Democracy Action Lab Launch: Global Challenges & Responses to Democratic Erosion

Two decades after the close of the Third Wave of democratization, scholars and practitioners alike continue to grapple with the question of why some democracies erode while others endure. To advance this critical inquiry, Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) launched the Democracy Action Lab (DAL), a new initiative devoted to rigorous, comparative, and conceptually grounded research on the conditions of democratic backsliding and resilience. DAL provides an academic home for refining definitions, testing theories, and generating knowledge that informs both scholarly debates and practical responses to the challenges facing democracy worldwide.

The launch event on October 22, 2025, featured a roundtable, “Global Challenges & Responses to Democratic Erosion” with leading voices in the field — Kathryn Stoner, Beatriz Magaloni, Anna Grzymala-Busse, and Didi Kuo — moderated by María Ignacia Curiel. Panelists reflected on conceptual clarity and contestation around “backsliding,” its relationship to fragile statehood, populism, and authoritarian resilience, and the mechanisms through which institutions weaken or recover. Drawing on comparative cases across Latin America, Europe, and beyond, the discussion also charts new directions for research: refining metrics, mapping mechanisms of erosion, and theorizing pathways of democratic renewal. The event marks DAL’s commitment to placing cutting-edge academic work at the center of global conversations about democracy’s future.