A one-stop source for following global trends in climate policy protests since 2022.

As climate politics become more salient, demonstrations will likely multiply and expand in influence.

As the world faces a democratic recession, many of the most common explanations fall short. But looking more closely at antidemocratic leaders’ motivations and methods reveals valuable insights about different types of backsliding and how international actors should respond.

While the adage that “misery loves company” is understandable as an emotional response, it is not a helpful approach to analyzing global politics. Overestimating the similarities between U.S. political dynamics and those of other troubled democracies distorts our understanding of democratic backsliding—and makes it more difficult to fight.

Over the past fifteen years, no regions have been more affected by the rising tide of global protest than the Middle East and North Africa, on the one hand, and Europe and North America, on the other.

To better understand the various paths by which societies might overcome or reduce political divisions, this working paper examines perniciously polarized countries that have successfully depolarized, at least for a time.

The United States’ democracy is being threatened by increasingly polarized politics. Other countries’ histories offer warnings and suggest possible solutions.

Despite their geographic diversity, the uprisings shared similar root causes.

By heeding lessons from past experience, Washington will have a better chance of crafting policies that fulfill both the administration’s aspiration to upgrade U.S. support for democracy and rights globally alongside its determination to preserve and, in some cases, expand important U.S. security partnerships.

This paper looks in depth at the democracy-security dilemma with a view to helping U.S. policymakers deal with it more systematically and effectively. Case studies of U.S. policy toward Egypt, India, and Turkey over the past twenty years highlight the complexity of the democracy-security dilemma.