Democratic backsliding, also known as autocratization and de-democratization, is a gradual decline in the quality of democracy and the opposite of democratization, which may result in the state losing its democratic qualities, becoming an autocracy or authoritarian regime. Democratic decline is caused by the state-led weakening of political institutions that sustain the democratic system, such as the peaceful transition of power or electoral systems. Although these political elements are assumed to lead to the onset of backsliding, other essential components of democracy such as infringement of individual rights and the freedom of expression question the health, efficiency and sustainability of democratic systems over time.
Political scientist Nancy Bermeo argues that blatant forms of democratic backsliding, such as classic, open-ended coups d'état and election-day fraud, have declined since the end of the Cold War, while more subtle and "vexing" forms of backsliding have increased. The latter forms of backsliding entail the debilitation of democratic institutions from within. These subtle forms are especially effective when they are legitimized through the very institutions that people expect to protect democratic values.
The Third Wave of democratization, which began in the mid-1970s, transformed the existing formal political structures in much of the developing world. Nevertheless, the processes of democratisation are not linear, as only a limited number of countries that have undergone transitions to democracy have succeeded in establishing consolidated and functioning democratic regimes. Since 2001, there are more autocracies than democracies in the world and as a result, the "third wave of autocratization" is accelerating and deepening. In addition, apart from the transition to autocratization, democratic backsliding may also lead to authoritarian regressions, to revolutions, to hybrid regimes as they enter into political "gray zones".
Pandemic backsliding is a specific type of democratic backsliding relating to national crises. It occurs when leaders impose autocratic rules during states of national emergency that are either parallel to the severity of the crisis or may remain in place after the situation has improved. It has taken place in several countries during the coronavirus pandemic.
2.1 Promissory coups2.2 Executive aggrandizement2.3 Strategic harassment and manipulation during elections
3.1 Populism3.2 Economic inequality and social discontent3.3 Personalism3.4 COVID-193.5 Great power politics3.6 Cultural conservatism3.7 Polarization, misinformation, incrementalism, and multi-factor explanations
Democratic backsliding occurs when essential components of democracy are threatened. Examples of democratic backsliding include:
- Free and fair elections are degraded;
- Liberal rights of freedom of speech, press and association decline, impairing the ability of the political opposition to challenge the government, hold it to account, and propose alternatives to the current regime;
- The rule of law (i.e., judicial and bureaucratic restraints on the government) is weakened, such as when the independence of the judiciary is threatened, or when civil service tenure protections are weakened or eliminated;
- An over-emphasis on national security as response to acts of terrorism or perceived antagonists.
2 Forms
These four factors are:
- rejection (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game,
- denial of the legitimacy of political opponents,
- toleration or encouragement of violence, and
- readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media.
Varol describes the manipulation of libel laws, electoral laws, or "terrorism" laws as tools to target or discredit political opponents, and the employment of democratic rhetoric as a distraction from anti-democratic practices, as manifestations of stealth authoritarianism. In addition to these key signs derived from the behavior of leaders, Samuel P. Huntington also describes culture as a main contributor to democratic backsliding, and goes on to argue that certain cultures are particularly hostile to democracy, but they don’t necessarily prohibit democratization.
Promissory coups
In a promissory coup, an incumbent elected government is deposed in a coup d'etat by coup leaders who claim to defend democracy and promise to hold elections to restore democracy. In these situations, coup-makers emphasize the temporary and necessary nature of their intervention in order to ensure democracy in the future. This is unlike the more open-ended coups that occurred during the Cold War. Political scientist Nancy Bermeo says that "The share of successful coups that falls into the promissory category has risen significantly, from 35 percent before 1990 to 85 percent afterward." Examining 12 promissory coups in democratic states between 1990 and 2012, Bermeo found that "Few promissory coups were followed quickly by competitive elections, and fewer still paved the way for improved democracies."
Executive aggrandizement
This process contains a series of institutional changes by the elected executives, impairing the ability of the political opposition to challenge the government and hold it to account. The most important feature of executive aggrandizement is that the institutional changes are made through legal channels, making it seem as if the elected official has a democratic mandate. Some examples of executive aggrandizement are the decline of media freedom and the weakening of the rule of law (i.e., judicial and bureaucratic restraints on the government), such as when judicial autonomy is threatened.
Over time, there has been a decline in active coups (in which a power-seeking individual, or small group, seizes power through forcibly, violently removing an existing government) and self-coups (involving "a freely elected chief executive suspending the constitution outright in order to amass power in one swift sweep") and an increase in executive aggrandizement. Political scientist Nancy Bermeo notes that executive aggrandizement occurs over time, through institutional changes legitimized through legal means, such as new constituent assemblies, referenda, or "existing courts or legislatures ... in cases where supporters of the executive gain majority control of such bodies." Bermeo notes that these means mean that the aggrandizement of the executive "can be framed as having resulted from a democratic mandate." Executive aggrandizement is characterized by the presence of distress in axes of democracy, including institutional or horizontal accountability; and executive or discursive accountability.
Strategic harassment and manipulation during elections
This form of democratic backsliding entails the impairment of free and fair elections through tactics such as blocking media access, disqualifying opposition leaders, or harassing opponents. This form of backsliding is done in such a way that the elections do not appear to be rigged and rarely involves any apparent violations of the law, making it difficult for international election monitoring organizations to observe or criticize these misconducts.
3 Causes and characteristics of democratic backsliding
Populism
Pippa Norris of the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Sydney argues that the two "twin forces" pose the largest threat to Western liberal democracies: "sporadic and random terrorist attacks on domestic soil, which damage feelings of security, and the rise of populist-authoritarian forces, which feed parasitically upon these fears."[25] Norris defines populism as "a governing style with three defining features":
- A rhetorical emphasis on the idea that "legitimate political authority is based on popular sovereignty and majority rule";
- Disapproval of, and challenges to the legitimacy of, established holders of "political, cultural, and economic power";
- Leadership by "maverick outsiders" who claim "to speak for the vox populi and to serve ordinary people."
Some, but not all, populists are also authoritarian, emphasizing "the importance of protecting traditional lifestyles against perceived threats from 'outsiders', even at the expense of civil liberties and minority rights." According to Norris, the reinforcement of the insecurities from the "twin forces" has led to more support for populist-authoritarian leaders, and this latter risk is especially pronounced in the United States during the presidency of Donald Trump. For example, Norris argues that Trump has benefited from the mistrust of "the establishment" and that he continuously seeks to undermine faith in the legitimacy of the media and the independence of the courts.
In 2017, Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovire Kaltwasser wrote that:
Populism does not have the same effect in each stage of the democratization process. In fact, we suggest that populism tends to play a positive role in the promotion of electoral or minimal democracy, but a negative role when it comes to fostering the development of a full-fledged liberal democratic regime. Consequently, while populism tends to favor the democratization of authoritarian regimes, it is prone to diminish the quality of liberal democracies. Populism supports popular sovereignty, but it is inclined to oppose any limitations on majority rule, such as judicial independence and minority rights. Populism-in-power has led to processes of de-democratization (e.g., [Viktor] Orbán in Hungary or [Hugo] Chávez in Venezuela) and, in some extreme cases, even to the breakdown of the democratic regime (e.g., [Alberto] Fujimori in Peru).
A 2018 analysis by political scientists Yascha Mounk and Jordan Kyle links populism to democratic backsliding, showing that since 1990, "13 right-wing populist governments have been elected; of these, five brought about significant democratic backsliding. Over the same time period, 15 left-wing populist governments were elected; of these, the same number, five, brought about significant democratic backsliding."
A December 2018 report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change concluded that populist rule, whether left- or right-wing, leads to a significant risk of democratic backsliding. The authors examine the effect of populism on three major aspects of democracy: the quality of democracy in general, checks and balances on executive power and citizens' right to politically participate in a meaningful way. They conclude that populist governments are four times more likely to cause harm to democratic institutions than non-populist governments. Also, more than half of populist leaders have amended or rewritten the countries' constitution, frequently in a way that eroded checks and balances on executive power. Lastly, populists attack individual rights such as freedom of the press, civil liberties, and political rights.
In a 2018 journal article on democratic backsliding, scholars Licia Cianetti, James Dawson, and Seán Hanley argued that the emergence of populist movements in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Andrej Babiš's ANO in the Czech Republic, are "a potentially ambiguous phenomenon, articulating genuine societal demands for political reform and pushing issues of good governance centre stage, but further loosening the weak checks and balances that characterise post-communist democracy and embedding private interests at the core of the state."
In a 2019 paper, presented to the International Society of Political Psychologists, Shawn Rosenberg argues that right-wing populism is exposing a vulnerability in democratic structures and that "democracy is likely to devour itself."
Economic inequality and social discontent
Many political economy scholars, such as Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, have investigated the effect of income inequality on the democratic breakdown. Studies of democratic collapse show that economic inequality is significantly higher in countries that eventually move towards a more authoritarian model. Hungary is an example of a country where a large group of unemployed, low-educated people were dissatisfied with the high levels of inequality, especially after the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Viktor Orbán used this dissatisfaction of a relatively large segment of the population to his advantage, winning popular support by using national-populist rhetoric.
Personalism
A 2019 study found that personalism had an adverse impact on democracy in Latin America: "presidents who dominate their own weakly organized parties are more likely to seek to concentrate power, undermine horizontal accountability, and trample the rule of law than presidents who preside over parties that have an independent leadership and an institutionalized bureaucracy."
COVID-19
Many national governments worldwide found themselves with no other choice but to delay, postpone or cancel a variety of democratic elections at both national and subnational governmental levels resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic opening gaps in the action of democracy. In reference to 'western countries', the 2020 United Kingdom local elections were postponed for a year; the longest postponement of democratic elections in the UK since the Interwar period during the 20th Century. At the beginning of the crisis UN experts advised government responses to be "proportionate, necessary and non-discriminatory". According to the V-Dem Institute, only 39% of all countries have committed no or minor violations of democratic standards in response to Covid-19. Regardless of the fact that liberal democracy was on the defensive and experiencing a rise of autocrats and authoritarian regimes in many parts of the world prior to the first coronavirus death in December 2019, the pandemic has had a major influence on democratic backsliding.
In Cambodia, some individuals who expressed concerns about the spread of COVID-19 have been arrested on "fake news" charges. In the Philippines, India, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Pakistan, Montenegro, Indonesia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cote d'Ivoire, Somalia, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Thailand, Malaysia Singapore, and Hong Kong, people have been arrested for allegedly spreading "fake news" about the COVID-19 pandemic. The Turkish Interior Ministry has been arresting social media users whose posts were "targeting officials and spreading panic and fear by suggesting the virus had spread widely in Turkey and that officials had taken insufficient measures".
Other
The 2019 Annual Democracy Report of the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg identified three challenges confronting global democracy: (1) "Government manipulation of media, civil society, rule of law, and elections"; (2) rising "toxic polarization," including "the division of society into distrustful, antagonistic camps"; diminishing "respect for opponents, factual reasoning, and engagement with society" among political elites; and increasing use of hate speech by political leaders; and (3) foreign disinformation campaigns, primarily digital, and mostly affecting Taiwan, the United States, and former Soviet bloc nations such as Latvia.
According to Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman, four characteristics have typically provided the conditions for democratic backsliding (alone or in combination): Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power.
A 2020 study, which used World Values Survey data, found that cultural conservatism was the ideological group most open to authoritarian governance within Western democracies. Within English-speaking Western democracies, "protection-based" attitudes combining cultural conservatism and leftist economic attitudes were the strongest predictor of support for authoritarian modes of governance.
Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufmann highlight three key causes of backsliding: "the pernicious effects of polarization; realignments of party systems that enable elected autocrats to gain legislative power; and the incremental nature of derogations, which divides oppositions and keeps them off balance."[67]
4 Prevalence and trends
A study by the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem) of the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, which contains more than eighteen-million data points relevant to democracy, measuring 350 highly specific indicators across 174 countries as of the end of 2016, found that the number of democracies in the world modestly declined from 100 in 2011 to 97 in 2017; some countries moved toward democracy, while other countries moved away from democracy. V-Dem's 2019 Annual Democracy Report found that the trend of autocratization continued, while "24 countries are now severely affected by what is established as a 'third wave of autocratization'" including "populous countries such as Brazil, Bangladesh and the United States, as well as several Eastern European countries" (specifically Bulgaria and Serbia). The report found that an increasing proportion of the world population lived in countries undergoing autocratization (2.3 billion in 2018). The report found that while the majority of countries were democracies, the number of liberal democracies declined to 39 by 2018 (down from 44 a decade earlier). The research group Freedom House, in reports in 2017 and 2019, identified democratic backsliding in a variety of regions across the world. Freedom House's 2019 Freedom in the World report, titled Democracy in Retreat, showed freedom of expression declining each year over the preceding 13 years, with sharper drops since 2012.
Democratic backsliding - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding
illiberal Democracy
The rulers of an illiberal democracy may ignore or bypass constitutional limits on their power. They also tend to ignore the will of the minority which is what makes the democracy illiberal. Elections in an illiberal democracy are often manipulated or rigged, being used to legitimize and consolidate the incumbent rather than to choose the country's leaders and policies.
Some theorists argue that illiberal democracy is fundamentally undemocratic and therefore prefer terms such as electoral authoritarianism, competitive authoritarianism, or soft authoritarianism.
Illiberal democracy - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiberal_democracy
Illiberalism: a conceptual introduction
Illiberalism: a pilot definition
Here I propose to move away from the discussion of regime types and focus on the ideological underpinnings of illiberalism, looking at its -ism status, its ex-negativo relation to liberalism, and the fact that it cannot be equated to everything non-liberal. I define illiberalism as follows:
- Illiberalism is a new ideological universe that, even if doctrinally fluid and context-based, is to some degree coherent.
- It represents a backlash against today’s liberalism in all its varied scripts—political, economic, cultural, geopolitical, civilizational—often in the name of democratic principles and by winning popular support.
- It proposes solutions that are majoritarian, nation-centric or sovereigntist, favouring traditional hierarchies and cultural homogeneity. It proposes to restore national sovereignty in various spheres: internationally, by rejecting supranational and multilateral institutions in favour of the sovereign nation-state; economically, by denouncing neoliberal orthodoxy and promoting protectionism at the nation-state level (while at the same time, when in power, sometimes implementing neoliberal reforms); and culturally, by rejecting multiculturalism and minority rights in favour of majoritarianism. This majoritarianism advances a “traditional” vision of gender relations (what is defined as “traditional” covering a vast range of practices depending on the local context) and a vision of the nation that—whether essentialist and nativist or assimilationist—takes from nationalism the division between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft and sees the latter only as the product of the former.
- Last but not least, it calls for a shift from politics to culture and is post-postmodern in its claims of rootedness in an age of globalisation.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21599165.2022.2037079
What is illiberal democracy, how is it different from liberal democracy?
The number of illiberal democracies is increasing around the world; however, few of them have evolved into liberal democracies. On the contrary, most of them are strengthening illiberal democracy by creating forms of government that mix substantial degrees of populist democracy with strong-man leadership.
Viktor Orban embodies this trend among central European countries. Orban was easily re-elected in 2014, by capitalizing on mounting fears around the refugee crisis. His discourse is especially appealing to small, aging countries who are feeling threatened by demographic decline and fear the loss their ethnic majority if refugee and migrant flows continue.
The axis of illiberalism in Central Europe
Alongside Hungary, three other EU members – Poland, Croatia and Slovakia – are governed by political parties with nationalist and authoritarian tendencies.
In both Hungary and Poland, two main events highlight the decline of the rule of law. Firstly, several..
Just what exactly is 'illiberal democracy'?
https://globalriskinsights.com/2016/05/what-is-illiberal-democracy/
Both the Right and Left Have Illiberal Factions. Which Is More Dangerous?
A working definition of illiberalism that applies to both left and right might be summarized as any system of beliefs which run counter to the political philosophy summarized in the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration’s main principles are political egalitarianism; human rights; limited government; electoral democracy; the legitimacy of change; the rule of law; and tolerance. You could define illiberalism many ways, but an easy one would be: any explicit rejection of, or attack on, that order. Any ideology of whatever orientation, right or left, that explicitly repudiates these principles is illiberal.
Some illiberal ideologies are well known. On the left are all forms of communism—Leninism, Maoism, Guevarism, Trotskyism, etc.—some forms of Marxism, anarchism, and others. On the right are all forms of fascism, authoritarianism, theocracy, all forms of racial domination, etc. In recent years, a menagerie of right-wing illiberal ideologies has re-emerged or sprung up: neo-Nazis, KKK groups, anti-Semitic movements, and newcomers such as the Alt-Right, the Alt-Lite, the Manosphere, the Dark Enlightenment, the European New Right, White Supremacy, and more.
Which of these two sets of illiberal ideologies—the right or the left– represents the greatest threat to liberal democracy right now?
https://www.thebulwark.com/both-the-right-and-left-have-illiberal-factions-which-is-more-dangerous/
The Rise of the Illiberal Right https://quillette.com/2019/06/11/the-rise-of-the-illiberal-right/
Anocracy or Semi-Democracy
Anocracy or Semi-Democracy - a form of government that is loosely defined as part democracy and part dictatorship, or as a "regime that mixes democratic with autocratic features." Another definition classifies anocracy as "a regime that permits some means of participation through opposition group behavior but that has incomplete development of mechanisms to redress grievances." The term "semi-democratic" is reserved for stable regimes that combine democratic and authoritarian elements. Scholars have also distinguished anocracies from autocracies and democracies in their capability to maintain authority, political dynamics, and policy agendas. Similarly, the regimes have democratic institutions that allow for nominal amounts of competition.
Such regimes are particularly susceptible to outbreaks of armed conflict and unexpected or adverse changes in leadership.
The operational definition of anocracy is extensively used by scholars Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole at the Center for Systemic Peace, which gained most of its dissemination through the polity data series. The data set aims to measure democracy in different states and retains anocracy as one of its classification methods for regime type. Consequently, anocracy frequently appears in democratization literature that utilizes the polity-data set.
Unlike traditional democracy, semi-democratic regimes, also known as hybrid regimes, are known for having guided democracy instead of liberal democracy. Semi-dictatorial regimes have dictatorial powers with some democratic values, and despite being authoritarian, have elections. In a closed anocracy, competitors are drawn from the elite. In an open anocracy, others also compete.
The number of anocratic regimes has steadily increased over time, with the most notable jump occurring after the end of the Cold War. From 1989 to 2013, the number of anocracies increased from 30 to 53.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anocracy
Crony capitalism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism
Comparison to Classical Totalitarian Regimes
Revolution – While the classical totalitarian regimes overthrew the established system, inverted totalitarianism instead exploits the legal and political constraints of the established democratic system and uses these constraints to defeat their original purpose.
Government – Whereas the classical totalitarian government was an ordered, idealized and coordinated whole, inverted totalitarianism is a managed democracy which applies managerial skills to basic democratic political institutions.
Propaganda and dissent – Although propaganda plays an essential role in both the United States and Nazi Germany, the role it plays in the United States is inverted; that is, American propaganda "is only in part a state-centered phenomenon". Whereas the production of propaganda was crudely centralized in Nazi Germany, in the United States it is left to highly concentrated media corporations and thus maintaining the illusion of a "free press". According to this model, dissent is allowed, though the corporate media serve as a filter, allowing most people, with limited time available to keep themselves apprised of current events, to hear only points of view that the corporate media deem "serious".
Democracy – Whereas the classical totalitarian regimes overthrew weak democracies/regimes, inverted totalitarianism has developed from a strong democracy. The United States even maintains its democracy is the model for the whole world.
Wolin writes:
Inverted totalitarianism reverses things. It is all politics all of the time but politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash.
Ideology – Inverted totalitarianism deviates from the Nazi regime as to ideology, i.e. cost-effectiveness versus master race.
Economy – In Nazi Germany, the state-dominated the economic actors whereas in inverted totalitarianism corporations through lobbying, political contributions and the revolving door dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt.
Nationalism – While Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were nationalistic, inverted totalitarianism is a global superpower based on global exchange of jobs, culture and commodities.
The people – While the classical totalitarian regimes aimed at the constant political mobilization of the populace, inverted totalitarianism aims for the mass of the populace to be in a persistent state of political apathy. The only type of political activity expected or desired from the citizenry is voting. Low electoral turnouts are favorably received as an indication that the bulk of the populace has given up hope that the government will ever significantly help them.
Punishment – While the classical totalitarian regimes punished harshly (imprisoning or killing political or ideological opponents and scapegoats), inverted totalitarianism in particular punishes by means of an economy of fear (minimizing social security, busting unions, outdating skills, outsourcing jobs and so on).
Leader – While the classical totalitarian regimes had charismatic leaders that were the architects of the state, inverted totalitarianism does not depend on a certain leader, but produces its leaders who are akin to corporate leaders.
Social policy – While Nazism made life uncertain for the wealthy and privileged and had a social policy for the working class, inverted totalitarianism exploits the poor by reducing health and social programs and weakening working conditions.
Managed democracy
The superpower claims both democracy and global hegemony.[28] Democracy and hegemony are coupled by means of managed democracy, where the elections are free and fair but the people lack the actual ability to change the policies, motives and goals of the state.
Managerial methods are applied to elections:
Managed democracy is the application of managerial skill to the basic democratic political institution of popular elections.
By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, the democracy of the United States has become sanitized of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control". Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies.
Managerial methods are also the means by which state and global corporations unite so that corporations increasingly assume governmental functions and services and corporations become still more dependent on the state. A main object of managed democracy is privatization and the expansion of the private, together with reduction of governmental responsibility for the welfare of the citizens.
According to Wolin, the United States has two main totalizing dynamics:
The first, directed outward, finds its expression in the global War on Terror and in the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars. This amounts to the United States seeing as illegitimate the attempt by any state to resist its domination.
The second dynamic, directed inward, involves the subjection of the mass of the populace to economic "rationalization", with continual "downsizing" and "outsourcing" of jobs abroad and dismantling of what remains of the welfare state created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society. Neoliberalism is an integral component of inverted totalitarianism. The state of insecurity in which this places the public serves the useful function of making people feel helpless, therefore making it less likely they will become politically active and thus helping maintain the first dynamic.
Inverted totalitarianism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
In Europe, as in most other parts of the world, democracy is retreating and autocracy is gaining. Yet Europe’s challenges are particularly noteworthy. Although it is commonly assumed that democratic backsliding starts with electoral problems, other political elements—such as the infringement of individual rights and the freedom of expression—are at the core of Europe’s democratic woes.
The Nature of Democratic Backsliding in Europe - Carnegie Europe - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/07/24/nature-of-democratic-backsliding-in-europe-pub-76868
The phenomenon is called "democratic backsliding." It's a process by which the incumbent party successfully consolidates power through intentional actions often legitimated within democratic institutions. These efforts curtail basic rights like voting and attack free speech, free press and the right to assemble. The goal is to substantially undermine opposition so the regime can maintain power. Elections still happen, but the party in power is incredibly difficult to defeat because it controls the rules of engagement. A thin veneer of democratic legitimacy remains, but the result is what political scientists call an illiberal democracy or competitive authoritarianism.
https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/democratic-backsliding
Democratic backsliding is an unsettlingly common phenomenon. Too often, competitive elections are undermined, citizens lose their rights to mobilize or voice their demands, and governments become less accountable. That is, changes are made in formal political institutions and informal political practices that significantly reduce the capacity of citizens to make enforceable claims upon the government. These changes may not lead to the breakdown of democratic regimes—indeed, backsliding can occur in both democratic and authoritarian regimes—but they do degrade citizens’ rights and their engagement with the state. Yet, despite backsliding’s frequency and the attendant consequences for hundreds of millions of people, there is limited understanding of the phenomenon or its contributing factors.
Unwelcome Change: Understanding, Evaluating, and Extending Theories of Democratic Backsliding
https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PBAAD635.pdf
Democratic Backsliding Amid COVID-19
Democracy was already backsliding in many countries before COVID-19. In authoritarian environments, governments are using it as an excuse to further limit political freedoms and consolidate power. This is likely to last well beyond the pandemic.
Meanwhile, in fragile democracies, the response to COVID-19 is straining weak institutions and democratic norms. This can result in less equitable distribution of resources, weakened labor rights, diminished rule of law, increased corruption, the undermining of trust in governments and increased conflict.
Without robust donor support for democracy, human rights and governance, years of investments could be lost, and it will be even harder to reverse future backsliding. Keep reading for trends that USAID identified in our new paper on backsliding amid COVID-19 — and positive developments to counter these issues.
Consolidating Power; Restricting Political Space
Many authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes are using the COVID-19 crisis to tighten their grip on power by granting themselves and their political loyalists more expansive powers without appropriate time constraints or checks and balances. Many have also used COVID-19 as a pretext to crack down on political opposition, expand the powers of security forces, and concentrate executive power. Autocrats are taking advantage of increased COVID-19-related state resources for graft and patronage. And weak pandemic responses have created an opportunity for violent extremists and other malign actors to spread disinformation that can further undermine confidence in governments.
Electoral Manipulation
The COVID-19 pandemic poses grave threats to electoral norms, which are a key bulwark against democratic backsliding. Seventy-three countries have postponed national or subnational elections since the pandemic began. In countries that lack strong democratic safeguards, political elites are using COVID-19 as an excuse to manipulate elections in their favor. In Hong Kong, for example, leaders have delayed elections to hold onto power. And in countries like Russia and Benin, officials pushed forward with elections under conditions that benefit them. Incumbents are also restricting rights during electoral periods to gain advantage by, for example, selectively applying restrictions on in-person campaign events to opposition parties, as in Uganda.
Abuses of Fundamental Freedoms
Repressive governments are using emergency powers to excessively restrict freedoms of expression, assembly, association and movement, limit digital rights, and reduce transparency. During COVID-19, 46 countries have increased restrictions on expression, and 128 on freedom of assembly. Governments are intensifying crackdowns on independent media reporting on COVID-19. Several countries have criminalized the publication or communication — knowingly or unknowingly — of “false news” about COVID-19, as well as criticism of government responses to the crisis.
Less democratic governments are restricting access to information about their response to the pandemic, including how public funds are being spent. Governments and security forces are also rapidly introducing, and potentially entrenching as a norm, surveillance technology without safeguards to protect personal privacy. These measures could be used to restrict and monitor civic space.
Disproportionate Effects on Vulnerable and Marginalized Populations
Democratic backsliding amid COVID-19 has disproportionately affected vulnerable and marginalized populations, including refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, the poor, migrant workers, workers in the informal sector, youth, aging populations, LGBTIQ individuals, persons with disabilities, the homeless, children, and groups that have traditionally been discriminated against on the basis of ethnicity, race, and gender. Some governments are using the pandemic as cover to suppress unions and workers’ organizations. These actions, coupled with devastating losses of employment and income from COVID-19, often disproportionately affect women and other marginalized groups. There has also been a dramatic increase in gender-based violence amid lockdowns (particularly among women and girls with disabilities), and, in some countries, sexual minorities are subject to further risks.
Countering Democratic Backsliding
At the same time, many positive democratic developments have emerged during COVID-19 that may have lasting effects. These include:
- Resilience of democratic governments: Most democracies have addressed the pandemic with no or only minor violations of democratic standards.
- Robust civil society response: Civil society has demonstrated remarkable resilience, dynamism, and adaptability, and have engaged in new forms of engagement to become an essential force in monitoring, exposing, and pushing back on government abuses, restrictions, and corruption.
- New opportunities for political activism: Civil society groups are mobilizing campaigns against what they see as mismanaged COVID-19 responses.
- New forms of participation and engagement: This includes an embrace of online democratic forums, online meeting and debate methods, and parliaments adjusting session and voting procedures so they can continue to function.
- Online justice and legal service delivery: Judiciaries and legal service providers have embraced virtual platforms and technologies to perform core functions during the pandemic.
- Increased activism for workers’ rights: Unions and worker organizations are pressing for testing and workplace protections, as well as acting to prevent governments from using the crisis to reduce labor rights protections.
These positive developments provide fertile ground for democracy and governance support during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, USAID and other international donors have had to shift significant resources to support much-needed medical, humanitarian, and economic responses. Unless donors significantly bolster and tailor support for democratic measures, backsliding could become further entrenched, and future attempts to reverse the erosion of democracy will be even more difficult.
Democratic Backsliding Amid COVID-19 | by USAID | U.S. Agency for International Development | Medium
https://medium.com/usaid-2030/democratic-backsliding-amid-covid-19-62e42941e74e
Democratic backsliding and the backlash against women’s rights: Understanding the current challenges for feminist politics
Trends of de-democratization across Europe and the Americas have emerged along with opposition to gender equality and threats to previous gender equality policy achievements. Yet, de-democratization is rarely analysed through the lens of gender equality and, so far, efforts to systematically examine the implications for inclusive democracy and the representation of gender interests are fragmented. Backsliding on gender policies and on state commitments to gender equality, and new forms of feminist engagement with hostile governments and audiences, also raise new challenges to the literature on gender and politics.
Dropping the Democratic Facade | Freedom House
https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2020/dropping-democratic-facade
How young people can prevent democratic backsliding | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/07/how-young-people-can-prevent-democratic-backsliding
Why is Democratic Backsliding on the Rise?
https://igcc.ucsd.edu/news-events/news/why-is-democratic-backsliding-on-the-rise.html
