American Authoritarianism

Stealth Democracy:

1. Governmental procedures not visible unless one actively looks

2. People do not routinely provide input or monitor elected officials, or regularly participate in decision-making

3. The common good is easily understood and universally agreed upon

4. Decision-making is efficient and objective

5. Commotion and disagreement are absent from decision-making

Key Terms:

• Democratic Erosion: Incremental and multifaceted deterioration of the institutions, norms, freedoms, guarantees, and processes vital to the functioning of a democracy

• Aurocratization: Process of regime change from democracy to authoritarianism

• Potential Drivers: Economic inequality, unemployment, culture wars, backlash to social change, populism, personality politics, pernicious polarization, states of emergency

From Erosion & Autocratization to Authoritarianism:

• The American government is undergoing a process of rapid democratic erosion and autocratization

• The question for political scientists: at what point do erosion and autocratization cross over into authoritarianism?

• The central challenge is that ‘authoritarianism’ is a broad term, while political scientists rely on more precise, applicable definitions

• From this perspective, ‘authoritarianism’ has sometimes been used too loosely; two things remain true:

1. .

2. .

Challenges of defining authoritarianism:

1. Prevailing definitions are negative: They only tell us what authoritarianism is not in reference to democracy

2. Overemphasis on elections: Countries may have formally free and fair elections without being accountable to their citizens

3. Impact of globalization: Authoritarianism is not constrained to national politics, may exist below, above, and/or beyond the state

Authoritarianism:

• Practice is “patterned actions that are embedded in organized contexts.”

• Accountability as a relationship between actor and forum

• Actor → Conduct → Justification → Forum → Questions → Judgement → Consequences