1. The Real Lessons of the Interwar Years
- Author:
- Jorgen Moller, Svend-Erik Skaaning, and Agnes Cornell
- Publication Date:
- 07-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Democracy
- Institution:
- National Endowment for Democracy
- Abstract:
- Several observers have recently invoked interwar political developments to make the case that even established democracies are fragile and vulnerable to breakdown. However, the real lesson of the interwar period is that even crises as devastating as the Great Depression and the political success of totalitarian movements did little to undermine the stability of established democratic systems. Only in new and fragile democracies did the economic, political, and social dislocations of the 1920s and 1930s tear apart the democratic fabric. Although long established democracies in Western Europe and North America may today be facing a perilous situation, the interwar experience does not lend support to the argument that they are fragile.
- Topic:
- Democracy, Fragile States, Totalitarianism, and Great Depression
- Political Geography:
- Europe, North America, and Western Europe