By Alexandra Gilliard
Around the world, many longstanding democracies have begun to wither, crumbling under the slow yet advancing spread of authoritarian populism. In a recent talk at the Carr Center, Senior Fellow Luís Roberto Barroso, President of the Brazilian Supreme Court, explored the foundations of basic democracy in the shadow of rising authoritarian populism, the numerous causes of the global push towards populism, and its potentially devastating consequences.
Democracy in the 20th Century
The winning political ideology of the 20th century—constitutional democracy—prevailed over all other alternatives, from communism, fascism, and nationalism to military regimes and religious fundamentalism. “Constitutional democracy is a concept that contains two sides of the same coin. One side is popular sovereignty: free and fair elections and the rule of the majority. On the other side, you have limited power, the rule of law, and a protection of fundamental rights. Most constitutional democracies around the world have in their institutional arrangement a Supreme Court that arbitrates the tensions that appear between those two sides of the coin,” said Justice Barroso. Demo