"The fourth edition of the Global State of Democracy Report comes at a time when democracy is under both literal and figurative assault around the world. The steady drumbeat of such warnings—included in the previous edition of this report, which was produced at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic—always runs the risk of becoming background noise, as today’s crisis can quickly become tomorrow’s new normal. But the dangers are real. Beyond the lingering pandemic, today’s wars and a looming global recession, lies the challenge of climate change and all it entails—severe weather events, the necessary green transition and multi-fold consequences for democratic governance [...] But contrary to what democratic pessimists may suggest, authoritarian countries and alternative systems of government have not outperformed their democratic peers. Discontent at the neverending stream of Chinese lockdowns and the tens of thousands of draft dodgers fleeing Russia for an uncertain existence in the South Caucasus and Central Asia show that it is not just in democracies where the social contract is in urgent need of renewal." (Preface)