A cottage industry of books proclaiming that the end of western-style democracy is nye proliferated over the past years. Russia’s war against Ukraine, the revival of an authoritarian rival, could have been the nail in the coffin. Yet the opposite has happened. When confronted with the realities of a tyranny, embracing one’s democratic institutions isn’t hard to do. But ultimately people’s confidence in democracy comes from domestic, not foreign policy, and its ability to deliver a materially superior way of life, argues Philip Collins.

If you pile up the books of recent years that mount a gloomy case about the prospects of democratic politics they now stand pretty high. I have them here with me, in my study as I write, a leaning tower of Diamond, Runciman, Levitsky and Ziblatt, Synder, Muller and Mounk, with titles like How Democracies Die, How Democracy Ends, The People vs Democracy and Collapse.  They do not make a single case but they have a common mood. Populism is an attractive and frightening adversary and democratic populations are losing confidence in the political apparatus which has served us well for a century. But, perhaps, they all imply, not for much longer.