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How democracies fall – and how they could defend themselves

Five questions decide whether a democracy is alive. Can you criticise those in power? Can you organise against them? Can you beat them in court? Can you vote them out? And once they have lost, do they keep the same rights as everyone else?

Between 1918 and 1940, Europe ran this test on itself. Some democracies failed it. Others passed under the same pressure – economic collapse, street violence, movements on the far right and the far left. The answers depend on eight pillars. For each, here is one place where it broke and one where it held.

The radar

The numbers come from V-Dem, a research project in which thousands of historians and country experts rate every country, year by year.

1Elections & peaceful transfer2Separation of powers & courts3Rights & minorities4Free press & public sphere5Shared factual space *6Civil society & participation7Low polarisation8Social & economic security *Weimar Republic 1932Spain 1935France 1938Britain 1936Finland 1932Belgium 1937

Similar institutions – very different levels of hostility. On press freedom, civil liberties and civil society, the six democracies looked alike. Two of the failed cases, Germany and Spain, scored clearly lower on clean elections. The sharpest contrast was polarisation: how hostile the political camps were to each other.

Germany and Spain, which broke from within, were among the most polarised countries in the world (top 5 percent in V-Dem’s data). France was also strongly polarised, yet it survived until a foreign army defeated it in 1940. Britain, Finland and Belgium were at or below the world average. Six cases cannot prove cause and effect – but the pattern fits what researchers argue: polarisation makes democracies fragile.1, 2

Data: V-Dem v16 (Coppedge et al. 2026), via Our World in Data, CC BY-SA 4.0. Axis “Low polarisation” is HistoryGate’s rescaling of V-Dem’s polarisation score (1/(1+eˣ)); 0.5 ≈ long-run world average, higher = less polarised. It is not a V-Dem index, and its scale is not directly comparable with the other axes. “Separation of powers” is the mean of V-Dem’s judicial and legislative constraints. V-Dem’s historical scores are expert assessments made today, with hindsight. Pillars 5 and 8 have no comparable historical measurement.

1 · Elections and peaceful transfer of power

📖 What this pillar means

A democracy needs open competition and a loser who accepts the result – and a winner who can be voted out again.3, 4

How clean were the elections?

Experts rated each country from 0 (not clean at all) to 1 (completely clean).

Orange: this democracy later collapsed  ·  Green: this democracy survived

  • Weimar Republic 19320.56
  • Spain 19350.44
  • France 19380.82
  • Britain 19360.80
  • Finland 19320.87
  • Belgium 19370.83

Spain and Germany scored lowest – the two democracies that broke from within. France’s elections were as clean as Britain’s.

Source: V-Dem expert survey (“Clean elections”)

⚠️ Where it broke

Spain, 1934–1936. By 1936 both sides had shown they would not accept losing. In October 1934, after the right had won the 1933 election and entered government, parts of the left rose in revolt, most fiercely in Asturias; the army crushed the rising within about two weeks.5, 6 The Popular Front then narrowly won the vote of 16 February 1936 and a large majority of seats. On 17 July 1936, military conspirators rose against the elected government. The coup only partly succeeded; the stalemate became a civil war that lasted until 1939.6, 7

⚡ Where it held

Belgium, 1937. The radical-right Rex movement had won over 11 percent in 1936. Its leader, Léon Degrelle, forced a by-election in Brussels in April 1937 and stood himself. The prime minister ran against him, backed by all the traditional parties – and won clearly. The defeat ended Rex’s momentum.8, 9

2 · Separation of powers and independent courts

📖 What this pillar means

Parliament, government and courts keep each other in check. People who attack the constitutional order face the law like everyone else.10

How well could courts and parliament stop the government?

Experts rated each country from 0 (not at all) to 1 (very well).

Orange: this democracy later collapsed  ·  Green: this democracy survived

  • Weimar Republic 19320.75
  • Spain 19350.66
  • France 19380.80
  • Britain 19360.83
  • Finland 19320.90
  • Belgium 19370.86

All six had working checks on power. The three that held scored somewhat higher; Spain scored lowest.

Source: V-Dem expert survey (“Judicial” and “Legislative constraints on the executive”, average)

⚠️ Where it broke

Germany 1924, France 1940. After his failed putsch of 1923, Hitler received the lightest sentence the law allowed and was free again in December 1924; judges of the time tended to go easy on right-wing defendants.11 In France, after military defeat and the armistice of June 1940, the National Assembly met at Vichy on 10 July – with the Communist deputies already expelled and others absent – and gave Marshal Pétain full powers, including to write a new constitution: 570 votes to 80, with 20 abstentions. The Third Republic ended by its own parliament’s vote.12, 13

⚡ Where it held

Finland, 1932. When the Lapua Movement rose in the Mäntsälä rebellion (27 February – 5 March 1932) and demanded a new government, President Svinhufvud took control of cabinet, army and Civil Guards. The rebellion ended within a week. The government suspended the movement, and a court upheld the ban; the leaders received only probation. The same emergency laws had earlier been used against the Communists. Whether such bans protect democracy or weaken it is still debated.14, 15, 9

3 · Fundamental rights and minority protection

📖 What this pillar means

Rights belong to everyone – including political minorities and the losers of the last election.16

How well were people’s basic rights protected?

Experts rated each country from 0 (not at all) to 1 (fully).

Orange: this democracy later collapsed  ·  Green: this democracy survived

  • Weimar Republic 19320.72
  • Spain 19350.75
  • France 19380.84
  • Britain 19360.86
  • Finland 19320.72
  • Belgium 19370.86

No clear divide here: Finland, which held, scored as low as Weimar Germany.

Source: V-Dem expert survey (“Civil liberties”)

⚠️ Where it broke

Germany, 28 February 1933. The day after the Reichstag fire, an emergency decree suspended freedom of speech, press and assembly, privacy of mail and phone, and protection against searches. Opponents could be arrested without charge. The decree was never lifted.17

⚡ Where it held

with limits – Czechoslovakia, 1926–1938. Parties of the German minority sat in government for twelve years. Democracy survived its internal challenges until the Munich Agreement of 1938 dismantled the country from outside. Its limits show too: two Nazi-type parties were banned in 1933, yet their successor became the largest party in the 1935 election.18, 9

4 · Free press and an open public sphere

📖 What this pillar means

Citizens can inform themselves and criticise openly. Curbs on the media are among the clearest warning signs.4

How freely could people speak and read the news?

Experts rated each country from 0 (not at all) to 1 (completely freely).

Orange: this democracy later collapsed  ·  Green: this democracy survived

  • Weimar Republic 19320.83
  • Spain 19350.85
  • France 19380.87
  • Britain 19360.85
  • Finland 19320.68
  • Belgium 19370.84

Press freedom was high almost everywhere – and lowest in Finland, which held. A free press alone did not decide the outcome.

Source: V-Dem expert survey (“Freedom of expression and alternative sources of information”)

⚠️ Where it broke

Germany 1931–33, Spain 1934. In Germany, emergency decrees from 1931 restricted speech and assembly – at first aimed at both Nazi and Communist street violence – and were issued by decree rather than passed by parliament. After the Reichstag fire in 1933 the same tools were turned against all opposition, and publications could simply be banned.19, 17 After the left-wing uprising of October 1934, the Spanish government sent in troops, closed left-wing newspapers and jailed opposition leaders.6

⚡ Where it held

Britain, 1936–37. After violent clashes around a fascist march in London’s East End, Parliament passed the Public Order Act. Political uniforms were banned, police could set routes, and marches could be banned for up to three months with the Home Secretary’s consent. Unlike Germany’s decrees, the Act was passed by Parliament, applied to all sides and stayed under the courts. It was aimed mainly at paramilitary behaviour, not at opinions.20, 21

5 · A shared space of facts

📖 What this pillar means

People can disagree about everything – except whether facts are facts. Propaganda works by dissolving that line.22

Then it was leaflets and radio. Today it is feeds and algorithms. The question stays the same: who shapes what we believe is true?

A shared space of facts

There is no comparable historical rating – see the text below.

⚠️ Where it broke

Germany, from 1919. In November 1919 Field Marshal Hindenburg told a parliamentary inquiry that the army had been “stabbed in the back” at home. The myth hid the real military defeat and was used to brand the young republic as illegitimate.23

⚡ Where it held

Finland, March 1932. At the height of the rebellion, a trusted voice reached the whole country directly and calmly: President Svinhufvud spoke by radio, told Civil Guard members to go home and promised no consequences for those who had not led the revolt. They went home.14, 15

6 · Civil society and participation

📖 What this pillar means

Clubs, unions, churches and associations connect people beyond election day. But a strong civil society is not automatically democratic – what matters is what it is used for.24

How actively did people take part in clubs, unions and associations?

Experts rated each country from 0 (hardly at all) to 1 (very actively).

Orange: this democracy later collapsed  ·  Green: this democracy survived

  • Weimar Republic 19320.77
  • Spain 19350.50
  • France 19380.72
  • Britain 19360.74
  • Finland 19320.81
  • Belgium 19370.74

Weimar Germany scored higher than Britain. Lively associations alone did not protect democracy – what mattered was what they were used for.

Source: V-Dem expert survey (“Civil society participation”)

⚠️ Where it broke

Weimar, 1920s–1933. Germany had a dense network of associations. Research argues that this lively associational life did not protect the republic – it helped undermine it.24

⚡ Where it held

Belgium, April 1937. Before the Brussels by-election, the Catholic Archbishop of Malines told Catholics not to vote for Rex. Churches, unions and parties worked through the ballot box, and Degrelle lost heavily.8, 25

7 · Mutual toleration and restraint

📖 What this pillar means

Opponents accept each other as legitimate rivals, and those in power do not push their legal powers to the limit. In the cases below, a decisive moment was whether established parties allied with movements that rejected democratic rules.26

How calm or hostile was politics?

Based on expert ratings of polarisation: 0.5 is the world average, higher means calmer, lower means more hostile camps.

Orange: this democracy later collapsed  ·  Green: this democracy survived

  • Weimar Republic 19320.13
  • Spain 19350.13
  • France 19380.22
  • Britain 19360.70
  • Finland 19320.48
  • Belgium 19370.67

The clearest gap of all eight pillars: the three democracies that failed were far more polarised than the three that held.

Not a V-Dem index; HistoryGate’s rescaling 1/(1+eˣ) of V-Dem’s political polarisation score.

⚠️ Where it broke

Germany, 1932–33. By late 1932, Nazis and Communists – both aiming to abolish the republic – together won about half of all votes; no democratic majority could govern.27 Conservative politicians around Franz von Papen then persuaded President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933, convinced they could control him. Papen reportedly boasted that within two months Hitler would be “pushed into a corner”.26, 19 Within eight weeks, emergency decrees and the Enabling Act – passed while Communist and some Social Democratic deputies were barred or under arrest – had removed parliament’s power.17, 28

⚡ Where it held

Belgium and Finland, 1930s. Belgium’s Catholic party declared cooperation with the Rexists incompatible with membership and refused a right-wing alliance in 1937. In Finland, conservative President Svinhufvud, whom the Lapua movement had once backed, turned against it.26, 9

8 · Social and economic security

📖 What this pillar means

Democracy has to deliver. Economic crises test whether people still trust it to solve their problems.

Social and economic security

There is no comparable historical rating – see the text below.

⚠️ Where it broke

Germany, 1929–1933. Unemployment rose from about 1.3 million in summer 1929 to over 6 million in early 1932 – almost a quarter of the workforce. The Nazi vote rose from 2.6 percent (1928) to 37 percent (July 1932).19, 27

⚡ Where it held

Britain, 1930s. Unemployment reached around 3 to 3.5 million in 1932, and the means test caused real bitterness. Yet neither the fascists nor the far left won mass support: most unemployed people wanted work, not revolution, and protested with hunger marches.29 Historian Martin Pugh argues the escape was narrower than often assumed.30

Four cases in one line each

Other views

Conflict is not the problem. Political theorist Chantal Mouffe argues that democracy lives from conflict – as long as opponents remain adversaries who share rules, not enemies.33

The shell can stay standing. Sociologist Colin Crouch warns of a quieter danger than the 1930s: all democratic institutions remain, but real decisions move to small economic and political elites.34

Democracy may defend itself. Writing in 1937, political scientist Karl Loewenstein argued that democracies must be “militant” – ready to restrict movements that use democratic freedoms to destroy them. Critics warn that such defences can themselves erode the freedoms they protect.35

Explore further on HistoryGate

Weimar Republic · Second Spanish Republic · Roman Republic and Empire · How empires fall

Sources

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  2. Our World in Data, “Political polarization score” (V-Dem). ourworldindata.org ↩
  3. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy (Yale University Press, 1971). yalebooks.yale.edu ↩
  4. Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Penguin, 2019), Introduction and Table 1. penguinrandomhouse.com ↩
  5. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (OCW), “La Revolución de Octubre de 1934”. ocw.uc3m.es ↩
  6. Spanish Civil War timeline (Levangie, Marcotte, Robins Sharpe). spanishcivilwar.ca ↩
  7. Britannica, “Spanish Civil War”. britannica.com ↩
  8. USHMM, “Léon Degrelle”. encyclopedia.ushmm.org ↩
  9. Giovanni Capoccia, “Defending Democracy: Reactions to Political Extremism in Inter-war Europe”, European Journal of Political Research 39:4 (2001). users.ox.ac.uk ↩
  10. Juan J. Linz & Alfred Stepan (eds.), The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Johns Hopkins, 1978). press.jhu.edu ↩
  11. USHMM, “Beer Hall Putsch”. encyclopedia.ushmm.org ↩
  12. Chemins de mémoire (French Ministry of the Armed Forces), vote of 10 July 1940. cheminsdememoire.gouv.fr ↩
  13. Britannica, “Vichy France”. britannica.com ↩
  14. Finnish Infantry Museum, “The Mäntsälä Rebellion”. jalkavakimuseo.fi ↩
  15. The Presidents of Finland, “Svinhufvud”. suomenpresidentit.fi ↩
  16. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Citizenship” (on T. H. Marshall, 1950). plato.stanford.edu ↩
  17. USHMM, “Reichstag Fire Decree”. encyclopedia.ushmm.org ↩
  18. Czech Sociological Review (1993), on Broklóvá, Czechoslovak Democracy 1918–1938. sreview.soc.cas.cz ↩
  19. USHMM, “The Nazi Rise to Power”. encyclopedia.ushmm.org ↩
  20. UK Public Order Act 1936 (as enacted). legislation.gov.uk ↩
  21. The National Archives (UK), “The Battle of Cable Street”. nationalarchives.gov.uk ↩
  22. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Hannah Arendt”. plato.stanford.edu ↩
  23. USHMM, “Hindenburg spreads stab-in-the-back myth”. encyclopedia.ushmm.org ↩
  24. Sheri Berman, “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic”, World Politics 49:3 (1997). cambridge.org ↩
  25. Evening Post (Wellington), 12 April 1937, via Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand. natlib.govt.nz ↩
  26. Levitsky & Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Penguin, 2019), ch. 1 “Fateful Alliances” and the chapter on gatekeeping. ↩
  27. Dimsdale, Horsewood & van Riel (2004), Oxford Discussion Paper 56. nuffield.ox.ac.uk ↩
  28. USHMM, “The Enabling Act”. encyclopedia.ushmm.org ↩
  29. The National Archives (UK), “Thirties Britain”. nationalarchives.gov.uk ↩
  30. Martin Pugh, Hurrah for the Blackshirts! (Pimlico). penguin.co.uk ↩
  31. Assemblée nationale, « Une France en crise ». assemblee-nationale.fr ↩
  32. Britannica, “Stavisky affair”. britannica.com ↩
  33. Chantal Mouffe, On the Political (Routledge, 2005). westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk ↩
  34. Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy (Polity, 2004). wiley.com ↩
  35. Karl Loewenstein, “Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights, I”, American Political Science Review 31:3 (1937). doi.org/10.2307/1948164 ↩