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Politics professor David Runciman explains how democracies are bad at spotting crises before they appear and usually overreact to routine bumps in the road while lacking perspective on the big structural problems facing them. Runciman argues that democracies thrive in spite of this and muddle through in a confidence trap that could lead to a crisis too big to escape. If democracy is to survive, it must find a way to break out of this confidence trap, he says.

Runciman is professor of politics at the University of Cambridge and writes regularly about politics for the London review of Books. His previous books include The Politics of Good Intentions and Political Hypocrisy.