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Jan 24, 2022 · By Barbara F. Walter January 24, 2022 at 11:52 a.m. EST Supporters of then-President Donald Trump scaled the wall on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
- Is The U.S. at Risk of A Civil War?
- How to Prevent The Collapse of American Democracy
- There Is Hope For U.S. Democracy.
There are two key predictive factors for civil war.
Some of the task force’s potential predictive factors for civil war might seem obvious, like higher levels of poverty and income inequality, or extreme discrimination against a particular group of people. Those factors, though, weren’t actually the best predictors of conflict, Walter shared on the TED2023 stage. To the experts’ surprise, it came down to two main factors. First, whether or not a country was an anocracy. “Anocracy is just a fancy term for partial democracy,” Walter explained. “...
In the weeks before January 6th, the U.S. was officially classified as an anocracy.
The task force discussed countries around the world, but the U.S. never made it onto this watch list. Why? Because the CIA is not legally allowed to monitor the U.S. or its citizens, and in Walter’s words “that’s exactly the way it should be.” Walter, though, as a private citizen, saw both of these factors emerging rapidly in the U.S. She also knew that since 2016, the U.S.’s democracy had been downgraded three times, the most recent of which came after former President Trump refused to accep...
Once-dominant groups that are in decline are the most likely to start a civil war.
You may also be surprised to learn who are the folks that declare or start a civil war. We’ll give you a hint: it’s not the poorest or the most oppressed. “The people who tend to start civil wars, especially ethnically-based civil wars, are the groups that had once been politically dominant but are in decline,” Walter said. In the U.S., for example, Walter explains how the rise of militias has been driven “primarily by white men who see America changing in ways that directly threatens their s...
The U.S. is in the midst of a transition from a country with a majority-white population to one that will soon be majority non-white. And the stakes are high: other countries will follow our lead. “These countries are going to be looking to the United States to see how we manage this demographic shift,” Walter said. “Americans can allow this transi...
In her years of work in this area, Walter has interviewed people who have lived through a civil war, “and they all say the same thing: ‘I didn’t see it coming.’” We have the benefit of foresight here: We have the data to back up these predictive factors for civil war and political violence (and, arguably, proof and hindsight from what happened on J...
Nov 24, 2023 · Based on her work for a CIA task force aimed at predicting civil wars, political scientist Barbara F. Walter examines the rise in extremism and threats to democracies around the globe and at home.
Apr 23, 2024 · According to Walter, in January 2021 the U.S. slipped into the dangerous middle ground of anocracy. Of course, a modern American civil war would not resemble the blue versus gray of 1861-1865 ...
- John M. Crisp
Apr 17, 2023 · Barbara F. Walter, author of the book "How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them". Between democracy and autocracy is an anocracy, defined by political scientists as a country that has elements ...
Dec 17, 2021 · Barbara F. Walter, a political science ... But in the five years of the Trump era, it tumbled precipitously into the anocracy zone; by the end of his presidency, the U.S. score had fallen to a 5 ...
People also ask
Are anocracies vulnerable to a civil war?
Is the United States now an anocracy?
What happens if a country moves into an anocracy zone?
What is anocracy & how does it affect a country?
Aug 15, 2023 · Based on her work for a CIA task force aimed at predicting civil wars, political scientist Barbara F. Walter examines the rise in extremism and threats to de...
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