Civil Society and Resistance to Autocratization

The window of opportunity for global democratization that opened with the collapse of the Soviet empire after 1989/91 has long since closed. Since the 2010s, democracy indices such as V-Dem and Freedom House have reported continuous democratic regression and autocratization. Instead of improving the quality of democracy, the focus has shifted to democratic regression, decline, or crisis. But is democratic regression and autocratization inevitable? Whether these trends continue also depends on the resistance to autocratization that political opposition and civil society can mobilize. The papers in this panel will provide examples and empirical evidence of resistance to autocratization from different regions of the world.