Democracy: are we at a tipping point?

4 March 1933. The Austrian National Council is convening as the nation's railway workers go on strike. Few suspect that this Saturday afternoon will mark the end of the young republic.

All three presidents of the National Council resign over a disputed vote count. The Parliament is incapable of taking a decision, a situation for which the Rules of Procedure make no provision. Federal Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss seizes on the crisis to mount a coup d'état, declaring that the National Council has "eliminated itself." With Parliament barred from reconvening, he continues to govern by emergency decree. 

After the events of 4 March 1933, there was no turning back. With the May Constitution of 1934, the Austrian 'corporative state' (German: Ständestaat) was born as a dictatorship under Dollfuss and his party. All other opposition parties were banned — the end of parliamentary democracy in Austria.

Can we learn from history?

Fast forward to 2026: Austria has returned to parliamentary democracy for more than 80 years. But this form of government is under increasing pressure worldwide. In recent years, governments of democratic states – from India to Hungary and the USA – have repeatedly drawn criticism for their disregard of democratic institutions and values. Democracy indices, which attempt to measure how democratic countries are, seem to confirm this impression. According to the Democracy Report 2026, the number of people living in democracies worldwide has been steadily declining since the turn of the millennium.

Can history help us better understand these current developments and act against them? Are there 'early warning signs' that might help us spot when democracy is at risk of reaching a tipping point again? To answer these questions, we spoke to Fabio Wolkenstein, Head of the Department of Political Science, and Claudia Kraft, Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Vienna who joined us via video call from Munich, where she is currently on a research visit.

"The First Austrian Republic, the Weimar Republic and other young democracies of the interwar period had one thing in common," says Fabio Wolkenstein of the University of Vienna, whose research focuses on the transformation of democracy. "Neither the public nor the political class could reach a consensus about wanting to continue in a democratic system." 

This means that democratic constitutions or institutions can be undermined once there is majority approval. A democracy is only ever as strong as the social forces that support it.

Long processes instead of individual tipping points

The crisis over the National Council's rules of procedure, which Dollfuss exploited to seize power, shows how quickly a democratic order can collapse. The global economic crisis which began in 1929 is another event that fuelled anti-democratic ambitions. On the other hand, such tipping points in history are first and foremost a narrative construct, emphasises Claudia Kraft, who also sits on the steering committee of the new Research Network for Democracy and Human Rights at the University of Vienna. "Loss of trust and faith in democracy does not develop overnight." 

Rather, every apparent fuse-lighting spark is preceded by a long process that slowly and steadily builds dissatisfaction with the existing order. One example is the social inequality in Weimar Germany. "Economic power was concentrated in the hands of large landowners and private heavy industry, among others," explains Kraft, adding that a large part of the population experienced great hardship. Social discontent was already high when the global economic crisis hit and tipped the .

Poland at a tipping point: the May Coup of 1926

In addition to the socio-economic inequalities in the young states of the interwar period, there was often fundamental disagreement about how the democratic community should be organised, explains the contemporary historian, "In Poland, for example, people were initially very enthusiastic about democracy because it meant regaining a nation state." However, disillusionment followed when it became clear how difficult it is to organise society in a democracy in practice.

In the 1920s, tensions between the rival social groups and political camps repeatedly got out of hand, "despite phases in which negotiation and compromise worked well," Claudia Kraft stressed. There were frequent changes of government; one crisis followed the other. "These were conditions conducive to the gradual dismantling of democratic procedures, which had been driven forward since the May Coup of 1926 led by the former Polish independence fighter Jósef Piłsudski. The system, which was referred to as sanacja (renewal/reorganisation), increasingly narrowed the scope for parliamentary action. The aim was to 'reorganise' democracy, whose lengthy political negotiation processes were not considered suitable for solving the variety of problems in the newly created Polish state.

No clear 'early warning signs'

Rising inequality, political apathy and polarisation, fears about the future – many of these issues are not unknown to us today. Can we derive a list of 'early warning signs' from these and other historical reasons for the failure of democracies?

"That would be convenient, but it is not that simple," says Claudia Kraft, explaining that each situation must be considered individually. "You can always provide examples to prove the opposite," says the expert on cultural history and history of knowledge and gender. "Czechoslovakia struggled with the same tensions and fundamental issues in the interwar period as other countries in Europe: Who are we, how do we deal with minorities, how do we distribute social resources? But there was a constant will to negotiate all of this democratically." Democracy in Czechoslovakia was, in fact, destroyed from the outside due to the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and the subsequent occupation of Czechoslovakian territories by Nazi Germany in March 1939.

"I agree that there is no fixed set of events after which a democracy reaches a tipping point," agrees Fabio Wolkenstein. If you consider Poland, Hungary and the USA in recent years, you can see a steady erosion of democratic institutions and freedoms. "But such 'restructuring measures' can be subtle and often take place in normative grey areas," says the political scientist. It is not always possible to clearly categorise whether the reform of an institution is anti-democratic. It all depends on the context and the intention behind the reform. For example, does the reform make it impossible for political opponents to achieve their own goals even after an orderly change of power? 

Nevertheless, there are general indicators, according to the political scientist. "For example, is there an opposition that can do its job? And can the institutions that are supposed to keep checks and balances on the government fulfil their function?" If not, this is a threat to democracy, just like in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán rendered the Constitutional Court, critical journalism and other control bodies toothless or instrumentalised them for his own political purposes. Claudia Kraft adds, "Furthermore, alarm bells should ring when governments curtail the civil rights of individual groups in the population or pursue policies that ignore parliamentary compromise and the rule of law."

Recipe for resilience

The last two hundred years have seen the emergence of many democracies. Some of them have disappeared again, while others have stood the test of time against all odds. What is their 'recipe for success'? "I think the most important thing is to realise that democracy is a permanent learning process, because the processes of balancing interests and finding compromise are difficult," says Kraft. The First Czechoslovak Republic, which functioned well until its destruction from the outside, was characterised by the fact that politics and society did not surrender to the numerous economic and social challenges. "Instead, the political negotiation process deliberately addressed them, also involving minorities and heterogeneous interests."

In a complex world that unsettles many people, democracy has to prove itself time and time again. Political education is essential in this regard, says Claudia Kraft. "Education has to convey how complex but also how important it is to weigh up different interests in regulated procedures in a democracy." If this awareness is anchored in society, citizens are also more willing to follow the democratic path – which is often arduous, complex and prone to conflict.

Conflict and discontent are part of democracy

"Politically informed citizens know their individual rights in the democratic system and can defend them," adds Kraft. "This makes it more difficult for authoritarian politicians to abolish democracy from within." For example, this is currently evident in Serbia, where a large-scale student movement is demanding that the rule of law be upheld and that politicians take responsibility for misconduct, thus exerting pressure on the increasingly autocratic President Aleksandar Vučić.

A decisive factor for resilience is also the defence of democratic values by the political culture, emphasises Fabio Wolkenstein. "This also includes that those in power accept election defeats and support the process of an orderly transfer of power."

Conflict and discontent are part of democracy. "The greatest strength of democracy lies in the fact that all actors can freely express their discontent," says Wolkenstein. "Democracy is often frustrating. But when we no longer have it and can no longer articulate our frustration openly, we will miss it."