Stanford University

Democracy

Guarding Democracy from Within: The EU’s Struggle Against Internal Democratic Backsliding

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In a recent REDS (Rethinking European Security and Development) seminar co-hosted by Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and The Europe Center (TEC), Professor Kim Lane Scheppele offered a clear and urgent account of a growing crisis inside the European Union (EU): the erosion of democracy within some of its own member states. Her central claim was that the EU now faces two different democracy deficits. The first is the traditional, institutional problem — often described as the EU being “too technocratic” and “too distant” from voters. The second, and far more dangerous, is the rise of internal democratic backsliding, where member states that were once consolidated democracies begin to dismantle their own checks and balances.

Scheppele began by explaining the older, familiar form of the democracy deficit. Many key EU institutions — the European Commission, the Council, and the European Court of Justice — are not directly elected. The EU historically justified this by assuming that democratic legitimacy flowed upward from its member states. As long as all national governments were democratically elected and accountable at home, the EU’s supranational structure remained legitimate.

But this assumption has collapsed. Over the past decade, some member states, most notably Hungary, and, until recently, Poland, have shifted away from liberal democracy while still enjoying full voting rights and benefits inside the Union. Scheppele emphasized that the EU’s treaties never anticipated a scenario in which a member might stop being a democracy yet continue to shape EU policies, budgets, and laws.

The heart of the talk outlined how Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gradually transformed into what scholars call an “electoral authoritarian” regime — a system that holds elections but systematically tilts the playing field. Scheppele detailed how Orbán’s government captured the Constitutional Court, restricted judicial independence, took control of public media, pressured private media owners, rewrote electoral laws, weakened civil society, and used EU development funds to reward loyalists. Despite this, Hungary still nominates a European Commissioner, sends Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) elected under unfair conditions, and holds veto power in the Council of the EU.

Scheppele explained why the EU’s main disciplinary tool, Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, proved ineffective. Article 7 is designed to sanction members that violate EU values, but the final step requires the unanimous consent of all other member states. Hungary and Poland protected each other for years, making sanctions impossible.

A major turning point came when the EU created three financial conditionality systems: the Rule-of-Law Conditionality Regulation, the Recovery and Resilience Fund, and the Common Provisions Regulation. Unlike Article 7, these tools allow the EU to freeze funds when a member state violates rule-of-law standards. Scheppele noted that these mechanisms froze €137 billion for Poland and €36 billion for Hungary — pressures that contributed to Poland’s democratic opening in 2023 and helped fuel a new political challenge to Orbán.

Still, problems remain. In late 2023, the European Commission released €10.2 billion to Hungary for geopolitical reasons, despite rule-of-law violations. Scheppele warned that such political bargaining undermines the credibility of the new system.

She ended on a cautiously optimistic note: recent EU court decisions suggest that democracy itself, not just technical legal standards, may soon become an enforceable EU obligation. Yet the ultimate question remains one of political will. The EU now has tools to defend democracy from within — but must decide whether it will use them.

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Kim Lane Sheppele presented her research in a REDS Seminar co-hosted by CDDRL and TEC on November 19, 2025.
Kim Lane Sheppele presented her research in a REDS Seminar co-hosted by CDDRL and TEC on November 19, 2025.
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Professor Kim Lane Scheppele offered a clear and urgent account of a growing crisis inside the European Union (EU) during a recent REDS Seminar: the erosion of democracy within some of its own member states.

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Jonne Kamphorst | The Left Misunderstood: How Voters' Perceptions of What Matters to the Left Benefit the Right

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Jonne Kamphorst

Why do low-income, lower-educated voters vote against their economic interests by supporting conservative and radical right parties and candidates? I propose a new explanation arguing that these voters' misperceptions of the policy priorities of economically progressive parties drive them to parties on the right. In two population surveys in the Netherlands and Unites States, I show that many low-income, lower-educated voters believe that economic issues are not a policy priority for the left, and that holding such perceptions influences vote intention for the left. Using `prior-updating' survey experiments, I test the effect of presenting voters with the actual policy priorities of the (Social) Democrats, as measured in an original survey with Dutch politicians and based on US House roll calls. The results indicate that updating misperceptions of the salience of economic issues to the left can significantly alter voting patterns.

Jonne Kamphorst is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University’s Politics and Social Change Lab and the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the European University Institute (EUI) in 2023. In January 2026, he will join Sciences Po in Paris as an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Quantitative Social Science Methods.

His research focuses on the politics and societies of advanced democracies, lying at the intersection of comparative politics and political behavior. Two questions guide his research agenda: (1) What are the origins of contemporary political divisions? and (2) How can democracy be strengthened by re-engaging voters and bridging political divides? He explores these questions using quantitative methods that employ an experimental logic, including field and survey experiments, causal inference, and novel computational approaches leveraging large language models. Alongside his substantive research, he studies the use of large language models in social-scientific research methods. His work has been published in PNAS, the American Political Science Review, and the Journal of Politics, among other outlets.

Anna Grzymała-Busse
Anna Grzymała-Busse

Jonne Kamphorst

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Visiting Student Researcher at The Europe Center, 2022
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Jonne Kamphorst was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Europe Center in 2022. He has received his PhD in Political Science at the European University Institute in 2023 and is currently a Scholar at Stanford’s Politics and Social Change Lab and the Human-centered Artificial Intelligence institute. He will start as an Assistant Professor in Political Science and Quantitative Social Science Methods at Sciences Po in Paris in January 2026. Jonne’s work focuses on the politics and societies of advanced democracies and lies at the intersection of comparative politics and political behaviour. Two questions define his research agenda: 1) What are the origins of contemporary political divisions? And 2) how can democracy be strengthened by re-engaging voters and bridging political divides? He explores both these topics leveraging quantitative scientific methods that employ an experimental logic, specifically (field and survey) experiments, methods of causal inference, as well as novel computational methods leveraging large language models. His research has been published at PNAS, the American Political Science Review, and the Journal of Politics, among other outlets.

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Democracy Under Threat at Home and Abroad - MOVED TO MEYER GREEN

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Democracy Day Panel

As part of Stanford Democracy Day, several Stanford scholars share their perspectives on domestic and comparative erosion of democracy, providing context for current elections in the United States and around the world.

Speakers:

Christophe Crombez, Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven in Belgium. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying, party politics, and parliamentary government.

Anna Grzymała-Busse, Professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

Hakeem Jefferson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, faculty affiliate with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the Stanford Center for American Democracy. His research focuses primarily on the role identity plays in structuring political attitudes and behaviors in the U.S., with a special interest in understanding how stigma shapes the politics of Black Americans, particularly as it relates to group members’ support for racialized punitive social policies. 

Hesham Sallam, Senior Research Scholar at CDDRL, where he serves as Associate Director for Research. He is also Associate Director of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. Sallam is co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine and a former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on political and social development in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) and teaches in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

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Anna Grzymała-Busse

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies
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Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

In her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past, she examined the paradox of the communist successor parties in East Central Europe: incompetent as authoritarian rulers of the communist party-state, several then succeeded as democratic competitors after the collapse of these communist regimes in 1989.

Rebuilding Leviathan, her second book project, investigated the role of political parties and party competition in the reconstruction of the post-communist state. Unless checked by a robust competition, democratic governing parties simultaneously rebuilt the state and ensured their own survival by building in enormous discretion into new state institutions.

Anna's third book, Nations Under God, examines why some churches have been able to wield enormous policy influence. Others have failed to do so, even in very religious countries. Where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gained great moral authority, and subsequently covert and direct access to state institutions. It was this institutional access, rather than either partisan coalitions or electoral mobilization, that allowed some churches to become so powerful.

Anna's most recent book, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.

Other areas of interest include informal institutions, the impact of European Union membership on politics in newer member countries, and the role of temporality and causal mechanisms in social science explanations.

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Christophe Crombez

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Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center
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Christophe Crombez is a political economist who specializes in European Union (EU) politics and business-government relations in Europe. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying, party politics, and parliamentary government.

Crombez is Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University (since 1999). He teaches Introduction to European Studies and The Future of the EU in Stanford’s International Relations Program, and is responsible for the Minor in European Studies and the Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe.

Furthermore, Crombez is Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven in Belgium (since 1994). His teaching responsibilities in Leuven include Political Business Strategy and Applied Game Theory. He is Vice-Chair for Research at the Department for Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation.

Crombez has also held visiting positions at the following universities and research institutes: the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, in Florence, Italy, in Spring 2008; the Department of Political Science at the University of Florence, Italy, in Spring 2004; the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, in Winter 2003; the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois, in Spring 1998; the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Summer 1998; the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in Spring 1997; the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in Spring 1996; and Leti University in St. Petersburg, Russia, in Fall 1995.

Crombez obtained a B.A. in Applied Economics, Finance, from KU Leuven in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Business, Political Economics, from Stanford University in 1994.

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Christophe Crombez, Anna Grzymała-Busse, Hakeem Jefferson, Hesham Sallam, Kathryn Stoner
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Kim Lane Scheppele | REDS Seminar: The EU's New Democracy Deficit

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Kim Lane Scheppele

In its early days, the European Union was accused of having a democratic deficit because its central institutions were not elected.  The response was to increase the democratic responsiveness of the European Parliament and to give it a greater role in lawmaking.  As for the Commission and the Council, however, the argument was that Member States populated these bodies and the governments of those states were democratically elected so those institutions were indirectly democratically accountable.   But what happens if some Member States are no longer reliably democratic?   This talk traces the way that the EU responded to first Hungary and then Poland taking an autocratic path, and assesses the successes and failures of those EU efforts.

Speaker: Kim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University and visiting professor of law at Stanford Law School. Scheppele's work focuses on the rise and fall of constitutional democracy. After 1989, Scheppele studied the new constitutional courts of Hungary and Russia, living in both places for extended periods. After 9/11, she researched the effects of the international "war on terror" on constitutional protections around the world.   Since 2010, she has been documenting attacks on constitutional democracy by legalistic autocrats. Her book Destroying (and Restoring) Democracy by Law is forthcoming from Harvard University Press. 

Scheppele is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the International Academy of Comparative Law. In 2014, she received the Law and Society Association’s Kalven Prize for influential scholarship in comparative constitutional law and in 2024, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on democratic backsliding. She started her career in the political science department at the University of Michigan before moving to a full-time law teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. She was the founding director of the gender program at Central European University Budapest and has held visiting faculty positions in the law schools at Yale, Harvard, Erasmus/Rotterdam, and Humboldt/Berlin. She was President of the Law and Society Association from 2017-2019. 


REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Learn more about REDS and view past seminars here.

 

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Anna Grzymała-Busse
Anna Grzymała-Busse, Kathryn Stoner
Kim Lane Scheppele, Princeton University
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The Transformative Power of Anger Under Authoritarian Repression

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In a REDS Seminar co-sponsored by CDDRL and The Europe Center (TEC), Cornell Assistant Professor of Political Science Bryn Rosenfeld explored a compelling question: Why do people in authoritarian regimes take bold political actions — such as protesting, voting for the opposition, or criticizing the government — despite the threat of severe consequences? Her research highlights the role of emotions, particularly anger, in motivating these high-risk decisions and provides fresh insights into the dynamics of dissent under repressive regimes.

Rosenfeld challenged the common assumption that high-risk political activism requires strong organizational ties, such as membership in activist groups or networks. While this holds true in some cases, she argued that recent civic uprisings in authoritarian regimes often involve ordinary individuals — novices with no prior links to organized activism. These participants act despite the threat of repression, presenting a puzzle for traditional theories of political participation.

Central to Rosenfeld's argument is the critical role of emotions in shaping political behavior. Authoritarian regimes often use repression as a tool to silence dissent, but her findings show that this strategy frequently backfires by triggering anger. When people experience acts of repression — such as arrests or violence during protests — they often view these actions as deeply unjust, fueling their anger. This anger reduces fear of risks, shifts focus from personal consequences to collective grievances, and creates a sense of urgency to act. As a result, anger motivates bold political actions like protesting or voting against the regime. In contrast, fear amplifies the perception of danger, discourages action, and reinforces passivity. Rosenfeld’s work demonstrates how anger can transform repression into a catalyst for resistance, showing that attempts to suppress dissent often inspire even greater mobilization.

Her research is grounded in extensive data collected between 2021 and 2023 in Russia, a period marked by significant political upheaval, including the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, widespread protests, and the invasion of Ukraine. Through surveys and experiments, she measured participants’ emotions, risk attitudes, and political intentions in response to different scenarios. Participants exposed to information about repression reported higher levels of anger, which translated into a greater willingness to protest or take other political risks. For example, participants in the repression treatment group showed significantly higher risk acceptance scores than those in the control group, highlighting anger’s pivotal role in driving political action.

Rosenfeld’s findings have far-reaching implications. They challenge the assumption that repression is an effective tool for silencing dissent, showing instead that it often fuels resistance by mobilizing anger and encouraging the acceptance of risk. Her work also explains why ordinary citizens — those without activist ties — sometimes take extraordinary risks to stand up to authoritarian regimes. By focusing on the interplay of emotions and risk, Rosenfeld underscores the paradox of repression: rather than quelling dissent, it can inspire ordinary people to take extraordinary risks in the pursuit of justice. Anger, often seen as a destructive force, emerges in her work as a powerful driver of political change.

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Bryn Rosenfeld presented her research in a Rethinking European Development and Security (REDS) Seminar, co-sponsored by CDDRL and TEC, on November 14.
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Cornell Assistant Professor of Political Science Bryn Rosenfeld’s work explains why ordinary citizens — those without activist ties — sometimes take extraordinary risks to stand up to authoritarian regimes.

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Kathryn Stoner | Georgia's Democratic Struggle: The Anti-Foreign Agent Law and Uncertain European Future

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Kathryn Stoner

Georgia's president, Salome Zourabichvili, vetoed the Parliament's contentious anti-foreign agent law, but called her act "symbolic," as the majority Georgian Dream party promised to override the veto at their next session. This talk explores Georgia's democratic aspirations within the context of the law, dissecting its potential ramifications for civil society, political freedoms, and Georgia's European integration ambitions.

Professor Kathryn Stoner, who was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia in 2016, will discuss the politics and complexities of the recent law and its implications for Georgia's future.

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997); and "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

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EU High Representative Josep Borrell Calls for Collective Global Action in Gaza and Ukraine

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This article originally appeared in The Stanford Daily.

European Union (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell M.S. ’75 visited the Hoover Institution on Monday for an event hosted by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

In a keynote speech followed by a conversation with the institute’s director and former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, Borrell delved Europe’s crucial role and responsibilities in addressing ongoing war in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as geopolitical security and emerging technology more broadly.

Borrell emphasized the need for EU countries to collectively adapt to the changing geopolitical landscape and increase their strategic responsibility. He stressed the importance of European unity in the face of challenges posed by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and the ongoing Israel-Gaza war, noting that the security landscape has “dramatically changed.”

“Europe has to learn to speak the language of power,” Borrell said, emphasizing the need for Europe to increase its military capacities while utilizing all available tools to face global challenges.

Listen to Representative Borrell's full discussion with Michael McFaul below on a special episode of World Class podcast.

Follow the link for a transcript of "Strategic Responsibility in the EU, United States, and Beyond."

Regarding the Israel-Gaza war, Borrell called for a political process that would empower the Palestinian Authority and reach a solution for peace, describing the current state as “a stain on human consciousness.” He urged the international community to push for a ceasefire, secure the release of hostages, and ensure better access to humanitarian aid in the region.

“It is not a natural catastrophe what is happening in Gaza. It is not an earthquake, it is not a flood when you come and help people suffering the consequences. [It] is a manmade disaster, is a manmade catastrophe,” Borrell said.

Among the other global challenges Borrell called for Europe to address was the continent’s dependence on China for critical materials and technologies. He emphasized the importance of coordinating with the US to counter China’s growing influence in the global economic and political sphere.

“More coordination in front of China should be one of the most important things that the Europeans and the Americans should do in order to balance the challenges of this world,” Borrell said.

Josep Borrell [right] in discussion with Michael McFaul [left].
EU High Representative Josep Borrell onstage with Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia.
Josep Borrell speaking at Stanford University on May 13, 2024.
Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, welcomes EU High Representative Josep Borrell to Stanford University.

More broadly, Borrell spoke to the importance of coordination between the US and EU to work globally to protect “political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion.”

Borrell acknowledged that the United States is a global leader in emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, and stressed the importance of cooperation on trade and technological innovation. He expressed concern that regulatory hurdles may be hindering the EU’s ability to catch up with the U.S. in the technology sector and emphasized the significance of transatlantic collaboration in shaping the future of technology.

“I am happy to know that we are partners in building a responsible and human-centric technological innovation,” Borrell said.

The importance of partnership across countries was a throughline in Borrell’s speech, as he concluded with a reminder of the interconnectedness of global security and social well-being. “You cannot be secure at home if your neighbor is not eating dinner.”


Watch High Representative Borrell's full keynote remarks below. Video courtesy of the European Commission.

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Michael McFaul listens to President Zuzana Čaputová speak during the Q&A portion of her fireside chat at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
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Slovak President Optimistic about Democracy, but Warns about Russian Misinformation

During a visit to the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová reminded the Stanford community that the stakes of the war in Ukraine are high and will impact democracies far beyond Eastern and Central Europe.
Slovak President Optimistic about Democracy, but Warns about Russian Misinformation
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Michael McFaul [left], the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, speaks with Josep Borrell [right], High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, during an event at Stanford University on May 13, 2024.
European Union High Representative Josep Borrell visited Stanford University to discuss Europe's strategic responsibility in Ukraine, Gaza, and the digital sphere.
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Borrell emphasized the need for EU countries to adapt to the changing geopolitical landscape and increase their strategic responsibility, whether in responding to Russian aggression in Ukraine, the crisis in Gaza, or competition with China.

How Ukraine Divides Postcommunist Europe

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East-Central Europe is at odds with itself regarding the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why are "post-communist" democracies not standing together as one with a fledgling democracy that is under attack by a dictatorship? The answer lies in the material and political benefits that individual politicians and political parties receive from Russia. Two consequences follow from this dynamic: the validation of "Russian imperial claims" and reduced support for Ukraine. This analysis shows that the immediate interests and profits of domestic politicians matter far more than the long shadows of history, leading to a complex tapestry of responses in the region. The diversity of these countries' approaches to Ukraine is just one reason why East-Central Europe is now more remarkable for its divisions and contrasts than a collective past or a common future.

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The Global Democratic Decline Revisited

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How serious is the threat to democracy in the United States and around the world? In a CDDRL/TEC REDS Seminar talk, Daniel Treisman argued that claims of a global democratic decline and authoritarian backsliding are exaggerated and lack empirical evidence.

Treisman, who is a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, questioned the assertion that the proportion of democracies in the world has been decreasing, showing, that, according to Polity data, it stands at an all-time high. At worst, the proportion has been plateauing, according to V-Dem ratings. Indeed, V-Dem’s liberal democracy rating and Freedom House’s “free state” rating have downscored a number of countries in recent years. Yet, Treisman indicated, inconsistencies across the two lists of downgraded countries suggest that the evidence is unclear and the assessments behind these trends are subjective. Although the momentum of democratization has slowed down in recent times, Treisman added, we have not entered a period of total decline. 

How much of the recent trend in democratic breakdown was expected? Treisman’s analysis shows that a country’s level of economic development and democratic history were strong predictors of decline, which is consistent with prior theoretical expectations. Most countries that democratized during the third wave were poorer than the average democracies worldwide. They were also – by definition – newer. These two factors made them prone to backsliding, and according to the model, the breakdowns that we have observed can be attributed to these two factors.

Treisman also challenged proliferating claims that the United States faces a serious risk of a democratic breakdown. Based on its income level and long democratic experience, the odds of breakdown are extremely low. That said, erosion in the quality of democracy is still quite plausible. 

Finally, Triesman questioned the notion that falling public support for democracy and erosion of elite norms have been driving observed incidents of democratic decline. Popular support for democracy seemed relatively high in backsliding democracies. Given how difficult it is to quantify shifts in elite norms, there has yet to be clear cross-national evidence showing an association between elite norms and democratic backsliding.

While Treisman believes there is no evidence to justify extreme alarmism around the issue of global democratic decline, the possibility of chaos and unfairness at the margins of established democracies warrants much attention and vigilance.

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Daniel Treisman presents during a CDDRL/TEC REDS Seminar on November 30, 2023.
Rachel Cody Owens
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Political scientist Daniel Treisman argues that claims of a global democratic decline and authoritarian backsliding are exaggerated and lack empirical evidence.

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LIVESTREAM | A Discussion with President of Finland Sauli Niinistö

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Watch a livestream of a discussion with President Sauli Niinistö of Finland on March 7, 2023 at 11:15am PT

The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies is honored to host President of Finland Sauli Niinistö and his visiting delegation.

President Niinistö will deliver remarks on the war in Ukraine, Finland's bid for NATO membership, and strategic cooperation between the U.S. and Finland.

A discussion with a panel of scholars and security experts from the university's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Hoover Institution will follow the president's remarks. Michael McFaul, the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, will moderate the discussion.

President Niinistö will be accompanied by a business delegation with representatives from a wide range of industries.

A question-and-answer session for invited guests, Stanford students, and the business delegation will follow the discussion.

This event is available to the public via the livestream below.
 

Meet the Panelists


Anna Grzymala-Busse is the director of The Europe Center, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She is also a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics. Her most recent book is "Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State."

Anna Grzymala-Busse

Anna Grzymala-Busse

Director of The Europe Center
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Oriana Skylar Mastro is a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies where she works primarily in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. She is an international security expert with a focus on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination and coercive diplomacy. Her research addresses critical questions at the intersection of interstate conflict, great power relations and the challenge of rising powers. She also serves in the United States Air Force Reserve as a strategic planner.

Oriana Skylar Mastro

Oriana Skylar Mastro

FSI Center Fellow
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Michael McFaul is director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller “From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.”

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Michael McFaul

Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute
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H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is also a former Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for thirty-four years. He retired as a lieutenant general in June 2018 after serving as the twenty-sixth assistant to the U.S. president for the Department of National Security Affairs.

H.R. McMaster

H.R. McMaster

Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow
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Steven Pifer is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation and The Europe Center, both at the Freeman Spogli Institute, and a non-resident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. He served for more than twenty-five years as a Foreign Service officer, including as a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, an ambassador to Ukraine, and as a senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council. His research focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, Russia and European security.

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Steven Pifer

Affiliate at CISAC and TEC
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Risto Siilasmaa is the founder of F-Secure and WithSecure Corporations and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of WithSecure, having served as President and CEO of the company in 1988-2006. He is also an active venture capital investor with over 30 active investments via First Fellow Partners, a fund management company where he is both a general partner and the only limited partner.

In addition, Mr. Siilasmaa is the Chairman of the Technology Advisory Board appointed by the Finnish Government in 2020 and a Senior Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group. Since 2017 he has served also as a Finnish Chairman of the China-Finland Committee for Innovative Business Cooperation. Mr. Siilasmaa is simultaneously a member of the Global Tech Panel, an initiative of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and he was a member of the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT) in 2012–2020.

Risto Siilasmaa

Risto Siilasmaa

Founder of F-Secure and WithSecure Corporations, Chairman of WithSecure Corporation
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Alex Stamos is director of the Stanford Internet Observatory at the Cyber Policy Center. He is a cybersecurity expert, business leader, and entrepreneur working to improve the security and safety of the Internet through his teaching and research. Alex previously served as the chief security officer of Facebook, where he led the company’s investigation into manipulation of the 2016 U.S. election and helped pioneer new several protections against this abuse. 
 

stamos

Alex Stamos

Director of the Stanford Internet Observatory
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Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. In addition to her extensive research and writing on contemporary Russia, she also studies democracy, autocracy, and the conditions that lead to transitions from one to the other. She is the author of many books, including the recent "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order.”

Kathryn Stoner

Kathryn Stoner

Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
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Michael A. McFaul

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
mcfaul_headshot_2025.jpg PhD

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. 

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
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Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Steven Pifer

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Steven Pifer is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation as well as a non-resident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution.  He was a William J. Perry Fellow at the center from 2018-2022 and a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin from January-May 2021.

Pifer’s research focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, Russia and European security. He has offered commentary on these issues on National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, CNN and BBC, and his articles have been published in a wide variety of outlets.  He is the author of The Eagle and the Trident: U.S.-Ukraine Relations in Turbulent Times (Brookings Institution Press, 2017), and co-author of The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms (Brookings Institution Press, 2012).

A retired Foreign Service officer, Pifer’s more than 25 years with the State Department focused on U.S. relations with the former Soviet Union and Europe, as well as arms control and security issues.  He served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for Russia and Ukraine, ambassador to Ukraine, and special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council.  In addition to Ukraine, he served at the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Moscow and London as well as with the U.S. delegation to the negotiation on intermediate-range nuclear forces in Geneva.  From 2000 to 2001, he was a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Institute for International Studies, and he was a resident scholar at the Brookings Institution from 2008 to 2017.

Pifer is a 1976 graduate of Stanford University with a bachelor’s in economics.

 

Affiliate, CISAC
Affiliate, The Europe Center
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