Resilience Research
An enormous number of books and articles have been written about democratic backsliding over the past 15 years. There is much less written about the resilience of democracy. We emphasise the importance of examining the sources of resilience in light of the current strains on democratic systems. At a time of global crisis, the rise of an undemocratic right, and a general decline of public confidence in liberal democracy, it is also urgent to analyse the strategies and actions that can make democracies more resilient. These are some of the reasons why TODA set up this research subgroup in the spring of 2025. The research into democratic resilience will focus on different regions of the world. Particularly on: North America, Latin America, India, Europe, and South East Asia.
The Impact of Trump 2.0 on Global Democracy
We begin our series on “Democratic Resilience” with analyses of the current state of US democracy. Trump’s policies are currently leading to a hollowing out of the country’s democratic institutions and democratic culture. The questions arise: how resilient are those democratic institutions, how stable is the country’s political culture, how are the economic and cultural elites of society reacting, and last but not least, what role does the demos, the people, play? Will US democracy survive as a constitutional and liberal system? What impact will internal developments in the world’s most powerful country have on the rest of the world? These and other questions will be published and discussed here over the coming months.
-
From Backsliding to Recalibration? Trump 2.0 and Democracy in the Philippines
This report analyses the three-fold impact of the Trump 2.0 presidency on Philippine domestic politics, economic sectors, and foreign policy. It argues that Trump’s restoration could reinforce authoritarian tendencies in the Philippines, undermine its economic resilience amid shifting global trade regimes and increasing economic coercion from China, and constrain its capacity for strategic autonomy within…
·
-
America’s Retreat and the Future of Economic Multilateralism
This policy brief discusses the systematic retreat of the United States from multilateral institutions which threatens global economic reform, coinciding with China’s construction of alternative frameworks and rising great-power bilateralism. This leads to a growing incapacity for shared solutions on development finance, climate action, and tax coordination. The analysis identifies three strategic pathways—institutional evolution, adaptive…
·
-
‘Trump-ed’ Democratic Ideals in Arab–US Relations: ‘Democracy Promotion in Reverse’?
This report discusses the rise of transactionalism in the Gulf states’ relations with the US, which is set not only to sideline democratic principles, norms, and institutions within Gulf polities, but also within the wider Arab region.
·
-
Democratic Resilience in the United States: Containing Trump’s Threat to Democracy?
This report provides a comparative perspective on two crucial questions. First, what are the possibilities that the United States might devolve into what political scientists have called a ‘competitive authoritarian regime’—one in which the façade of democratic institutions obscures the reality of political power that cannot be held to account by either constitutional checks-and-balances or…
·
