The trend toward autocratization soon after “the end of history”

It is not so long ago that the world contemplated the eternal victory of liberal democracy. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union paved the way for the democratization of Eastern European countries. Political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared “…the end of history as such: that is, the end point of humankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government” (p. 4)1. Indeed, the number of democratizing countries skyrocketed after 1989, peaking in 1992, when 71 countries were in the process of democratizing simultaneously. The trajectory, however, soon started to reverse. In 2024, 19 ‘democratizers’ were dwarfed by 45 ‘autocratizers’2. The Democracy Report 2025 concluded that the “outlook in the world at the end of 2024 is worse than in the last 25 years. [….]. That includes weakening of democracy in some established liberal democracies, break-down of democracy in countries that were democratic for most of the 21st century, as well as deepening of autocracy in already autocratic states” (p. 9)2.

The causes of democratic erosion

Focusing on the rise of authoritarian populism across Europe, how can we explain the growing rejection of a political system that successfully rebuilt the continent after World War II and after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc? Scholars point to multiple causes, including the 2008 financial crisis and its consequences, region-specific economic decline, the detrimental effects of digital media on established democracies3, and the normalization of democratic norm violations by elites4. Apart from these factors, the way that lived experience shapes our responses to risks may play a largely neglected but important role.

The power and ambiguities of experience

Lived experience is one of the most important drivers of our behavior and decisions5. This encompasses the pain, pleasure, rewards, and knowledge acquired by living through events. These experiences help us evaluate past actions and inform future ones. Positive experiences associated with an option make it more likely to be chosen again, while negative ones make it less likely.

Mapping people’s experiences, particularly in response to existential risks, can shed light on perplexing risk behaviors, such as building homes on floodplains or in regions at risk of catastrophic volcanic eruptions. Consider Europe’s ticking time bomb: Vesuvius. Its last violent eruption occurred in 1944. Today, it is considered one of the world’s highest-risk volcanoes because of its location in a densely populated area. Nevertheless, around 700,000 people live in the ‘red zone’ at its foot, disregarding dire warnings from volcanologists and public officials6.

To understand this complacency in the face of possible Armageddon, one must, we argue, analyze individual and collective experience. Most residents of the red zone have never experienced a violent volcanic eruption first-hand—the last eruption occurred nearly 30,000 days ago. Their experience, day-in and day-out, likely reassures them that they are safe. Experience, however, can lull people into a false sense of security.

How experience can undervalue rare and catastrophic events

People’s reasoning about risks draws on at least two sources7: descriptive information and personal experience. Experts typically provide descriptive risk warnings—written, graphic, or symbolic—about rare but potentially highly consequential events, such as the health consequences of smoking or unprotected sex. Yet such descriptions often clash with individuals’ personal experience, which may suggest far lower or no risk at all. When description and experience diverge, evidence indicates that experience tends to prevail6. Specifically, when relying on experience, both animals and humans tend to decide, choose, and act as if they underestimate—or at least underweight—the risk of rare consequential events such as a future catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius or contracting a sexually transmitted disease6,7.

Democratic erosion and the undervaluation of risks

Behaviors such as voting for extremist populist parties with anticonstitutional agendas, normalizing violations of unwritten democratic norms4, or sharing manipulative information and conspiracy theories all hasten—or fail to resist—democratic erosion. But why would people undervalue the risk of democratic erosion?

Citizens of most Western European countries, together with the U.S., Canada, Japan and Australia, have experienced democratic rule and growing posterity for more than 70 years. They have been spared—up to now—the personal experience of autocratic rule. Like the residents of Naples in the red zone appear to undervalue the risk of Vesuvius erupting, many citizens may underestimate or undervalue the risks of sliding into autocracy and of antidemocratic leaders who benefit from the aforementioned behaviors.

Paradoxically, the past success of democratic systems may thus sow the seeds of their future undoing. This phenomenon is akin to what has been dubbed the paradox of success in public health: the success of preventive measures such as vaccinations may undermine their perceived need, thus increasing complacency and vaccine hesitancy.

Like technical systems, democracies can absorb deviations from ideal operating practice4. The famous ʻchecks and balancesʼ in the U.S. constitution were designed to prevent deviations from getting out of hand. However, when behaviors that erode democracy—such as refusing to accept an election loss, calling critics and opponents vermin, and tolerating and even encouraging violence—become normalized and voters no longer punish their occurrence at the ballot box, detrimental effects accumulate8.

This gradual erosion of democratic norms can result in nonlinear and irreversible system change. The problem is that the electorate’s experience suggests that we have not yet entered a red zone, even though an irreversible tipping point may be nearing.

The fading of past individual and collective memory of experienced risks

Our analysis seems to ignore that previous generations of Europeans, particularly those in Eastern Europe, have had first-hand experience of oppressive autocratic regimes. So why do current generations, in their support of extremist parties and endorsement of norm-eroding behaviors, act as if they ʻforgotʼ the experience of the past generations?

The role of experience and its dynamic nature can also help us understand why. Clearly, individual traumatic experiences of catastrophic events can have a lasting impact. For instance, the Depression-babies effect describes the finding that individuals who have experienced macroeconomic shocks such as the Great Depression are less likely to take financial risks and to participate in the stock market throughout their lives9. Such long-lasting impact of personal experience will be more likely if new experiences that could counteract the trauma are either avoided or unavailable. Yet individual experience of risks can also fade quickly. For instance, the impact of experiencing a severe car collision fades within about three months. Young drivers begin acting less safely again, as new offsetting experiences are available6. A similar dynamic may hold for individual experience of oppression, though it seems crucial to distinguish between those who endured severe abuse and violence under authoritarian regimes and those who did not.

It is not only individual experience that can fade—the impact of collective experience also recedes with time. For example, the impact of experiencing a catastrophic flood diminishes in the second generation. A study of nearly 1300 new settlements along the Vltava River basin (Czech Republic) over nine centuries found that “respect for floods waned in the second generation” (p. 2)10, which is when settlements moved from safer sites back towards the river. Following this logic, one might speculate that collective historical memory of autocracy begins to fade away after about 25 years and is not sufficient to protect citizens from sliding toward authoritarian populism.

Simulated experience as an antidote to undervaluing democratic erosion

Assuming that personal experience shapes willingness to engage in preventive measures, one can ask: Can the lack of personal experience of rare events be compensated for by simulating them? Some evidence indicates it is possible. For instance, investors who lack experience with the volatility of the stock market can gain ʻsimulated experienceʼ by randomly sampling (experiencing) relevant return distributions. Studies found that such experiential sampling has more beneficial effects for risk perception and subsequent investment behavior than do conventional stock market graphs (see references in6).

Simulated experience can be a powerful teacher. One immersive way to understand the experience of growing old is to slip into an age simulation suit. These suits can simulate conditions such as joint stiffness, loss of strength, reduced grip ability, fading eyesight, hearing loss, and reduced coordination skills through in-built features such as joint braces, ankle and wrist weights, thick gloves, goggles with filters, and even a tinnitus simulator.

Following the same logic, simulated or vicarious experience can bring life under authoritarian rule into sharper focus. Countless immigrants in Europe lived in autocracies, and their testimonies in classrooms can outshine textbooks. Visiting sites such as Berlin’s former Stasi prison Höhenschönhausen offers further insight—especially when guided by ex-inmates who vividly convey techniques of psychological intimidation, from sleep deprivation and isolation to water-filled cells designed to prevent rest. Untapped reservoirs of living witnesses exist in other world regions facing democratic erosion. For instance, thousands of Russians and Syrians sought asylum in the US after the invasion of Ukraine and the Syrian civil war. There are historical sites in Latin American that could offer first-hand experience of what dictatorship, persecution, and torture may feel like.

Admittedly, this can only be one part of the response to democratic erosion. Other interventions must target, for instance, affective polarization and disinformation. These interventions also must be timely—delays risk crossing tipping points into autocracy, after which organizing societal or political response becomes dangerous or impossible4. Scale is equally important—and achievable. In 2024, the Hohenschönhausen Memorial, for instance, received nearly 350,000 visitors, more than two-thirds of them students, illustrating the reach such efforts can achieve.