Why the Future Cannot Be Predicted

In recent years, public-opinion scholars have raised concerns about declining satisfaction with democracy's performance and, in some countries, eroding democratic support. While these trends raise questions regarding democratic stability, other scholars have suggested that measures of social liberalism offer a more optimistic picture. Social-liberal values are rising globally, they assert, and since the presence of such values have correlated with past democratic transitions, a bright future for democracy awaits. However, in this article we find little evidence to link social liberalism to democratization—or even that social-liberal values are rising outside of existing democracies. While there are good reasons to envisage a future wave of democratic transitions, such global-values measures cannot inform their timing, location, or rationale.