On March 19-20, 2026, the Clough Center held our annual Spring Symposium. The first day of the Symposium featured Professor Steven Levitsky, who gave a keynote speech on the “Surprising Resilience of Democracy.” Levitsky is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard.
The international situation during the 1980s and 1990s, Levitsky argued, paved the way for democratization. Conditions in today’s world, however, pose challenges for new democracies, he claimed. Levitsky contended that both the U.S. and Europe have lost the will and capacity to promote democracy, which facilitated the rise of populist governments, as in Hungary, in the 2010s.
Yet the evidence shows that today’s world is wealthier and more developed than at the start of the third wave of democratization in the mid-1970s. And the more developed the countries are, the more likely they are to incline toward democracy.
Capitalist development, by contrast, disperses resources beyond the state and creates “countervailing power”—money, organization, human capital, and collective capacity that opposition groups can mobilize. At the same time, capitalist development produces a more autonomous citizenry. Urbanization creates citizens who do not depend on the state for their livelihoods and who are less susceptible to clientelism, and generates a larger and wealthier private sector. Such a sector is harder to co-opt and better able to finance opposition parties, civil society, and independent media.
Despite the resilience of new democracies, there are several reasons for the rise of populism. Today, said Professor Levitsky, it is easier to be a populist than it was fifty years ago because political establishments have weakened. By “political establishment,” Levitsky means networks of influential actors—political parties, major interest groups, and mainstream media. Historically, these actors controlled the resources necessary for political success. Parties selected candidates, interest groups provided funding and organizational support, and media outlets gave candidates visibility.
Levitsky concluded that today’s political establishments have eroded. Parties no longer monopolize candidate selection; politicians can bypass them or create their own movements. Interest groups no longer dominate campaign finance, as candidates can raise funds online. As a result, politicians no longer need establishment approval. They can appeal directly to voters, violate norms, and present themselves as anti-elite outsiders. This has made populism far more viable.
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