From Crisis to Action: Meliorism and the Path to Democratic Renewal

The State of Democracy in the Americas

The 2025 CIVICUS Monitor report reveals a sobering reality: civic freedoms across the Americas are experiencing a dramatic rollback. Approximately 60 percent of the population now lives in obstructed civic space environments, while another 30 percent faces closed or repressed conditions. This represents not merely statistical decline, but a fundamental assault on the democratic foundations that enable citizen participation in governance. The United States has been downgraded, for the second time, from a narrowed to an obstructed civic space. Yes, it is shocking, sobering, scary and staggering.

What makes this erosion in the Americas particularly alarming is its scope. Even long-established democracies are showing signs of rapid authoritarian shift, marked by weakened rule of law and growing constraints on independent civil society. The United States and Argentina exemplify this disturbing trend, with both nations experiencing civic space downgrades in 2025. The mechanisms of democratic backsliding have become disturbingly familiar: arbitrary detention of activists, violent suppression of protests, harassment of journalists, and the weaponization of legal systems against civil society organizations.

The human cost is staggering. The Americas remained the world's deadliest region for human rights defenders in 2025, with environmental activists, Indigenous leaders, and social justice advocates murdered with alarming frequency and impunity. From Colombia's systematic targeting of Indigenous defenders to Honduras's killing of environmental activists documenting illegal logging, the pattern reveals states failing their most basic duty: protecting those who defend fundamental rights.

Press freedom faces unprecedented pressure across the region. Journalists encounter violence during protests, targeted assassinations by organized crime, online harassment campaigns, and legal persecution disguised as legitimate prosecution. Mexico remains the deadliest place for journalists outside a warzone, while sophisticated tactics of intimidation proliferate even in traditionally democratic nations. The silencing of truth-tellers removes a critical pillar of democratic accountability.

Perhaps most insidious is the transnational nature of modern repression. Activists forced into exile from countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela discover that borders provide no sanctuary. They face killings, assaults, digital threats, and passport revocations designed to obstruct their advocacy even from abroad. Democracy's defenders find themselves stateless, vulnerable, and pursued by authoritarian regimes intent on eliminating dissent wherever it emerges.

Understanding Meliorism: A Philosophy for Democratic Action

In the face of such comprehensive democratic erosion, meliorism offers both analysis and antidote. Meliorism, derived from the Latin word for "better," represents a philosophical stance between naive optimism and resigned pessimism. It asserts that while the world is neither inherently progressing toward perfection nor doomed to inevitable decline, human agency can deliberately improve conditions through sustained, intelligent effort.

The meliorist worldview rejects two dangerous extremes. It dismisses the Panglossian notion that progress happens automatically, that democratic institutions protect themselves, or that the arc of history bends inevitably toward justice without human intervention. Such complacency creates the conditions for authoritarian advance. Simultaneously, meliorism rejects fatalistic despair—the belief that democratic backsliding is irreversible, that systems of oppression are too entrenched to challenge, or that individual actions cannot meaningfully alter structural realities.

Instead, meliorism embraces what philosopher William James called "the doctrine that we can make things better by rightly exerting ourselves." This perspective acknowledges obstacles while insisting on possibility. It recognizes systems of oppression as human constructions that can be reconstructed. It sees democratic institutions as fragile achievements requiring active maintenance and improvement rather than permanent fixtures of political life.

Applied to democracy, meliorism suggests that civic freedoms are neither guaranteed nor lost, but continuously contested. Every generation must actively defend and expand democratic space. This requires understanding how authoritarianism advances—through normalization of repression, systematic dismantling of accountability mechanisms, and exploitation of social divisions—while simultaneously building counter-strategies rooted in solidarity, strategic action, and institutional strengthening.

Let’s think about the above four paragraphs.  Pause here.  Reread those paragraphs.

Now, think about what they are saying.  Democracy is not a “set it and forget it” appliance.  We can’t treat it like a crock pot, an Instant Pot or a logically sequenced program executed by a computer.  It is a collection of fragile achievements that requires that each successive generation of citizens & immigrants MUST actively defend and expand it, while building strategies rooted in solidarity, strategic action, and institutional strengthening, to keep it strong, vibrant and in expansion.   

Does watching the TV news at night do that? No. Does voting in every election do that? No. Does allowing oneself to be horrified by acts that inflict wounds upon democracy do that? No.  Key word: active. We, collectively, must be active in defending and expanding democratic space. Hey, we all love to sit and relax after a hard day of work, but we don’t have the luxury of doing that every night if we are to actively defend and expand democracy. 

Someone might say, “Well, yeah, but shouldn’t democracy be taking care of me?” And I would ask that person to point to where democracy is found. The answer of course, is that it is found inside of all of us. That makes us democracy light-bearers. We are the reason that democracy is alive, expands or dies.  Don’t look elsewhere. The responsible party closest to you is found in your mirror.

Grounds for Hope Amid Crisis

Even within the CIVICUS Monitor's sobering assessment, seeds of resilience persist. These examples illuminate how democratic resistance adapts, innovates, and endures even under severe pressure.

Civil society demonstrates remarkable persistence across the Americas. Despite facing arbitrary detention, surveillance, and restrictive funding laws, organizations continue documenting abuses, defending rights, and supporting affected communities. When major civil society organizations face closure in El Salvador due to the Foreign Agents Law, others adapt their structures and find creative ways to continue their work. This adaptability reflects the fundamental resilience of civic organizing.

Regional solidarity networks have strengthened in response to transnational repression. As exiled activists from Nicaragua and Venezuela face threats beyond their borders, cross-border support systems have emerged to provide protection, legal assistance, and advocacy platforms. These networks demonstrate that authoritarian tactics extending across borders can be met with democratic cooperation that similarly transcends national boundaries.

Legal victories, though often incomplete, establish important precedents. Courts in some countries have struck down or limited repressive legislation, upheld press freedom protections, and vindicated wrongly persecuted activists. Each such decision reinforces the principle that rights deserve legal protection and provides tools for future advocacy.

International accountability mechanisms, despite their limitations, continue documenting abuses and creating pressure for change. The work of UN special rapporteurs, international fact-finding missions, and regional human rights bodies provides crucial validation for victims and generates documented records that support future justice efforts.

Youth mobilizations demonstrate democracy's intergenerational transmission. Despite facing lethal force, as seen in Peru's student-led protests, young people continue organizing around climate justice, educational access, and democratic accountability. This engagement suggests that authoritarian tactics have not eliminated the democratic impulse among emerging generations.

Most fundamentally, people continue showing up. They attend protests knowing they may face violence. They publish journalism despite threats. They defend community lands despite assassinations. They document abuses despite detention risks. This sustained courage, replicated across thousands of individual acts of resistance, represents democracy's strongest foundation.

Concrete Steps Toward Democratic Renewal

Meliorism demands not just hope but action. The path from democratic crisis to renewal requires coordinated effort across multiple levels, from individual practice to institutional reform. Here are concrete steps that various actors can take:

For Individual Citizens

Document and share abuses systematically. Use secure channels to record instances of rights violations, excessive force, or institutional malfeasance. Share documentation with human rights organizations, international monitors, and trusted media outlets. Individual testimonies aggregated become irrefutable evidence.

Support independent journalism financially and practically. Subscribe to independent media outlets, contribute to journalist protection funds, and amplify verified reporting through your networks. When journalism faces economic and physical threats, reader support becomes essential infrastructure.

Develop digital security practices. Learn to use encrypted communication tools, practice strong password hygiene, understand surveillance risks, and help others in your community develop these skills. As states expand digital repression, technical literacy becomes civic defense.

Join or create mutual aid networks. Organize community support systems that provide material assistance to those facing persecution, help with legal defense funds, offer temporary housing for displaced activists, or supply resources for affected families. Solidarity must be practical as well as symbolic.

Engage in persistent local advocacy. Attend municipal meetings, submit public comments on proposed policies, meet with elected representatives, and participate in community organizing. Democracy erodes when citizens retreat from civic participation; it strengthens when engagement becomes routine.

For Civil Society Organizations

Build cross-sectoral coalitions. Connect human rights organizations with environmental groups, labor unions, student movements, and professional associations. Authoritarian tactics isolate; democratic resistance succeeds through solidarity that spans traditional boundaries.

Invest in security and protection infrastructure. Develop rapid response protocols for detained members, establish emergency relocation funds, provide mental health support for traumatized activists, and create secure communication networks. Protection cannot be improvised during crisis.

Document strategically. Maintain rigorous records of violations using standardized methodologies that meet international evidentiary standards. Strategic documentation supports future accountability mechanisms, legal proceedings, and truth-telling processes.

Adapt organizational structures for resilience. Develop decentralized leadership models, maintain operational flexibility, diversify funding sources to reduce vulnerability to single-point pressure, and create succession plans that ensure continuity if key figures are targeted.

Strengthen international partnerships. Build relationships with foreign civil society organizations, establish communication channels with international human rights bodies, and participate in regional networks that can provide external advocacy when domestic space closes.

For Journalists and Media Organizations

Implement comprehensive safety protocols. Provide hostile environment training, ensure adequate insurance coverage, establish check-in systems for reporters in dangerous areas, and develop clear evacuation procedures. Journalism cannot inform the public if journalists cannot safely report.

Create collaborative protection networks. Form journalist collectives that provide mutual support, pool resources for legal defense, establish safe houses for threatened reporters, and coordinate responses to harassment campaigns. Individual journalists are vulnerable; networked journalists have resilience.

Diversify platforms and funding. Develop multiple distribution channels resistant to single-point censorship, cultivate reader-supported funding models that reduce dependence on vulnerable revenue streams, and build alternative infrastructure that can withstand government pressure.

Practice source protection rigorously. Use secure communication methods, understand legal protections and their limits, maintain separation between reporting and personal digital lives, and prioritize the safety of vulnerable sources above competitive advantages.

Report on civic space systematically. Make press freedom violations, protest suppression, and civil society targeting ongoing beats rather than episodic stories. Sustained coverage normalizes civic space defense as newsworthy and provides longitudinal documentation of trends.

For Legal Professionals

Provide pro bono representation. Offer free legal services to persecuted activists, wrongly detained protesters, and harassed organizations. When states weaponize law against civil society, lawyers defending democratic space become essential actors.

Pursue strategic litigation. Identify cases that can establish protective precedents, challenge unconstitutional laws or executive actions, and vindicate fundamental rights. Strategic cases create legal tools that benefit broader movements.

Document judicial independence threats. Track instances of political interference in judicial proceedings, monitor persecution of judges who rule against government interests, and advocate for structural protections of judicial autonomy. Judiciary independence is democracy's institutional keystone.

Support international legal mechanisms. Bring cases before regional human rights courts, support universal jurisdiction proceedings against perpetrators of serious abuses, and help victims access international justice when domestic systems fail.

Educate on rights and remedies. Conduct community workshops on constitutional protections, know-your-rights trainings for activists and protesters, and accessible explanations of legal processes. Legal knowledge democratizes access to legal protection.

For Technology Professionals

Build secure communication tools. Develop and maintain encrypted messaging applications, secure file-sharing systems, and anonymity-protecting browsing tools tailored to activist needs. Democratic resistance increasingly depends on communication that resists surveillance.

Provide technical support to civil society. Offer cybersecurity assessments, help implement strong security practices, provide emergency response when organizations face digital attacks, and transfer skills through capacity-building programs.

Expose surveillance overreach. Document and publicize state surveillance systems, algorithmic discrimination, and invasive monitoring technologies. Technical expertise can illuminate surveillance mechanisms that operate in darkness.

Develop censorship circumvention tools. Create technologies that help people access information despite government blocking, distribute journalism suppressed by authorities, and coordinate resistance despite platform shutdowns.

Practice ethical technology development. Refuse to build tools that facilitate rights violations, advocate within tech companies for policies protecting democratic values, and prioritize human rights impact assessments in technology design.

For International Community and Institutions

Impose targeted consequences for repression. Use sanctions strategically against individual perpetrators of serious abuses, restrict visas for officials involved in rights violations, and freeze assets of those profiting from democratic erosion. Accountability requires consequences.

Provide material support to civil society. Fund grassroots organizations facing domestic restrictions, support journalist protection programs, finance legal defense for persecuted activists, and maintain funding flexibility that adapts to closing civic space.

Strengthen accountability mechanisms. Adequately resource UN human rights monitoring bodies, support international criminal justice institutions, and ensure regional human rights systems can effectively investigate and adjudicate violations.

Offer safe haven to threatened defenders. Expedite visa processing for activists facing imminent danger, create dedicated asylum pathways for human rights defenders, and provide relocation assistance to threatened journalists and organizers.

Leverage diplomatic pressure consistently. Raise civic space concerns in bilateral meetings, make democratic governance central to trade negotiations, and use collective diplomatic tools to pressure authoritarian regimes. Quiet diplomacy must be supplemented by public accountability.

For Academic and Research Institutions

Conduct rigorous documentation of democratic erosion. Produce systematic research on authoritarian tactics, track longitudinal trends in civic space restriction, and provide empirical foundations for advocacy and policy responses.

Create safe research partnerships. Collaborate with at-risk researchers and civil society organizations in ways that protect their security, provide institutional backing that can shield local partners, and ensure research benefits threatened communities.

Educate on democratic resilience. Develop curricula exploring civic participation, institutional design for democratic protection, historical lessons from authoritarian periods, and practical skills for civic engagement.

Provide institutional sanctuary. Offer visiting fellowships to threatened scholars, create academic homes for exiled intellectuals, and use institutional prestige to provide protective visibility for targeted researchers.

Bridge research and practice. Ensure academic work reaches practitioners through accessible formats, policy briefs, training materials, and direct partnerships that translate research into actionable strategies.

The Meliorist Imperative

The CIVICUS Monitor's findings compel neither optimism nor despair, but deliberate action. Democratic backsliding across the Americas results from specific choices by specific actors who recognized opportunities and exploited civic space vulnerabilities. Democratic renewal will similarly result from intentional choices by people who recognize that improvement is neither inevitable nor impossible, but depends on sustained commitment to making it so.

Meliorism acknowledges that the situation is genuinely serious. When 90 percent of the Americas' population lives under obstructed, repressed, or closed civic conditions, when journalists and activists are systematically murdered, when democratic institutions are deliberately dismantled, we face not temporary setbacks but fundamental challenges to democratic survival.

Yet meliorism insists that seriousness is not hopelessness. Every authoritarian tactic has a counter-strategy. Every closed space contains cracks through which resistance emerges. Every setback teaches lessons that strengthen subsequent efforts. The question is not whether we can improve conditions, but whether we will commit to the persistent, intelligent, coordinated action that improvement requires.

Democracy is not a possession but a practice. It exists not in documents but in daily acts of citizens defending rights, speaking truth, organizing communities, and holding power accountable. When these practices weaken, democracy weakens. When they strengthen, democracy strengthens. The choice, ultimately, is ours.

The activists organizing despite detention risk, the journalists reporting despite threats, the lawyers defending despite harassment, the citizens protesting despite repression—these are not naive optimists hoping circumstances will improve spontaneously. They are meliorists: people who understand that circumstances improve because people make them improve. Their courage illuminates the path forward.

That path is neither short nor easy. Democratic renewal requires sustained effort across years and decades, not days and weeks. It demands coordination across movements and borders, not isolated heroics. It needs strategic thinking about systems and institutions, not just reactive responses to immediate crises. It requires, above all, the distinctly meliorist conviction that the work is both necessary and possible.

The alternative to meliorist action is not neutral observation but complicity in democratic decline. When civic space contracts and we do nothing, we enable its contraction. When journalists are silenced and we remain silent, we amplify the silence. When activists are detained and we fail to respond, we normalize detention. Inaction is itself a choice with consequences.

But meliorism offers more than obligation; it offers agency. In the face of overwhelming structural forces, meliorism insists that ordinary people retain extraordinary power. When citizens organize, they shift political possibilities. When journalists document, they create accountability. When lawyers litigate, they establish precedent. When technologists build tools, they open space. When international actors impose consequences, they raise costs. Each action creates conditions for subsequent actions, generating momentum that can ultimately shift entire systems.

This is not to suggest that any single action will reverse democratic backsliding or that effort guarantees success. Meliorism is not magical thinking. Some fights will be lost. Some defended spaces will close. Some protected people will be harmed. But the accumulation of efforts, the persistence of resistance, the building of institutions, and the cultivation of democratic culture create possibilities that did not previously exist. That is what we can do. That is what meliorism demands we try.

The CIVICUS Monitor's findings are not merely data points but calls to action. They document where democracy is failing not to induce paralysis but to focus effort. They reveal patterns of repression not to counsel despair but to inform strategy. They honor those who continue resisting not to celebrate martyrdom but to exemplify possibility.

We stand at a critical juncture. The coming years will determine whether democratic erosion in the Americas continues its accelerating descent into authoritarianism or whether concerted resistance bends trajectories toward renewal. That determination will not be made by abstract historical forces but by concrete choices of people who decide either to engage or withdraw, to resist or accommodate, to build or acquiesce.

Meliorism calls us to engagement. It reminds us that democracy's fate is neither predetermined nor beyond influence, but depends on what we do with the agency we possess. It insists that the scope of current challenges is matched by the possibility of coordinated response. It affirms that the work of democratic renewal, while difficult, is the most consequential work available to this generation.

The findings are clear. The philosophy is coherent. The steps are concrete. The imperative is urgent. What remains is action—persistent, strategic, collective action guided by the meliorist conviction that we can make democracy better by rightly exerting ourselves. The question is not whether improvement is guaranteed, but whether we will try. And on that question, everything depends.

By Democracy Is Us Council Member, Joe Castagliola