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ABSTRACT
A growing literature examines democratic backsliding, but there is little consensus on when, where, and why it occurs. Reviewing more than 100 recent articles and working papers, this research note argues that inattention to the measurement of backsliding and the underlying concept of democracy drives this disagreement. We propose three remedies. First, we outline several questions that help researchers navigate common measurement challenges. Second, we argue that conceptual confusion around backsliding is driven in large part by inconsistent definitions of democracy. We show how outlining a comprehensive concept of democracy enables researchers to better account for the diversity of instances of democratic backsliding. Our third contribution is drawing attention to a previously overlooked form of backsliding: when governments lose the effective power to govern or voters and elites increasingly disagree about truths and facts. The research note urges scholars to pay closer attention to the conceptualization and measurement of backsliding prior to empirical analysis.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Aala Abdelgadir, Ala’ Alrababa’h, Vincent Bauer, Aurel Croissant, Edgar Franco Vivanco, Carl Gustafson, Elisabeth van Lieshout, Will Marble, Michael Robinson, Aliz Tóth, Matt Tyler, Cesar Vargas Nunez, Christopher Way, and participants at the annual meeting of MPSA 2018 for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. We also thank our editors and anonymous reviewers at Democratization.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Hellmeier et al., “State of the World 2020: Autocratization Turns Viral.”
2 Bermeo, Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times: The Citizenry and the Breakdown of Democracy.
3 Kaufman and Haggard, “Democratic Decline in the United States: What Can We Learn from Middle-Income Backsliding?”; Diamond, “Democratic Regression in Comparative Perspective: Scope, Methods, and Causes.”
4 Hunter and Power, “Bolsonaro and Brazil’s Illiberal Backlash.”
5 Svolik, “Polarization versus Democracy”; Haggard and Kaufman, Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World; Arbatli and Rosenberg, “United We Stand, Divided We Rule: How Political Polarization Erodes Democracy.”
6 See appendix for details.
7 Marshall, Gurr, and Jaggers, Polity V Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions.
8 Freedom House, Freedom in the World.
9 Coppedge et al., V-Dem Dataset – Version 10.
10 Bertelsmann Foundation, Bertelsmann Transformation Index.
11 Mansfield and Pevehouse, “Democratization and International Organizations”; Huq and Ginsburg, “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy,” von Borzykowski and Vabulas, “Credible Commitments? Explaining IGO Suspensions to Sanction Political Backsliding.”
12 Brownlee, “The Limited Reach of Authoritarian Powers”; Tomini and Wagemann, “Varieties of Contemporary Democratic Breakdown and Regression: A Comparative Analysis.”
13 Coppedge, “Eroding Regimes: What, Where, and When?”; Hellmeier et al., “State of the World 2020: Autocratization Turns Viral”; Meyerrose, “The Unintended Consequences of Democracy Promotion: International Organizations and Democratic Backsliding.”
14 Levitsky and Way, “The Myth of Democratic Recession”; Hess and Aidoo, “Democratic Backsliding in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Role of China’s Development Assistance.”
15 Von Borzykowski and Vabulas, “Credible Commitments? Explaining IGO Suspensions to Sanction Political Backsliding”; Alemán and Yang, “A Duration Analysis of Democratic Transitions and Authoritarian Backslides.”
16 Mansfield and Pevehouse, “Democratization and International Organizations.”
17 Tomini and Wagemann, “Varieties of Contemporary Democratic Breakdown and Regression: A Comparative Analysis.”
18 Gerschewski, “Erosion or Decay? Conceptualizing Causes and Mechanisms of Democratic Regression.”
19 Kaufman and Haggard, “Democratic Decline in the United States: What Can We Learn from Middle-Income Backsliding?”; Haggard and Kaufman, Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World.
20 Some democracy indicators that use numeric values also assign categorical labels to those values. For example, Freedom in the World measures democracy on a 100-point scale and then assigns labels of “free,” “partly free,” and “not free” based on the overall score.
21 See appendix for coding rules. Table A3 shows that this conclusion holds when not collapsing V-Dem’s and BTI’s regime typology into autocracy-intermediate-democracy.
22 Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
23 Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition.
24 Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm.”
25 Foa and Mounk, “The Signs of Deconsolidation.”
26 Goertz, Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide.
27 Munck, “What Is Democracy? A Reconceptualization of the Quality of Democracy.”
28 Kelsen, “Foundations of Democracy”; Przeworski, Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government.
29 Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
30 Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition.
31 Berman, “There are 868 Fewer Places to Vote in 2016 Because the Supreme Court Gutted the Voting Rights Act.”
32 BBC News, “South Korea’s Spy Agency Admits Trying to Influence 2012 Poll.”
33 Peto, “What to Watch at Hungary’s Elections.”
34 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding.”
35 Sedelmeier, “Anchoring Democracy from Above? The European Union and Democratic Backsliding in Hungary and Romania after Accession.”
36 Grzymala-Busse, “Global Populisms and Their Impact.”
37 Merkel, “Embedded and Defective Democracies.”
38 Youngs, “Democracy and the Multinationals.”
39 Croissant et al., Democratization and Civilian Control in Asia.
40 Mickey, Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944–1972.
41 Schedler, “The Criminal Subversion of Mexican Democracy.”
42 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy; Gutmann and Thompson, Why Deliberative Democracy?
43 Graham and Svolik, “Democracy in America? Partisanship, Polarization, and Support for Democracy in the United States”; Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die.
44 Arbatli and Rosenberg, “United We Stand, Divided We Rule: How Political Polarization Erodes Democracy.”
45 Measured as the number of search results by year for “democracy” AND “backsliding” AND corresponding terms for elect (“election” OR “vote” OR “voting” OR “voter”), constrain (“judiciary” OR “judicial” OR “legislature” OR “courts” OR “civil society”), or enable (“misinformation” OR “disinformation” OR “conspiracy” OR “polarization” OR “fake news” OR “state capacity”).
46 The World Bank, “Worldwide Governance Indicators.”
47 IRGC, “International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) Researchers Dataset.”
48 Lee and Zhang, “Legibility and the International Foundations of State Capacity.”
49 Mechkova et al., “Digital Society Project Dataset v3.”
50 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding”; Waldner and Lust, “Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding.”
51 Gerring et al., “Democracy and Human Development: Issues of Conceptualization and Measurement”; Lueders and Lust, “Multiple Measurements, Elusive Agreement, and Unstable Outcomes in the Study of Regime Change”; Munck and Verkuilen, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices”; Skaaning, “Waves of Autocratization and Democratization: A Critical Note on Conceptualization and Measurement.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Haemin Jee
Haemin Jee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on rule of law and social control in authoritarian regimes, with a regional focus on China.
Hans Lueders
Hans Lueders is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. His research focuses on political inequality, with a special focus on how migration impacts governance and representation. His work has been published or is forthcoming at The American Political Science Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Politics, the European Political Science Review, and the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, among others.
Rachel Myrick
Rachel Myrick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Duke University. Her research focuses on how partisan polarization affects foreign policy making in democratic states. Her work is published or forthcoming at International Organization, the Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Global Security Studies, and PS: Political Science & Politics.