2024: In democracy’s most testing year, disruptions, discontent and defiance

If 2024 had a personality, it would not have been demure. The word of the year chosen by Dictionary.com conjures up images of modesty and quietude – qualities that democracy, bruised and boisterous, could hardly afford in its most testing year yet.

With 64 countries heading to the polls, the year felt less like a celebration of electoral freedom and more like a global stress test for democratic ideals. Yet, the narratives built around its fragility, with the oft-repeated cry that “democracy is in danger”, also rang hollow for many.

The cringe of fringe

Let us bury the comforting fiction first: that the far-right is a fringe phenomenon. This year, it strode from the margins into the heart of political discourse, carried by a chorus of enablers – not just the far right itself, but centrists, centre-right leaders, and even some on the left who flirted with its rhetoric to stave off electoral irrelevance. The so-called fringe has become a new kind of mainstream, reshaping not just policy debates but the tone of entire elections.

Take Europe: far-right victories were not flukes. Whether it was the far-right faction in the 2024 European Parliament elections, Austria’s Freedom Party, France’s National Rally, the United Kingdom’s Reform Party, Portugal’s Chega Party, Croatia’s Homeland Movement, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland or Georgia’s Georgian Dream, the world saw far-right factions gain unprecedented ground. They reflected a broader disillusionment with politics-as-usual.

These parties...

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