Fight For Liberty​

Fight for Liberty book cover

Why fight for constitutional democracy?

Democracy is in crisis around the world, besieged by authoritarianism, nationalism, and other illiberal forces. Far-right parties are gaining traction in Europe, Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russia and undermines democracy abroad, and America struggles with poisonous threats from the right and left. But the defenders of democracy are strong too.

Taking their cues from the 1788 Federalist Papers, the Renew Democracy Initiative is a collective of pro-democracy advocates from across the political spectrum. This book is our foundational document, a collection of essays that analyze the multi-pronged threats to democracy in the U.S. and abroad, and offer solutions based on fundamental principles such as freedom of speech, a free press, and the rule of law.

Fight for Liberty is a roadmap for the struggle against the rising tide of extremism.

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Anne Applebaum, Garry Kasparov, Richard North Patterson, and a constellation of other thinkers join forces in the Renew Democracy Initiative to make the urgent case for constitutional democracy—reinvigorating its central values in an age of doubt and discord.

“The global spread of democracy once seemed unstoppable,” as explained in Fight for Liberty.

But times have changed. The stability of democracy is now in question.

Only 40% of Americans say they’re satisfied with American democracy right now, according to the 2018 American Institutional Confidence Poll, sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Georgetown University’s Baker Center for Leadership and Governance.

In 2017, for the 12th consecutive year, countries that suffered democratic setbacks outnumbered those that registered gains, according to the Freedom House’s survey “Democracy in Crisis.”

Democratic countries all over the world are becoming more polarized and are seeing public support for their liberal democratic institutions drop. (The U.S., The U.K., Brazil, Hungary, Poland.)

A graph and a heat map

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