📢 ECPS Interview | VIDEO 🎥 🌍 Prof. Justin Gest: The Way Countries Treat Their Most Vulnerable Is Indicative of the State of Their Democracy ✍️ Interview by Selcuk Gultasli ▶️ Watch the full interview with Professor Justin Gest (@_JustinGest), Director of the Public Policy Program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, on migration, populism, demographic change, democratic backsliding, and his concept of “democratic drain.” ⁉️ What happens to democracy when citizens most committed to liberal-democratic values decide to leave? 📚 Professor Gest argues that democratic resilience depends not only on institutions but also on the citizens who remain to sustain them. When people with liberal-democratic values emigrate in large numbers, this “depletion effect” can weaken democratic resistance and potentially allow populist and authoritarian-leaning governments to escape political punishment for backsliding. 🔍 In the video, Professor Gest discusses: 🗳️ How democratic drain can reshape democratic resilience 🧠 Why brain drain may also involve the loss of democratic political capital ⚠️ How selective emigration can reinforce populist and authoritarian rule 🌐 How political entrepreneurs frame immigration as “chaos” or “invasion” 🏛️ Why immigration should be framed as a pursuit of the national interest 👥 How the treatment of migrants and minorities can reveal the health of democracy 🇺🇸 Why “we are seeing the beginnings of a democratic drain in the United States” 🌍 How migration could contribute to a new global population equilibrium between ageing societies and rapidly growing populations 💬 Professor Gest: “The way countries treat their most vulnerable… is indicative of the state of their democracy.” 🎥 Watch the interview: 🔗 youtube.com/watch?v=Znb3TISi… 📕 Read the full interview: 🔗 populismstudies.org/prof-ges… #ECPS #Populism #Democracy #Migration #DemocraticDrain #BrainDrain #DemocraticBacksliding #Immigration #Authoritarianism #Demography #PoliticalScience