As the world watches Donald Trump’s administration smash America’s democratic foundations, Prospect invited writers and thinkers who have seen illiberal populism take root in their countries to reflect on how to live through an authoritarian turn—and defend democracy.
South Korea
The country’s bloody history spurred citizens to do everything in their power to stop democratic backsliding
On 3rd December 2024, at 10.27pm, Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, had declared martial law, bringing back memories of the nation’s oppressive, authoritarian past. As Special Warfare Command troops began to converge on the parliament building in Seoul, alarmed citizens rushed to the scene. Many people recalled the haunting voice of a young woman echoing through the darkness in the city of Gwangju shortly after midnight on 27th May 1980. In the preceding days, troops from that same unit had brutally cracked down on peaceful demonstrators opposing martial law in Gwangju, killing hundreds. The voice said: “Please, citizens of Gwangju, the martial law troops are advancing. Please help us... ” Many more would die...
Read more from Namhee Lee, professor of Korean history at UCLA
Turkey
No restriction on the press is small, no interference with an independent judiciary is insignificant
Nothing is horrible enough for us anymore. Nothing shocks us. When we, the people of Turkey, hear our friends lament the demise of democracy, we nod without surprise. We have spent more than two decades in a slow boil, in despair and exhaustion. And yet, there is a kind of triumph in the fact that we are not yet fully cooked. So we go about our days, watching the state’s ever more aggressive crackdown on dissent. When we turn our gaze outward, we see that democracy in Europe and in the US is following Turkey’s path. We take it in with a certain detachment...
Read more from Ezgi Başaran, political scientist and former journalist
Hungary
Illiberal populism thrives in division—and in a pretend war it must never quite win
When I was a student in Budapest at the turn of the millennium, the idea that countries in east and central Europe would continue their democratic transformation was received wisdom. Politicians, journalists and my professors all expressed faith in Hungary’s gradual integration into the Euro-Atlantic community. Today, as I face my students, I struggle to explain where things went awry.
Read more from Gergely Romsics, Richard Plaschka fellow at the University of Vienna's Institute of East European History
India:
Autocrats want to capture our imagination. Don’t let them
More recently, I had been trying to make sense of how, or if, India’s current ruling party was simply the latest in a long line of governments that paid lip service to democracy while bending institutions to their will, or if there was something fundamentally different about the regime headed by Modi since 2014. As a friend put it: “Is this merely an intensification of things we’ve seen before, or is this something entirely new?” As it turns out, it is both.
Read more from Aman Sethi, editor-in-chief of openDemocracy
Argentina
Under a leader like Javier Milei, the problem isn’t polarisation, it’s paralysis
Argentina and the UK are very different countries, albeit with a colonial conflict and a war in their recent shared history. Today, however, the power of technofascism impacts Argentina just as it does Britain. Nobody is safe or exempt from its effects. It’s no good reading about what happens in Argentina as if it were an exotic case.
Read more from Luciana Peker, author, journalist and activist
Israel
Contempt—and defiance—are weapons to puncture the tyrant’s illusions of power
For Israeli progressives, the spectacle of the Trump administration waging its war against the safeguards of democracy is both familiar and foreboding. The developments in America are a searing flashback to January 2023, when the most radical, far-right government in Israel’s history took the reins of power. This coalition brought with it an assembly of Jewish supremacists, violent settlers, annexationists and zealots. Much like the second Trump administration, they did not arrive unprepared. They walked into their offices with plans already drawn, with blueprints for dismantling democracy.
Read more from Eran Nissan, Israeli peace activist and the CEO of Mehazkim, an Israeli progressive movement
