ABSTRACT Despite the general narrative that the world is in a period of democratic decline, there have been surprisingly few empirical studies that assess whether this is systematically true. Most existing studies of global backsliding are based largely if not entirely on subjective indicators that rely on expert coder judgment. Our study surveys objective indicators of democracy (e.g., incumbent performance in elections) and finds little evidence of global democratic decline during the past decade. To explain the discrepancy in trends between expert-coded and objective indicators, we consider the role of coder bias and leaders strategically using more subtle undemocratic action. Although we cannot rule out the possibility that the world is becoming less democratic exclusively in ways that require subjective judgment to detect, this claim is not justified by existing evidence.
This article assesses two next-level questions in the study of democratic backsliding: democratic resilience and political polarization. It first advances a set of methodological decision points to improve clarity in contemporary debates surrounding democratic backsliding measurement and the possibility of identifying moments of democratic recovery. It then moves to a theoretical and empirical assessment of pathways by which democratic backsliding takes place, under what conditions, which specific actors are involved, and what opportunities exist for democratic recovery given sources of resilience and strategies of resistance. The authors examine the role of political polarization in backsliding and highlight the combined importance of political agency and institutional levers for regime outcomes. The authors argue that regime outcomes are not predetermined by antecedent conditions, and particularly not by the level of development.
We are humbled by the quantity and quality of the commentaries on our article in this special issue. Our goal was not to answer definitively how global democracy has changed in recent years but rather to provoke a debate about how we collectively can improve the scholarship on this question. The range of viewpoints raised in this special issue have made important advances on this goal.
This introduction to the special issue highlights the key findings and implications of democratic backsliding in Southeast Asia. It begins with an overview of the region's democratic landscape using the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset and compares the patterns and modes of backsliding in six selected cases. Collectively, the articles suggest the importance of unpacking regime components and the growing attitudinal elite-mass gap in analyzing the quality of democracy. The liberalization effects of social media were found to be mixed. The theoretical and empirical findings offer a fertile ground for future comparative work beyond the region.
For the past decade and a half, the world has witnessed a precipitous decline of democratic countries and the consequent rise of autocrats. How Autocrats Rise: Sequences of Democratic Backsliding challenges the conventional wisdom and offers an institutional-ideological approach to understand the phenomenon, examines the steps of emergent autocrats, and analyzes the methods of legitimizing their rules. Employing the new framework, the book provides incisive analyses of four countries located in four different regions with dissimilar national features – Bangladesh, Bolivia, Hungary, and Turkey, and demonstrates that political developments in these countries have followed a similar, specific pattern resulting in various shades of autocracy. Theoretically enriched and empirically grounded, this exceptionally timely book makes significant contribution to the democratic backsliding literature while offering insights on how to forestall an autocratic era. Ali Riaz is a Distinguished Professor of political science at Illinois State University, USA, a Non-resident Senior Fellow of Atlantic Council, and the President of the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies. Riaz previously taught at universities in Bangladesh, England, and South Carolina, USA, worked as a Broadcast Journalist at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London, and served as a Visiting Researcher at the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) at Gothenburg University in Sweden and as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at Washington D.C. Md Sohel Rana is an Associate Instructor of Political Science and a PhD student at Indiana University, USA. He earned his Master of Science (M.S.) in Political Science from Illinois State University, USA. His research interests include democratic and authoritarian politics and South Asian politics. His recent publications include "Democracy Deficit in the D-8" (with Ali Riaz) in Ahmed M Khalid et al. eds. Economic Integration Among D-8 Muslim Countries (2023), and "The God Gap? Public Perception on Religion-Politics Mix in South Asia" in Ali Riaz ed. Religion and Politics in South Asia (2nd ed., 2021)
Introduction: 'Despots masquerading as democrats' -- Chapter 1: What is Democracy? -- Chapter 2: How Democracy Backslides? -- Chapter 3: Processes and sequences of backsliding -- Chapter 4: Five cases of backsliding and the rise of autocrats -- Conclusion: What did we learn?.
AbstractThis paper assesses the performance of the Supreme Court as democratic guardrail during five prior periods of democratic crisis in the United States. It finds that most such periods witnessed efforts by the governing regime to entrench themselves in power, and that the Court has rarely provided an effective check on such democratic abuses. Rather than serving as a reliable democratic guardrail, the Court has regularly exercised what Dixon and Landau call "weak‐form abusive judicial review"; that is, it has declined to check attacks on democracy emerging from other centers of power. On one occasion, the Court has undermined democracy even more directly via "strong‐form abusive judicial review"; that is, the Court itself attacked key democratic guardrails. This historical record provides a helpful baseline for evaluating the Court's performance during the Trump era, when it has taken actions that both protect and undermine democratic health. Conflicting signs indicate that the Court is playing a more democracy‐protective role than most of its predecessors in some respects, but a more democracy‐undermining role in others. As such, it is too soon to say with confidence whether the contemporary Court will be remembered, on balance, for resolving or exacerbating a system‐threatening constitutional crisis.
AbstractRadical‐right parties have gradually penetrated the political mainstream in many liberal democracies, marking a trend of 'democratic backsliding'. We propose that women's increasing visibility as representatives of radical‐right agendas makes democratic backsliders, their policies and their parties seem more legitimate, and may help explain their growing public acceptance. Our studies provide the first systematic examination of this hypothesis in three countries – Israel, Germany and the United States (N = 7203). In Studies 1a‐c, we show that voters perceive democracy‐eroding policies through a gendered lens – they attribute gender stereotypes to the parties promoting these policies and to the public supporting these policies. In Studies 2a‐c, we experimentally demonstrate the effect of politicians' gender on public acceptance of democracy‐eroding policies, politicians and parties, and demonstrate the role of gender stereotypes in mediating this effect. Finally, we show that the audiences susceptible to the mainstreaming effect of politicians' gender are precisely those that are often particularly repelled by radical‐right agendas and their perceived masculine image: Women and left‐wing voters.
During the past decade, analyses drawing on several democracy measures have shown a global trend of democratic retrenchment. While these democracy measures use radically different methodologies, most partially or fully rely on subjective judgments to produce estimates of the level of democracy within states. Such projects continuously grapple with balancing conceptual coverage with the potential for bias (Munck and Verkuilen 2002; Przeworski et al. 2000). Little and Meng (L&M) (2023) reintroduce this debate, arguing that "objective" measures of democracy show little evidence of recent global democratic backsliding.1 By extension, they posit that time-varying expert bias drives the appearance of democratic retrenchment in measures that incorporate expert judgments. In this article, we engage with (1) broader debates on democracy measurement and democratic backsliding, and (2) L&M's specific data and conclusions.
Assessing the state of democracy and freedom is an important but difficult task. The stakes are high, not only for researchers interested in uncovering the drivers of democratic consolidation or decline but also for policy makers, civil society organizations, journalists, activists, and citizens who work daily to promote and protect human rights at home and abroad. In light of the significance of the task, it is not surprising that the issue of how to measure democracy most accurately continues to be hotly debated.
AbstractLiberal democracy has become vulnerable to illiberal political movements and the gradual erosion of democratic institutions. To safeguard liberal democracy, we propose the concept of the Guardian State, which embraces liberal principles while acting as a defensive barrier against illiberal tendencies. We need strong administrative institutions that uphold liberal democratic norms and resist pressures from populist politicians. Institutionalizing guardianship as the key norm within the civil service fortifies democratic institutions against backsliding. The principle of neutrality alone cannot ensure that only liberal citizens come to power. Structural measures at the individual and organizational levels are essential to fortify the foundations of the Guardian State and protect liberal democracy against evolving threats. Proactive efforts are necessary to defend and strengthen the public service to ensure the long‐term viability of democratic governance. The Guardian State places the bureaucracy in a key role in preserving the core principles of democracy.
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As we witness a rise in radical right politics in Europe and beyond, our host Cassandra van Douveren speaks to Dr. Vicente Valentim, a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. Vicente's work focusses on the role of social norms in normalising the expression of views and behaviours associated with authoritarianism. Join us as we discuss his upcoming book, The Normalisation of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand (forthcoming: September 2024), pathways to restore democratic norms and Vicente's hopes for the future. Politics, Re-Imagined is a series by the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) at the University of Oxford focused on exploring tangible and sustainable solutions to the ...