Democratic Backsliding

What is democratic backsliding:

Incremental erosion of democratic institutions, rules, and normas that result from actions of duly elected governments, often driven by autocratic leaders

Decline of free and fair elections is achieved through

• restricting opposition’s right to speech

• voter suppression/dubious voting laws

• disinformation campaigns

• interference in election monitoring

• voter fraud

What is democratic backsliding:

Incremental erosion of democratic institutions, rules, and normas that result from actions of duly elected governments, often driven by autocratic leaders

Decline of free and fair elections is achieved through

• restricting opposition’s right to speech

• voter suppression/dubious voting laws

• disinformation campaigns

• interference in election monitoring

• voter fraud

Features of democratic backsliding

erosion of free and fair elections, civil liberties and horizontal checks

Decline in protection of civil liberties

• opposition and civil society require free speech

• erosion of media rights

• demonisation of adversaries

• assaults on ethnic, racial, sexual, religious minorities

Erosion of horizontal checks

• constitutionalism requires self-limiting government

  • incentive to temper power due to electoral scrutiny/checks and rule of law

• fundamental separation of power

  • executive, legislative, and judicial branches separated

• backsliding: collapse of separation of powers

  • executive branch gains control of other branches by appointing loyalists

  • extends to administrative rule of law

    • bureaucrats will capitulate to autocratic leaders

Stages of democratic backsliding

polarisation, autocratic politicians gain office, autocrats change electoral rules

polarisation

• parties take on partisan attachments

• move away from centrism to extremism

• political elite/masses become divided in ideology

effects of polarisation

• opens door for autocratic appeal (ethno nationalism, redistributive class appeals)

• based on majoritarian needs

• disdain for liberal democracy

• denying legitimacy of political opponents

• curtail civil liberties

• toleration/encouragement of violence

Causes of backsliding

• economic difficulty

• mass polarisation

• failure of political elite to prevent rise of extremists

Backsliding

• backsliding executives unable to change laws without control of legislation

• emphasise control of legislature through ruling parties or coalition

Captured legislature

• domination of legislature eliminates it as a source of oversight, expanding power of executive branch

• rewrites laws, erodes freedom and undermine integrity of electoral system

• necessary condition for concentration of executive power

executive aggrandizement

attempts by elected incumbents to concentrate power and weaken checks and balances, but short of actually suspending democratic institutions.

Incremental backsliding

• executive tests limit of system one initiative at a time

• each derogation makes subsequent violations easier to pursue

Possible causes of backsliding

• violent domestic challenges/insurgencies

• economic crisis

• transnational crisis

• large scale corruption: loyalty to oligarchy rather than population

Backsliding in Hungary

Viktor orban in power since 2010

• constitutional reforms: weakening judiciary, changing electoral laws

• media repression, anti-LGBT discourse

Poland backsliding

• PiS in 2015

• Weakening judiciary, changing electoral laws

• media control suppression of NGOs

• lost in 2023

Reversal of backsliding

• South Korea, Ecuador

• large scale mobilisation against incumbent,

• judiciary reversing takeover

• unified opposition

• critical elections