The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 paved the way for the democratisation of many eastern European countries and triumphantly ushered in the era of global liberal democracy that some scholars celebrated as “the end of history”. The idea was that human political history followed a steady path and that western liberal democracy was the end point of the evolution of human government. Unfortunately, events unfolded a little differently.

The last 20 years did not follow a linear arc of progress, let alone marked the end of history. The growing electoral success of extreme rightwing parties in many western countries, from France to Finland and from the Netherlands to Germany, has turned the end of history into the possible end of democracy.

[...]

The public is unlikely to perceive a risk to democracy when a political leader breaks with a convention. But when repeated breaches of democratic norms by political elites are tolerated, when rhetorical transgressions escalate, and when a deluge of lies and manipulative claims becomes “normal”, then the public’s failure to punish the early signs of such behaviour at the ballot box may have drastic consequences.

In the same way that a nuclear power plant may appear to be operating safely until the last safety valve is broken, democracies can appear stable right up until they flip into autocracy.

[...]

One way to counter these problems may be to simulate experience of the risks, even if only through proxies. For instance, disaster training centres in Japan simulate the experience of the visceral dimensions of an earthquake and its swift temporal dynamic in a way that even the most graphic warnings cannot.

We argue that we can, equally, simulate how life feels in an authoritarian regime. Europe is home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have lived in autocracies and who can be invited to classrooms to share their personal experiences.

Vicarious detailed experiences can be highly persuasive. Similarly, people can gain insight into what it meant to be a political prisoner by visiting places like the former Stasi prison Hohenschönhausen in Berlin, especially when the guide is a former inmate. There are numerous other ways to emulate the experience of oppression and authoritarianism, thereby informing those who have been fortunate enough never to endure it.

The seemingly persistent non-occurrences of risky events can be seductive and misleading. But we are not enslaved by what we haven’t yet experienced. We can also use the positive power of experience to protect and appreciate our democratic systems.