Marked by an unprecedented number of elections, 2024 represents a historic milestone in democratic governance for scholars and citizens alike. Approximately 64 countries—representing over 2 billion people—will have elections this year. Among those polities, India, the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico stand out as the largest and most economically prosperous democracies with significant electoral processes—not to mention the European Parliament. And political mobilization of this scale should not be taken for granted: This level of collective electoral participation will not be seen again until 2048.
Although those who support democracy as the best political framework for facilitating economic prosperity and safeguarding basic human rights should be heartened by widespread suffrage, political and economic volatility remain major countervailing concerns. Perhaps the biggest threat to democratic governance is the least understood: Societies still do not know how to sufficiently combat the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by malevolent actors who are deploying this technology to fuel manipulation, misinformation, and disinformation campaigns.