Brigitte Weiffen was an invited participant in the workshop “Democracy at 10: Understanding the Role of External Actors in Young Democracies” on 22 April 2025 in Lisbon. The workshop was organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in cooperation with the Institute of Social Science at the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL).

While autocrats have learned many lessons since the advent of the third wave, including how to harness disinformation, selectively repress, and band together to slow democratic contagion, pro-democracy advocates and international democracy promoters still understand very little about how to maximize the probability that fragile democratic transitions will succeed. This workshop therefore examined lessons from global cases of success and failure to provide recommendations for policymakers and activists on best practices during the critical first years of a transition.