ABSTRACT
This chapter critically evaluates the common analogy between contemporary democratic challenges and the collapse of democracies in the interwar period. Such comparisons rest on superficial similarities while ignoring decisive structural differences. Interwar fascism emerged under conditions that are largely absent today: mass demobilisation after World War I, fear of a communist revolution, and the widespread acceptance of political violence. By contrast, contemporary democracies operate within more institutionalised, normatively entrenched, and socially inclusive frameworks. The chapter also shows how even then, democratic collapse was far from universal: old democracies survived the crises of the interwar period. The chapter warns that exaggerated historical analogies foster fatalism and obscure the specific mechanisms through which modern democracies are challenged, particularly by elected leaders undermining institutions from within. The chapter ends by stating that democracy’s current problems require new analytical understandings, not recycled fears from the 1930s.
