Barbara Walters, author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them:
- Barbara Walters, author of How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them:
- A CIA study showed the two most predictive factors of a society having significant political violence in the short term:
- 1) A slide from full democracy to partial democracy (anocracy).
- 2) Identity-based politics
- Anocracy, the middle stage between democracy and autocracy, is violent and unstable.
- For countries that slide from democracy to anocracy:
- 35% linger in anocracy indefinitely.
- 45% slide to autocracy.
- 20% u-turn back to democracy.
- The return to democracy has to happen soon, within 2 to 5 years.
- One successful approach used in Brazil to u-turn was business leaders banding together.
- Business can be very powerful when you solve the collective action problem.
- Before the 2022 election that could have cemented Bolsonaro permanently, they ran a public service campaign not denouncing him but talking about the value of democracy for prosperity.