Comparative Politics Domestic Responses To Global Challenges Pdf

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TheDemocracy, Conflict, and Governance Program is a leading source of independent policy research, writing, and outreach on global democracy, conflict, and governance. It analyzes and seeks to improve international efforts to reduce democratic backsliding, mitigate conflict and violence, overcome political polarization, promote gender equality, and advance pro-democratic uses of new technologies.

As international democracy supporters continue to refine their strategies of responding to democratic backsliding, they must better differentiate between facilitating factors and core drivers. Such an approach will point to the need for a stronger focus on the nature of leader-driven antidemocratic projects, identifying ways to create significant disincentives for backsliding leaders, and bolstering crucial countervailing institutions. Moreover, they should deepen their differentiation of strategies to take account of the diverse motivations and methods among the three main patterns of backsliding. Only in this way will they build the needed analytic and practical capacity to meet the formidable challenge that democratic backsliding presents.

Despite all this attention, the drivers of democratic backsliding remain poorly understood. If one were to ask any reasonably diverse group of policymakers or experts why so many countries have moved backward on democracy recently, one would hear a wide range of answers and little consensus. Some would point the finger at Russia and China, arguing that their support for autocrats and efforts to undermine democratic governments are a decisive factor.2 Others would highlight the role of technology, citing the host of ways in which digital developments, from the exponential growth of social media to the rise of enhanced forms of surveillance, may be hurting democracy.3 Still others would underline domestic sources of discontent, emphasizing socioeconomic factors like rising inequality and anemic economic growth.4 The rise of populism and intensifying political polarization would also likely receive some blame.5

These various factors and issues are all relevant. Yet when tested across the full range of backsliding countries, such dynamics tend to be facilitating conditions more than core drivers. Rather than focusing on overarching structural explanations, a more persuasive account must focus on the distinct motivations and mechanisms of the leader-driven antidemocratic political projects that lie at the heart of global democratic backsliding. This paper presents such an analysis. It starts by reviewing the landscape of democratic backsliders and then critically examines common explanations of backsliding, highlighting the ways in which they fall short. It then focuses in on leader-driven antidemocratic political projects, identifying and illuminating three major types: grievance-fueled illiberalism, opportunistic authoritarianism, and entrenched-interest revanchism. The paper concludes with some preliminary ideas about how such analytic distinctions can help point democracy practitioners toward improved strategies for countering illiberal actors.

In order to be classified as a democratic backslider, a country needs to meet two conditions: it must have achieved a significant level of democracy and then experienced significant erosion of democratic institutions. Although these two criteria may seem intuitive, both involve inevitably subjective judgment calls about what constitutes a significant level of democracy and significant erosion.

Regarding the former, we take a relatively inclusive approach, considering a country to have reached a significant level of democracy when at least two major democracy indices described the country as being at least an electoral democracy (or equivalent) at some point since 2005.7 This approach does bring in a number of countries where democratic transitions only developed shallow roots, like in Ethiopia and Myanmar, but it corresponds to the generally inclusive way that the international community has perceived the global expansion of democracy.

Our threshold for democratic decline is similarly inclusive and includes countries that underwent a qualitative rating decline or had been highlighted as a backslider by at least two major democracy indices.8 We include both countries that have undergone backsliding at the hands of elected governments, as in Brazil and India, and those that have experienced military coups, as in Egypt and Myanmar. We then removed cases that saw a subsequent democratic rebound (that is, an improvement in scores) between their initial decline and the present; a small but significant group of countries, including Ecuador, Moldova, North Macedonia, Slovenia, and Zambia, were able to reverse antidemocratic tides during these years. In so doing, we have sought a middle path. We have not included countries where decline is so far only mild and democracy is still functional; our list therefore excludes countries like Mauritius and Niger. Nor have we chosen a more restrictive view of backsliding, which would require deep institutional degradation and the entrenchment of the incumbent, as that would exclude cases some important backsliding cases like Brazil, Poland, and the United States.

The rapid spread of democratic backsliding has fueled much discussion about its drivers. Observers and experts have offered a wide range of explanations. Yet when one seeks to apply them across the full spectrum of backsliders, each falls short.

Some illiberal leaders may cultivate friendships with Russia, China, or other autocratic powers in a bid to shore up economic support and diplomatic ties that help make up for declining support from Western democracies. Yet even when such friendships are very important to such leaders, as Russian friendship is to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, they are not determinants of the core antidemocratic drive of the leaders in question.

Certainly, various technological developments are contributing to democratic problems in many countries and merit sustained, deep analysis and a search for effective responses. But as with the role of Russia and China, their role is more as a facilitating factor than a core driver. There does not appear to be a relationship between the degree to which countries adopt and use new communications technologies and the incidence of democratic backsliding. Many stable democracies, such as those in Northern and Western Europe, are among the heaviest users of social media and other new digital technologies, without experiencing backsliding. Conversely, some backsliders, such as Sudan and Benin, have relatively low rates of internet use and social media penetration.19

Moreover, the political effects of new technologies are mixed with regard to democracy. At the same time as social media and other digital developments are fueling the proliferation of misinformation and hate speech in many places, they are also allowing civic actors to organize more easily to assert demands for governmental accountability, to expose corruption, and to gain access to information in closed contexts. Similarly, social media may boost some illiberal leaders who benefit from being able to step over traditional media gatekeepers and reach their political followers directly, while at the same time allowing genuinely democratic politicians to communicate with their constituents and develop ties with them.

The second type of illiberal drive comes from politicians who do not campaign on a promise to transform the system or base their leadership projects around a sense of grievance but nevertheless seriously undercut mechanisms of democratic accountability to entrench themselves and their allies.

As compared to grievance-fueled illiberalism, opportunistic authoritarianism appears to be more common in countries with very weak institutions and very little tradition of democracy. In such countries, incumbent governments may be able to overcome institutional guardrails, even without a powerful, grievance-backed mandate.

A natural complementary element to the focus on elected leaders or revanchist actors driving antidemocratic projects is the issue of weak countervailing institutions. The ability of such projects to steamroll institutions that are supposed to constrain political actors is a critical part of the overall backsliding story. Countervailing institutions include both state and nonstate institutions. On the state side, they may include an independent electoral commission, an independent judiciary, a parliament with some power to check the executive, or a democratic constitution. On the nonstate side, they may include media, civil society, universities, or a business sector that has at least some autonomy from the state.

A difficult question faces democracies that seemed to be on a backsliding path but then rebounded. Were they able to do so because the countervailing institutions were strong enough to stop the illiberal actors? Or were those actors were simply not determined or skillful enough to go all the way down the path? In Zambia, the government of president Edgar Lungu, who was in power between 2015 and 2021, appeared to be on an illiberal path, but then it submitted to elections and eventually accepted the result when it lost, bringing to power a more democratically oriented leader. Among established democracies, the United States is another such example; analysts still debate whether Trump did not succeed in fully undoing U.S. democracy because the countervailing institutions were strong enough to stop him or because he lacked the skill to effectively do so.

As international democracy supporters continue to refine their strategies of responding to democratic backsliding, they should certainly continue to address facilitating factors like the antidemocratic role of authoritarian powers and the democratically disruptive effects of some new technologies. But they must better differentiate between facilitating factors and central causes. Doing so will point to the need for a central focus on of leader-driven antidemocratic projects. In particular, democracy supporters should bolster diplomatic and economic disincentives for leaders who start to turn against democracy and prioritize efforts to strengthen critical state and nonstate countervailing institutions as early and effectively as possible.

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