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‘Democracy is in crisis’, ‘democratic backsliding’ and ‘erosion of democracy’ are some of the phrases commonly found in newspapers’ analyses that seek to convey the idea that one of the leitmotifs of the 21st-century will be the end of democracy as a form on government worldwide. But whether that crisis is real -and the severity of it- and the repercussions that it may have in other aspects of society is something well under discussion in contemporary academic circles of social sciences.

Following this debate, 17 different scholars in Mexico try to find out the extent to which these assertions hold in the book Categorías políticas de la democracia ante un mundo en cambio, coordinated by Pablo Armando González Ulloa Aguirre and Osmar Cervantes Gonzalez, both from the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Overall, the book succeeds in its intent to demonstrate that democracy is indeed in crisis. However, this does not mean that everything is lost and that a populist takeover of the world is inevitable. The authors provide good insights that, if carefully analysed, can be transformed into public policies that at least could help to slow down the trouble in which democracy is immersed.