(a) The world currently has been in the throes of a twin process of 'democratic backsliding' and 'democratic backlash'. How would…

(a) The Paradox of Democratic Backsliding and Democratic Backlash

Contemporary international politics is marked by a dual crisis of governance where democratic erosion operates simultaneously from above and below. Democratic backsliding denotes the top-down, incremental dismantling of democratic norms, judicial autonomy, and institutional checks and balances by democratically elected incumbents, as observed in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Erdoğan’s Turkey, and in contested assessments by indices such as V-Dem and Freedom House of several developing democracies. Conversely, democratic backlash represents a bottom-up, popular revolt against liberal democratic institutions, driven by widening socioeconomic inequality, cultural anxieties, and resentment against technocratic elites. This is manifested in phenomena such as Brexit, the electoral appeal of Donald Trump (2016 and 2024), and the rise of populist parties across Europe like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and National Rally.

The paradox lies in their dialectical coexistence: while political elites dismantle institutional safeguards, the electorate actively facilitates this process by demanding popular accountability through illiberal mechanisms. As Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way conceptualize in their framework of competitive authoritarianism, formal democratic structures remain intact while incumbents tilt the playing field. Simultaneously, Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk’s thesis of democratic deconsolidation explains how citizens increasingly decouple democratic values from institutional faith, allowing populist executives to hollow out liberal constitutionalism under the mandate of popular sovereignty.

The paradox also has a hopeful reading, in which "backlash" means citizens pushing back against backsliding. Mass protests and electoral reversals have checked would-be autocrats: Poland's 2023 election removed a government that had curbed judicial independence, South Korea's parliament and citizens reversed a declaration of martial law within hours in December 2024, Senegal's courts and voters defeated a postponed election in 2024, and youth-led uprisings in Sri Lanka (2022), Bangladesh (2024) and Nepal (2025) toppled governments. Backsliding and backlash thus feed each other: executive aggrandisement provokes resistance, and polarised resistance in turn is used to justify further emergency powers. The outcome depends on institutions - independent courts, election bodies and a free press - that can channel backlash into democratic renewal rather than instability.

(b) US Withdrawal from WHO and Reimagining Global Health Governance

The withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO)—first announced by the Trump administration in 2020, reversed by the Biden administration in January 2021, ordered again on 20 January 2025 and effective from January 2026—exposes deep institutional vulnerabilities; Argentina announced its own exit in 2025. Because the US has historically contributed approximately 15% of the WHO’s overall budget, abrupt funding cutbacks trigger severe budgetary crises, weaken pandemic surveillance networks, and undermine global disease containment programs. Geopolitically, American retrenchment creates an institutional vacuum readily filled by China's expanding influence, while elevating middle powers like India to fill leadership voids through initiatives such as Vaccine Maitri.

Reimagining the existing WHO is vital to insulate global health from superpower unilateralism. First, the WHO Pandemic Agreement, adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2025, must be completed with its annex on pathogen access and benefit-sharing and brought into force, alongside the 2024 amendments to the International Health Regulations that created a "pandemic emergency" alert level. Second, the WHO must reform its financing structure by expanding mandatory assessed contributions from member states (the 2022 Assembly agreed to raise them to half of the base budget by around 2030), reducing its over-reliance on voluntary, earmarked donor funds. Third, governance mechanisms must guarantee regional equity in decision-making. In this context, India’s joint advocacy at the WTO for a TRIPS waiver on COVID-19 health technologies offers an indispensable model for Global South leadership, prioritizing public health over intellectual property monopolies.

(c) Transnational Actors: Transforming Global Politics

Transnational actors have qualitatively transformed the state-centric Westphalian order by deploying fresh insights, resources, and normative frameworks. Transnational corporations (TNCs) like Apple and Amazon earn annual revenues exceeding the GDP of many states, redefining digital sovereignty and global commerce. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace have institutionalized international human rights and ecological norms, while violent non-state networks like ISIS have contested traditional territorial boundaries. Simultaneously, epistemic communities such as the scientific networks that produce the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and non-state donors like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation decisively shape international climate consensus and health financing.

These actors offer fresh modes of decentralized mobilization that redefine citizenship beyond state borders. Transnational advocacy networks driving movements like #MeToo, Fridays for Future, and Black Lives Matter utilize digital interconnectedness to bypass domestic gatekeepers and forge global solidarity for human rights and climate justice. Historically, grassroots actions from the Global South have exerted similar transformative power; India’s Chipko movement inspired ecofeminist writing such as Vandana Shiva's Staying Alive (1988) and community-led conservation elsewhere. Keohane and Nye's Transnational Relations and World Politics (1971) had already argued that such cross-border actors make a purely state-centric model of world politics inadequate.