What is the Liberal approach to elections during wartime?
Republics have taken different approaches, and it's unclear more elections are better
The suspension of Ukrainian elections during the Russian full scale invasion has been met with criticism. Some of it is obviously bad faith, coming from supporters of the invasion itself. But even liberal minded commentators are understandably concerned about the precedent of delaying elections, fearing that President Volodymyr Zelensky, elected in 2019, could use the war to avoid political competition indefinitely. Relatively few stable democracies have been faced with decisions about what to do with elections during wartime, but a survey of the decisions several (The UK, France, and US) have made shows both that suspending elections is relatively common, and that holding them in wartime is not necessarily the more democratic option in the long run.
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