Scott Mainwaring is Eugene and Helen Conley Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and the coeditor (with Tarek Masoud) of Democracy in Hard Places (2022).
A review of Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe, by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan.
Alongside democratic backsliding is another, more pernicious phenomenon: dictatorial drift, where “soft” authoritarian regimes are opting to become highly repressive dictatorships. The West must develop new strategies to defend democracy…
