The Thucydidean Brink

Abstract

The Thucydidean Brink PEOPLES' social networks, especially in the democratic West, have been radically altered, even reconfigured. The patterns of acknowledging and recognizing authority-both political and scholarly-have turned from a relatively hierarchic orientation (where authority is recognized to reside "at the top," as, for example, in the political elite or expert community) toward a shape that is characterized by more nonhierarchic or horizontal-i.e., peer group-flows. A major contributor to these transformations has been the effect of social practices enabled by social media platforms. This has opened up the space for new types of politicians, politically expressed emotions, and patterns of identification. New ways of campaigning for elections have opened up avenues for large-scale external influencing of Western democracies. These new politically expressive practices further feed the polarization of citizens. Political regression at home-the weakening of widely shared social bonds and common identifications-has become possible in new, qualitatively different, and even politically empowering ways. Furthermore, this disruptive agitation opens up vectors for external powers to meddle and disrupt based on their own regressive motivations.In many ways, President Donald J. Trump's election campaign in the 2016 presidential election was a clear watershed. Meddling in elections by external actors is not a novelty as such. However, it became clearly recognizable in the new methods used by these actors during and in the dramatic aftermath of the 2016 elections. The Trump campaign utilized