Over the past decade, the “boiling frog” has been a popular metaphor for the democratic decline in Western societies. While this gradual decline has several causes—such as the deleterious effects of economic and cultural globalization, the crisis of democratic representation, and the polarizing impact of dominant social media platforms—analysis has overlooked one critical factor: the absence of a shared understanding and clear conceptualization of external and internal adversaries, or even enemies, of democratic societies. This can be traced back to the fall of communism, the West’s triumph in the Cold War, and the absence of a competing model to democracy at the peak of the Pax Americana in the 1990s and early 2000s. At the same time, Western capital spread intensively in countries that were previously off limits, not least China and Russia. With no credible external threat to democratic values, and with the peaceful nature of societies driven by economic cooperation taken as self-evident, the notion of democratization and peace through globalization was frequently invoked. This was in clear opposition to the idea of considering one’s economic partners as adversaries, let alone enemies.
Like It or Not, Democratic Societies Need Clearly Defined Adversaries (Daniel Hegedüs, Goran Buldioski – German Marshall Fund of the United States)
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