Fostering a Fourth Democratic Wave

A powerful autocratic wave is sweeping the globe. Over the last 17 years, no country remains untouched. Moving slowly in its first decade, and now with brazen haste, autocrats clamp down on their civil societies, coordinate strategies with each other, propagate authoritarian governance abroad, and engage in increasingly sharp attacks against democracies. 

This represents an urgent national and international security threat. Any viable strategy to respond will require action on multiple fronts, including strengthening democratic resilience, exerting top-down and bottom-up pressure on autocratic regimes, and fostering coordination by a range of actors. 

Within such a strategy, certain options hold great potential, and this Playbook expands on one of them. It focuses on how democracies can better support and enable nonviolent civil resistance movements fighting for rights, freedom, and justice-as well as impose costs on their autocratic adversaries. In doing so, it builds on an established body of research about the power of these movements, their vital role in advancing democracy and reversing authoritarianism, and best practices in working with them.