Cy Black International Book Forum: The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies

In "The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies," by Susan C. Stokes demonstrates that increasing income inequality, a legacy of late twentieth-century globalization, left some countries especially at risk of backsliding toward autocracy. Left-behind voters were drawn to right-wing ethnonationalist leaders in countries like the United States, India, and Brazil, and to left-wing populist ones in countries like Venezuela, Mexico, and South Africa. "The Backsliders" describes how journalists, judges, NGOs, and opposition leaders can put the brakes on democratic erosion, and how voters can do so through political engagement and the power of the ballot box.

The Cyril Black International Book Forum is held in honor of the late Cyril Black, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished Professor of History and International Affairs Emeritus at Princeton. Black was the director of Princeton’s Center of International Studies from 1968 to 1985 (CIS became PIIRS in 2003) and a member of the University faculty for 50 years.

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