The Future of Freedom
Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad
Zakaria warns that elections alone don't make a country free, and that democracy without the rule of law and liberal institutions can curdle into a new kind of tyranny.
Zakaria’s argument cuts against a comfortable assumption: that more democracy always means more freedom. He distinguishes between democracy (the holding of elections) and liberty (the rule of law, protected rights, independent institutions), and shows how the two can come apart. Regimes elected by landslides can trample minorities and concentrate power, producing what he calls illiberal democracy. Ranging from the Middle East to American politics, it makes the case that freedom rests on constraints as much as on the ballot box.
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