The Dispersion of Power: A Critical Realist Theory of Democracy

Abstract The Dispersion of Power is an urgent call to rethink centuries of conventional wisdom about what democracy is, why it matters, and how to make it better. Drawing from history, social science, psychology, and critical theory, it explains why elections do not and cannot realize the classic ideal of popular rule, and why prevailing strategies of democratic reform often make things worse. Instead, Bagg argues, we should see democracy as a way of protecting public power from capture—an alternative vision that is at once more realistic and more inspiring. Despite their many shortcomings, real-world elections do prevent the most extreme forms of tyranny, and are therefore indispensable. In dealing with the vast inequalities that remain, however, we cannot rely on standard solutions such as electoral reform, direct democracy, deliberation, and participatory governance. Instead, Bagg shows, protecting and enriching democracy requires addressing underlying inequalities of power directly. In part, this entails substantive policies attacking the advantages of wealthy elites. Even more crucially, deepening democracy requires the organization of oppositional, countervailing power among ordinary people. Neither task is easy, but historical precedents exist in both cases—and if democracy is to survive contemporary crises, leaders and citizens alike must find ways to revive and reinvent these essential democratic practices for the twenty-first century.

Political polarization at its worst since the Civil War

Data scientists try to explain the U.S. government’s shifting ideologies over the past four decades.

Democracy has Hamlet’s Problem: The Search for Relevance in a Complex World

To cope with the complexity of the world, cognitively limited agents must employ framing to identify what is relevant and stabilise meaning. Yet democracy rests on the Popperian fallibilist imperat...

Political Fairytale

Why is centrism failing so badly? Because at its heart is a mistaken idea of how politics works.

Anti-democratic attitudes are highly contagious, new psychology study finds

The rise of anti-democratic sentiments might be driven by social contagion. Researchers have discovered that citizens often adapt their personal support for authoritarian rule to align with the political views of those around them.

When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries - Petter Törnberg, Juliana Chueri, 2026

The spread of misinformation has emerged as a global concern. Academic attention has recently shifted to emphasize the role of political elites as drivers of mi...

America’s new oligarchy

Under Trump an ultra-wealthy clique has infiltrated government, raising concerns about democratic integrity

We're getting the social media crisis wrong

The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics

We're getting the social media crisis wrong

The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics

The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission

The Crisis of Democracy: On the Governability of Democracies was initially a 1975 report written by Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji Watanuki for the Trilateral Commission and later published as a book. The report observed the political state of the United States, Europe and Japan and says that in the United States the problems of governance "stem from an excess of democracy" and thus advocates "to restore the prestige and authority of central government institutions."

Views of American politics, polarization and tone of political debate

In many ways, Americans’ emotions toward politics today are as negative as their evaluations of the country’s political system. Majorities say they always or often feel exhausted (65%) and angry…

The architecture of the internet creates risks for democracy

Will democracy survive the internet? Do we need to choose between Facebook’s surveillance capitalism or democracy? Layered lines of evidence can inform questions like these. When considered together, the evidence gives rise to a concerning picture, as summarized in a recent report for the European Commission that I co-led.

Voting with Their Feet: Democratic Backsliding and Market-Minded Migration - Evidence from Israel and Europe

Using a comparative framework, the study examines how variations in political regimes across Israel and Europe shape patterns of international migration. In both contexts, episodes of democratic backsliding serve as quasi-exogenous shocks that reveal the causal link between institutional erosion and outward mobility. In Israel, the origin of democratic backsliding lies in a corruption shock—the criminal indictment of the prime minister—which escalated into an executive–judicial shock as the government launched an anti-democratic judicial overhaul. This confrontation between the executive and judiciary provides a natural experiment for identifying how institutional breakdowns shape migration decisions. In Europe, the origin of democratic backsliding stems from a “Syrian shock”—a massive refugee inflow that strained administrative capacity, polarized politics, and weakened liberal institutions. The resulting governance erosion triggered emigration responses structurally like those observed in Israel. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) estimation, the study identifies causal effects of democratic erosion on migration flows. Across both settings, out-migration emerges as a market-minded response to illiberal regime change—a behavioral signal of sensitivity to policies that features nationalizing industries, restrict free speech, and undermine the rule of law. Together, the Israeli and European experiences demonstrate that illiberal governance functions as a systemic push factor for emigration, beyond standard economic explanations.

Free Speech Experts: Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Panic Is As Old As Democracy Itself

We’ve been saying for years now that Jonathan Haidt’s crusade against social media and kids is a moral panic dressed up in academic robes, and that the evidence simply does not support …