Liberal Democracy on the Edge? Anxieties in a Shifting Global (dis)order

Abstract

The future of liberal democracy appears to be uncertain. This article develops a holistic approach to examine the prospects of liberal democracy by focusing on how three main regime types—that is, “established democratic regimes,” “hybrid regimes,” and “established authoritarian regimes”—interact with each other. We argue structural global political economy trends, which largely created the current authoritarian populist tide, remain strong despite signs of democratic renewal emerged with the recent new green Keynesian turn in established Western democracies, a more unified transatlantic response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and growing political-economic fragility of key hybrid regimes ruled by authoritarian populist leaders. Also, the resilience of various types of autocracies which co-exist and reinforce one another through economic linkages and political coalitions should not be underestimated, especially demonstrative effects of the Russia–China partnership. Both democratic and authoritarian forms of capitalism face serious problems of income and wealth inequality, raising challenges over “performance legitimacy” in both regime types. In this context, the performance and political-economic orientation of hybrid regimes will have a crucial bearing on the fortunes of liberal democracy on a global scale.