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April 23rd, 2024 | 4:34 AM ET

The Rise of the Fringe: A Threat to Democracy?

Posted: July 13th, 2016

Parties on the extreme ends of the political spectrum – along with anti-establishment candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders – are moving into the political mainstream in democracies in the United States, Europe, and parts of Latin America. These formerly fringe parties or political outsiders are promising to better fulfill the social contract – that is, providing citizens with security and economic well-being in exchange for relinquishing some power to the state – than their establishment political rivals.

Economic well-being has diminished significantly in the U.S. and Europe since the financial crisis eight years ago. A Gallup poll from 2012 shows between 2008 and 2011, net well-being around the world dropped, and “the global economic crisis that began in 2008 is a prime suspect,” wrote Gallup’s Gale Muller and Julie Ray.

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