Billions of people will vote in major elections this year — around half of the global population, by some estimates — in one of the largest and most consequential democratic exercises in living memory. The results will affect how the world is run for decades to come.
At the same time, false narratives and conspiracy theories have evolved into an increasingly global menace.
Baseless claims of election fraud have battered trust in democracy. Foreign influence campaigns regularly target polarizing domestic challenges. Artificial intelligence has supercharged disinformation efforts and distorted perceptions of reality. All while major social media companies have scaled back their safeguards and downsized election teams.
“Almost every democracy is under stress, independent of technology,” said Darrell M. West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. “When you add disinformation on top of that, it just creates many opportunities for mischief.”
It is, he said, a “perfect storm of disinformation.”
The stakes are enormous.
Democracy, which spread globally after the end of the Cold War, faces mounting challenges worldwide — from mass migration to climate disruption, from economic inequities to war. The struggle in many countries to respond adequately to such tests has eroded confidence in liberal, pluralistic societies, opening the door to appeals from populists and strongman leaders.
Autocratic countries, led by Russia and China, have seized on the currents of political discontent to push narratives undermining democratic governance and leadership, often by sponsoring disinformation campaigns. If those efforts succeed, the elections could accelerate the recent rise in authoritarian-minded leaders.
Fyodor A. Lukyanov, an analyst who leads a Kremlin-aligned think tank in Moscow, the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, argued recently that 2024 “could be the year when the West’s liberal elites lose control of the world order.”
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