Postwar treaties and economic turbulence transformed geopolitics. Old empires disappeared or confronted harsh new constraints, while emerging countries struggled to ind their place in an age of instability. At the same time, sparked and fueled by the shock and su ering of war, radical ideologies in Europe and around the globe swept away orders that had seemed permanent, to establish new relationships among elites, masses, and the state. Heralded on its publication in Germany as a masterpiece of historical narrative and analysis, Pandora's Box makes clear just what dangers were released when the guns irst ired in the summer of 1914.
In recent years, scholars of public opinion and democracy have noted two disturbing trends. First, across many countries satisfaction with democracy's performance has been declining. Second, while support for democracy as a system of government remains overwhelmingly high compared to any alternative, levels of democratic support have steadily, if rather gradually, slipped (Figure 1). These findings have sparked debate, including contentions over their possible relation to other recent trends such as the rise of populism, authoritarianism, and democratic backsliding. 1 The findings are also what led us, five years ago, to float the notion of democratic deconsolidation-the now fairly uncontroversial idea that, just as democracies can consolidate when elites and the public embrace liberal-democratic norms, so too can democracies "deconsolidate" once such norms begin to fray. 2 In the April 2021 issue of the Journal of Democracy, Christian Welzel argues that scholars of democracy and public opinion should look not at commonly fielded questions that ask citizens how they feel about the performance and value of democratic institutions in their countries, but should instead focus on survey items that probe attitudes about such topics as abortion, divorce, women's rights, and approaches to parenting. 3 If Welzel is correct, then we can all stop worrying about such unsettling
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.