An expert in international relations has told RTÉ's Behind the Story podcast it is "extremely alarming" that Donald Trump has the full force of the US government behind him for another three years.
Alex Dukalskis, associate professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD, said he believes the US is shifting "more into a dark place" under Mr Trump.
His co-written book - Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics - examines how authoritarian states have repurposed tools and norms, previously used to promote Western-backed liberalism, now turning them against liberal ideas.
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Prof Dukalskis said he believes the policies of Mr Trump are actually helping authoritarian regimes.
"It's accelerating and we are shifting more into a dark place – it’s not completely hopeless [because] liberal democracy is still a very valued norm globally.
"I don’t think it’s hopeless but it’s certainly very alarming".
'Catastrophic mistakes’
Prof Dukalskis told David and Evelyn that when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the US had "disproportionate global power".
"The most liberal democratic countries in the world at the time had something like 85% of global GDP – just a dominant status," he explained.
"The US could at the time really advance the norms it preferred and, crucially, people saw it as a gold standard".
Prof Dukalskis said a series of "catastrophic mistakes" – such as the invasion of Iraq and the 2010 economic crash - has seen alternatives appear.
"Around that time, you had these non-democratic states that were starting to pedal another model," he said.
"Recall 2012 was around the time when Xi Jinping took power in China; so you had a new confidence that not only were authoritarian states rising in power, but they increasingly had a good story to tell about the decline of the west".
Prof Dukalskis said the west’s attempt to draw China into the global economic system has had the opposite effect.
"There was an assumption that globalisation was going to socialise others to be like ‘us’.
"There was no thought given to the idea that the arrow could run in the other direction: that authoritarian states and actors could learn to use the interconnectedness of globalisation to exert points of leverage on liberal democratic societies," he added.
David and Evelyn also discuss the dismissal of a terrorism charge against Kneecap rapper Mo Chara in the UK, as well as the logistics of an upcoming EBU vote on Israel’s participation in Eurovision.
You can listen to Behind the Story which is available on the RTÉ Radio Player.
You can also find episodes on Apple here, or on Spotify here.
