This month’s presidential election in Turkey, followed by October’s parliamentary vote in Poland, could continue a trend that began in 2020 with Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the United States and continued last year with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s triumph over Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.
Both elections provided a powerful sense that the tide was turning against populist authoritarians. For democratic forces, however, electoral success is only the first step. After all, it is only when an authoritarian government is toppled that the hard work of institutional reconstruction begins.
But how can those spearheading that process possibly succeed, when major political forces refuse to accept the fundamentals of a competitive electoral system? This is largely uncharted territory. The late-20th-century “third wave” of democratization comprised almost exclusively what we can call “cooperative” transitions. Whether the political forces behind the falling regime negotiated the transition or were routed from power, they acquiesced to — and sometimes came to support — a new democratic order.
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