip on power” (Wunsch, 2025). While citizens are not exclusively to blame, they are failing to hold their elected officials accountable and openly criticize government actions (Panagi, 2023). In 2026, our modern democracy crisis is defined by the escalating weaponization of fear and citizens’ failure to commit to democratic ideals in the face of tribulations.
Weaponizing Fear
The current erosion of civic duty occurs chiefly through fear and its weaponization against political opposition. Fear is indisputably the most efficient “democracy-proofing” agent. It replaces rational, open discourse via free expression with paranoia and apathy for democratic commitments. Political adversaries are turned into existential enemies, targeted for a simple end goal: political domination—achieved through any means necessary. It destroys opposing forces and eliminates diverse opinions, laying the groundwork for an emerging tyranny (Biro, 2025; Ignatieff, 2022).
At its most extreme, fear is utilized as a totalitarian tool for supreme power. Following the American Civil War, newly freed African Americans were granted the franchise and rapidly gained political power to the alarm of white supremacists and many Southern Democrats. Anticipating the subversion of their authority, Confederate veterans founded the Ku Klux Klan, which would go on to reign terror on Black communities. Before the 1868 presidential election, the Ku Klux Klan hunted down over 200 African Americans in St. Landry Parish, embarking on a murderous rampage to eradicate any support for the local Republican Party. Not a single Republican vote was cast (DeLatte, 1976).
Fear continues to be employed as a tool to eliminate opposition in the 21st century. In recent years, threats against public officials have been on a “meteoric rise” for both national politicians and local officials, according to Seamus Hughes of the George Washington University Program on Extremism. Jurecic (2022) writes that “the number of recorded threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold in the five years after Mr. Trump was elected in 2016…with more than 9,625 threats reported in 2021.” Fjelde (2026) explains that “violence in conjunction with elections can be used to influence voting, intimidate voters, attack the opposition, and target other actors working to safeguard electoral integrity. In the long run, violence can also affect citizens’ perceptions of democracy and their willingness to participate in it.” Globally, over 25 percent of elections are marked by violent behaviours or attacks that manipulate electoral results. Instilling fear into the political opposition runs counter to the bedrock of democratic engagement and cooperation through compromise and negotiation. Violence against the free press has maintained its prominence as well: from 2011 to 2021, over 550 journalists were murdered globally. Jurado and Morales (2026) identify that among Mexican journalists, “targeted outlets reduced media activity in the year following a journalist killing.” Intimidation and the rising weaponization of fear evidently play a grave role in the ongoing collapse of democracy.
Capitulation to Authority
Furthermore, citizens’ capitulation to high-ranking authorities and political officials is wholly eroding democracy around the world. The habituation of citizens to authoritarian government comes down to human nature: lying down and obeying rather than standing up for freedom may be a psychological instinct. In Stanley Milgram’s 1961 obedience-to-authority experiments, the Yale University psychologist found that 65% of participants were willing to administer a fatal 450-volt electric shock to an innocent stranger when an authority figure ordered them to do so. Individuals in an agentic state perceive themselves as passive agents simply carrying out another actor’s wishes; those in an autonomous state believe they control their own actions and therefore bear full moral responsibility for them (Lewis, 2024).
Today, the nature of human obedience has devastating consequences for the survival of democracy. Stanley Milgram proposes that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. However, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear…relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority” (Branden, 1975).
A textbook example of such gradual destruction is observed across Latin America, where the American continent overall is witnessing a persistent downturn of democratic principles, according to the Global Campus of Human Rights (Benítez-Mongelós, 2025). El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has systematically dismantled the nation’s checks and balances, co-opting the Supreme Court by replacing all previous magistrates with loyalist judges, who abolished presidential term limits, enabling Bukele to run for indefinite re-election. Citizens under such regimes undergo a gradual process of acclimatization to increasingly undemocratic standards; yet there is seldom ever a single moment when a government has unmistakably crossed over from democratic to authoritarian. Instead, the boundaries of what the public deems acceptable under a constitutional democracy are pushed further and further (López, 2026).
The argument that democracy’s collapse is primarily attributed to citizens comes down to how citizens “have omitted to withdraw support from authoritarian-leaning leaders even once they have shown their undemocratic colours, thereby effectively enabling them to pursue the gradual dismantling of the democratic system” (Wunsch, 2025). As a result, the number of “Not Free” countries has steadily increased over the last two decades, rising from 24% in 2005 to 30% in 2025 (Gorokhovskaia et al., 2026). This lack of intervention by citizens may not always be accidental, although it can end up that way. Guterman (2025) explains that backsliding is “a symptom of a deeper problem.” The dismantling of Thailand’s democracy had begun with deep ideological division, resulting from Parliament’s inability to appease conservative voters. Extreme polarization and ineffective incumbent administrations embolden incoming politicians to override democratic checks and balances, free from fear of heavy criticism from the majority of voters.
Counterargument and Conclusion
Granted, it is arguable that democracy is always and has always been at major risk of collapsing. The 200-Year Theory, proposed by 18th-century historian Lord Tytler, estimates that democracies last only around 200 years before breaking down into authoritarianism (Owens, 2022). President Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech made clear that the United States in the 1970s was losing trust in government and public institutions; voter turnout was staggeringly low, with two-thirds of eligible voters failing to cast their ballots (Hastings, 2023).
It is not that global democracy is experiencing an unprecedented crisis; it is that global democracy is experiencing a crisis—as it often does—and still, individuals are turning their backs on the constitutional principles guarding their liberty in light of the tumultuous political environments suffocating them. When looking back at the first great democracy, historians often do not agree upon a single answer as to why Ancient Athens eventually collapsed into an autocracy. But perhaps it is unanimously agreed upon that it was citizens who, at the end of the day, failed their democracy. By looking away from political corruption and “turning to the perceived stability of an emperor,” or an autocrat, democracy in the modern day faces a remarkably similar crisis (Daley, 2018). Citizens in every nation worldwide are imbued with a single moral responsibility: to revitalize democracy and prove the Great Experiment a success—or make the same mistake again.
References
Barber, A. (2023, March 9). Crisis of confidence speech: Revisiting jimmy carter’s address. Close Up Foundation. https://www.closeup.org/revisiting-jimmy-carters-crisis-of-confidence-speech/
Biro, P. (2025). Liberal Democracy in the Rearview Mirror?: Morning Keynote - Peter Biro [Review of Liberal Democracy in the Rearview Mirror?: Morning Keynote - Peter Biro]. In Massey College.
Branden, B. (1975, October 1). Milgram, “Obedience to Authority.” Libertarianism.org. Libertarianism.Org. https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/milgram-obedience-authority
Daley, J. (2018, November 6). Lessons in the decline of democracy from the ruined roman republic. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lessons-decline-democracy-from-ruined-roman-republic-180970711/
DeLatte, C. E. (1976). The St. Landry Riot: A Forgotten Incident of Reconstruction Violence. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, 17(1), 41–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4231556
Fjelde, H. (2026). How political violence threatens to weaken democracy. Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. https://kaw.wallenberg.org/en/research/how-political-violence-threatens-weaken-democracy
Freedom House. (2026, March). Freedom in the world 2026: The growing shadow of autocracy. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2026-03/FIW2026_final_digital%20%281%29.pdf
Guterman, D. (2025, March 4). The democratic dismantling of democracies: How leaders undermine the systems that elect them. The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Ash Center. https://ash.harvard.edu/articles/the-democratic-dismantling-of-democracies-how-leaders-undermine-the-systems-that-elect-them/
Ignatieff, M. (2022, October). The Politics of Enemies. Journal of Democracy. https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-politics-of-enemies/
Jay, R. (2020, January 7). How democracies die. American Academy in Berlin. https://www.americanacademy.de/how-democracies-die/
Jurecic, Q. (2023). Taking the pelosi attack seriously. Lawfare. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/taking-pelosi-attack-seriously
Lewis, T. T. (2024). Milgram experiment. EBSCO. https://www.ebsco.com
NORC at the University of Chicago. (n.d.). Democratic backsliding and authoritarian resurgence in Latin America [Panel brief]. https://www.norc.org/content/dam/norc-org/pdfs/Democratic%20Backsliding%20Panel%20-%20Brief%20-%20English.pdf
Owens, C. (2022, July 26). Connections: Is the ‘Tytler Cycle’ inevitable? The Berkshire Edge. https://theberkshireedge.com/connections-is-the-tytler-cycle-inevitable/
Panagi, K. (2023, November 12). Democracy and participation: The cornerstones of a just society. YourCommonwealth. YourCommonwealth. https://yourcommonwealth.org/peace-democracy/democracy-and-participation-the-cornerstones-of-a-just-society/
Washington, G. (1890). Letter to Catharine Macaulay Graham, 9 January 1790. In W. C. Ford (Ed.), The writings of George Washington (Vol. 11, pp. 451–454). G. P. Putnam’s Sons. https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/ford-the-writings-of-george-washington-vol-xi-1785-179
Wunsch, N. (2025). Democratic commitment: Why citizens tolerate democratic backsliding. Oxford University Press.
Yousif, N. (2024, October 29). Paul Pelosi attacker gets life in prison without parole. BBC. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cje09qx348do
Flores López, A. (2026). Looking at populism and democratic backsliding in the latin american context: The case of el salvador. In M. Lackowska, L. A. Nguyen Long, W. Aksztejn, & I. Tosics (Eds.), Cities Against Democratic Backsliding (pp. 162–183). Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529250633.ch010
👏👏👏 A terrific article that makes a very important and timely point by Scarlett Lu! Democracy is failing right now because of the apathy, ignorance, stupidity, and a complete lack of accountability. The West has a problem with a low caliber of citizenry who just either don’t care, vote without being informed enough to really understand who or what their voting for, fall for demagogues or far-right parties, are lazy, never cast a ballot or participate in democracy, or vote based on tribal loyalties or something trivial.