Democratic backsliding

Part of the Politics series
Democracy
History Theory Indices
Types Anticipatory Athenian Cellular Consensus Conservative Cosmopolitan Defensive Deliberative Direct Economic Electronic Empowered Ethnic Grassroots Guided Hybrid regime Inclusive Industrial Jacksonian Jeffersonian Liberal / Illiberal Liquid Majoritarian Media Monitory Multiparty Non-partisan Oral Participatory Pluralist Popular Procedural Radical Representative Religious Buddhist Christian Islamic Jewish Mormon Sectarian Semi Semi-direct Social Socialist Sociocracy Sovereign Substantive Supermajority Totalitarian Workplace
Related topics Anarchism Citizens' assembly Criticism of democracy Deliberative referendum Democratic backsliding Democratic capitalism Democratic centralism Democratic confederalism Democratic peace theory Democratic republic Democratic socialism Democratic transition Democratization Democracy and economic growth Democracy promotion Electoral competition Initiative Kleroterion Liberalism Libertarianism Majoritarianism Majority rule Motion Ochlocracy Nomination rules Peaceful transition of power Political demonstration Political equality Polyarchy Popular referendum Populism Proportional representation Referendum Right to petition Right to protest Right to candidacy Right to vote Sortition Territorial peace theory Tyranny of the majority Voting War referendum Wars between democracies Waves of democracy
Region Africa Asia Europe Historical Latin America and the Caribbean Middle East and North Africa
Politics portal
v t e

Democratic backsliding^[a] is a process of regime change toward autocracy in which the exercise of political power becomes more arbitrary and repressive.^[7][8][9] The process typically restricts the space for public contest and political participation in the process of government selection.^[10][11] Democratic decline involves the weakening of democratic institutions, such as the peaceful transition of power or free and fair elections, or the violation of individual rights that underpin democracies, especially freedom of expression.^[12][13] Democratic backsliding is the opposite of democratization.

Proposed causes of democratic backsliding include economic inequality, rampant culture wars, culturally conservative reactions to societal changes, populist or personalist politics, and external influence from great power politics. During crises, backsliding can occur when leaders impose autocratic rules during states of emergency that are either disproportionate to the severity of the crisis or remain in place after the situation has improved.^[14]

During the Cold War, democratic backsliding occurred most frequently through coups. Since the end of the Cold War, democratic backsliding has occurred more frequently through the election of personalist leaders or parties who subsequently dismantle democratic institutions.^[15] During the third wave of democratization in the late twentieth century, many new, weakly institutionalized democracies were established; these regimes have been most vulnerable to democratic backsliding.^[16][13] The third wave of autocratization has been ongoing since 2010, when the number of liberal democracies was at an all-time high.^[17][18]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).