Op-Ed

Democratic backsliding in advanced democracies rarely begins with tanks in the streets. Instead, it unfolds gradually, often within institutions designed to protect democratic accountability. While some observers attribute democratic decline to populist sentiment, polarization, or anti-system attitudes, recent scholarship suggests that institutional dynamics are central. Democratic backsliding emerges when elected executives and partisan coalitions strategically weaken public administration and judicial oversight to consolidate power, producing gradual institutional erosion rather than sudden democratic collapse. Preventing this decline requires reinforcing institutional safeguards before democratic constraints are hollowed out from within.

Scholars disagree about how to conceptualize democratic decline. In Law & Social Inquiry, Thomas Keck argues that democratic “erosion,” “backsliding,” and “abuse” represent distinct metaphors that highlight different mechanisms of institutional change. What unites these frameworks is the recognition that democratic deterioration does not require overt constitutional breakdown. Instead, legal institutions and administrative norms become sites of contestation. By framing democratic backsliding as a process occurring within functioning democratic systems, this scholarship shifts attention toward the institutional constraints that sustain accountability.

Empirical evidence reinforces this institutional account. In the American Political Science Review, Jacob Grumbach develops a State Democracy Index measuring democratic performance across U.S. states between 2000 and 2018. His findings demonstrate that democratic decline can occur incrementally within advanced federal systems. States under unified Republican control experienced measurable reductions in democratic performance, indicating that partisan actors can erode institutional safeguards without dismantling electoral systems outright. Rather than dramatic collapse, the data reveal a pattern of gradual institutional weakening.

This gradualism is not accidental. Advanced democracies are constrained by constitutional rights, judicial review, and entrenched legal norms. Overt authoritarian takeover would provoke immediate backlash and resistance. Executives seeking to consolidate power therefore have incentives to pursue incremental strategies: politicizing bureaucratic appointments, weakening oversight bodies, narrowing judicial authority, or redefining administrative rules. These measures preserve the appearance of democratic continuity while quietly reducing accountability. Democratic backsliding, in this sense, is less a rupture than a recalibration of institutional power.

Some scholars emphasize public distrust, polarization, or anti-system attitudes as primary drivers of democratic decline. These factors undoubtedly create permissive conditions for institutional change. However, public sentiment alone cannot produce durable democratic erosion without institutional capture. Institutions mediate the long-term consequences of political conflict. When executives succeed in weakening bureaucratic neutrality and judicial constraints, they transform temporary political advantage into structural dominance.

If democratic backsliding is driven by institutional erosion, its cure must also be institutional. Protecting bureaucratic independence, reinforcing judicial oversight, and strengthening constraints on executive authority are essential to preserving democratic accountability. Democratic norms cannot survive on electoral participation alone; they require resilient institutions capable of resisting executive aggrandizement. By defending institutional safeguards before they are fully hollowed out, advanced democracies can prevent gradual erosion from becoming irreversible decline.