https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2023-9177
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ABSTRACT
Worldwide, democratic erosion is on the rise, with incumbents slowly undermining the pillars of democratic competition such as political freedoms, clean elections, and a free press. While such gradual erosion frequently culminates in democratic breakdown, this is not always the case. How can accountability mechanisms contribute to halting democratic erosion before breakdown, even if they could not prevent the onset of erosion? To study this question, we use the V-Dem Electoral Democracy Index to systematically identify three recent cases – Benin (2007–2012), Ecuador (2008–2010), and South Korea (2008–2016) – where substantial democratic erosion happened but democracy did not break down. Studying these cases in depth we find that accountability mechanism – parliamentary and judicial oversight (horizontal accountability), pressures from civil society and the media (diagonal accountability), or electoral competition between parties and within parties (vertical accountability) – played a part in halting democratic erosion in all of them. They effectively halted erosion when institutional constraints – such as presidential term limits or judicial independence – and contextual factors – in particular economic downturns and public outrage about corruption scandals – worked together to create simultaneous pressures on the incumbents from civil society and from vertical or horizontal accountability actors.
Acknowledgement
We thank Ana Good God, Ana Laura Ferrari and Sandra Grahn for their skillful research assistance and participants at the Berlin Democracy Conference (11/2019) and the APSA conference (2020) as well as Staffan I. Lindberg and Wolfgang Merkel for their helpful feedback on an early version of this article. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions that have helped improve the article, and Katherine Stuart and Marcin Ślarzyński for their careful reading and corrections.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding.”
2 Lührmann et al., “Constraining Governments” and Schedler, Diamond, and Plattner, “The Self-Restraining State.”
3 Lührmann and Lindberg, “Third Wave.”
4 Ibid.
5 Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Dataset v10.”
6 We use “high quality” and “low quality” democracy in reference to the debate on the quality of democracy, embracing the notion that a high quality democracy is a system where the different procedural and substantive elements considered essential to modern democracy are all present, balancing and complementing each other, while “low-quality” democracies are weak on at least some of these dimensions. See Diamond and Morlino, “The Quality of Democracy,” pp. 22,30.
7 Lührmann and Lindberg, “Third Wave” and Waldner and Lust, “Unwelcome Change.”
8 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding.”
9 Ibid.
10 Lührmann and Lindberg, “Third Wave.”
11 Although the rule of law is not an explicitly necessary condition for polyarchy according to Dahl's definition, the de-facto protection of individual civil and political rights is closely related to the rule of law, understood here in the “minimal” sense as a body of law that meets certain procedural and formal criteria for its creation and enforcement (See Morlino, “Two ‘Rules of Law,’” 48–9). As Morlino notes, the extent to which civil and political rights are enforced is a key indicator when assessing democratic quality.
12 Lührmann, Tanneberg and Lindberg, “Regimes of the World.”
13 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding.”
14 Lührmann and Lindberg, “Third Wave” and Cassani and Tomini, “Revisiting Concepts.”
15 Waldner and Lust, “Unwelcome Change.”
16 Lührmann and Lindberg, “Third Wave.”
17 Lipset, “Social Requisites of Democracy;” Cheibub et al. “Makes Democracies Endure.”
18 Boix, “Democracy and Redistribution.”
19 Dahl, Polyarchy and Beissinger, “Ethnicity and Democracy.”
20 Linz, “Perils of Presidentialism”; Lijphardt, “Consociational Democracy”; Norris, Driving Democracy; Sartori, Parties and Party Systems.
21 Linz, Crisis, Breakdown and Reequlibration.
22 Dahl, Polyarchy, 141.
23 Przeworski, Democracy and the Market, 10.
24 See Lindberg, “Mapping Accountability.” Schmitter (in “Ambiguous Virtues,” 52–54) acknowledges that the spatial distinction is the most common one, but also proposes a temporal distinction in relation to policy and electoral cycles.
25 Lührmann et al., “Constraining Governments,” 3.
26 Schmitter, “Ambiguous Virtues,” 53; O’Donnell, “Horizontal Accountability.”
27 O’Donnell, “A Response,” 68.
28 Schmitter, “The limits,” 60; Schmitter, “Ambiguous Virtues,” 53.
29 Goetz and Jenkins, “Hybrid Forms of Accountability”; Malena and Forster, “Social Accountability.”
30 Schedler, Diamond, and Plattner, “The Self-Restraining State.”
31 O’Donnell, “Horizontal Accountability.”
32 Goetz and Jenkins, “Hybrid Forms.”
33 For excellent overviews of such actions, see Grimes, “Contingencies of Societal Accountability” and Malena and Forster, “Social Accountability.”
34 Achen and Bartels, Democracy for Realists; Graham and Svolik, “Democracy in America?”
35 Linz, Crisis, Breakdown and Reequlibration.
36 Helmke, Courts Under Constraints; Chavez, Ferejohn, and Weingast, “Theory of Independent Judiciary.”
37 McKie, “Presidential Term Limit Contravention.”
38 Mahoney and Goertz. “A Tale,” 239.
39 Edgell et al., “Episodes of Regime Transformation,” based on V10 of the V-Dem data (Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Dataset v10”).
40 Replicating our analysis using the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) rather than the EDI leads to a similar set of cases with some differences, which we discuss in the Appendix.
41 Dahl, Polyarchy.
42 Autocratization episodes may start with a relatively small decline in the EDI (0.01) and end with an increase in the EDI (greater than 0.02) or four years of stagnation in the EDI – fluctuations of at most 0.01. For details, see Lührmann and Lindberg, “Third Wave,” 7.
43 Lührmann, Tannenberg, and Lindberg, “Regimes of the World.”
44 In two cases – Turkey (2007–2011) and Turkey (2013–2019), and Venezuela (1999–2001) and Venezuela (2003–2019) – we consider two episodes of autocratization to be part of a single process. Thus, the episode in Turkey (2007–2011) is considered to have ended in breakdown, even though democracy only broke down during the later episode (2013–2019).
45 Either these episodes had 2019 as the ending year or, even though the coding rule suggested that the autocratization episode ended in 2017 or 2018, we were not able to identify a significant change or resolution that would lead us to consider the episode as having really ended.
46 Autocratization was related primarily to international conflict (Georgia 2006–2010), a coup attempt (Venezuela 1992), ethnic conflict (North Macedonia 2000, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2013–2015), communal violence (India 2002–2010), or gang violence and crime (Honduras 1998–2006) in other cases. In Moldova (2012–2018) we consider that autocratization was largely driven by an oligarch's attempt to capture the state. Finally, although Mali (1997–1998) comes up as an episode of autocratization that halted before breakdown, we could not identify democratic erosion there. The episode seems to have been driven by fluctuations in the EDI in the immediate aftermath of the transition to democracy.
47 George and Bennett, Case Studies.
48 Mayrargue, “Boni, un Président Inattendu?”
49 Souaré, “The 2011 Presidential Election,” 74.
50 Reuters, “Benin Parliament Rejects Impeachment,” August 20, 2010. https://www.reuters.com/article/benin-politics/head-of-benin-parliament-rejects-impeachment-request-idUSLDE67J1MV20100820.
51 Souaré, “The 2011 Presidential Election,” 85.
52 Laleyè, “The Waiting Game.”
53 Jeune Afrique, “Présidentielle Béninoise,” February 22, 2011. https://www.jeuneafrique.com/182274/politique/pr-sidentielle-b-ninoise-pol-mique-autour-de-la-lepi/.
54 Banégas, “Benin: Challenges for Democracy,” 449–50.
55 Ibid., 455.
56 Ibid., 451–2.
57 Ibid., 453.
58 EISA, “The Conduct of the 26 April 2015 National Assembly Election: A Test of the Capacity of the Political Leadership to Build a Consensus,” July 2015. https://www.eisa.org/epp-benin.php.
59 Ibid.
60 Tyson Roberts, “Here's Why Benin's Election Was a Step Forward for African Democratic Consolidation. and Why It Wasn't.”, March 22, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/22/heres-why-benins-election-was-a-step-forward-for-african-democratic-consolidation-and-why-it-wasnt/
61 Laleyè, “The Waiting Game,” 8.
62 Banégas, “Benin: Challenges for Democracy,” 454–6.
63 Ibid., 452.
64 Duerksen, Mark, “The Testing of Benin's Democracy,” Africa Center for Strategic Studies, May 29, 2019. https://africacenter.org/spotlight/the-testing-of-benin-democracy/.
65 Conaghan, “Ecuador,” 262–4.
66 Ibid., 271.
67 Polga Hecimovich, “La Presidencia del Ejecutivo Unitario,” 109.
68 Polga-Hecimovich, “Estabilidad Institucional,” 144.
69 Basabe-Serrano and Martínez, “Ecuador: Menos Democracia”; de la Torre and Ortiz Lemos, “Populist Polarization.”
70 Polga Hecimovich, “La Presidencia del Ejecutivo Unitario.”
71 Martínez Novo, “Collaborations and Estrangements.”
72 Basabe-Serrano and Martínez, “Ecuador: Menos Democracia,” 155–7.
73 de la Torre, “Ecuador after Correa,” 80.
74 Labarthe and Saint-Upéry, “Leninismo versus Correísmo,” 39.
75 Ibid.
76 León Cabrera, “Ecuador's Former President Convicted,” April 7, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/world/americas/ecuador-correa-corruption-verdict.html
77 Odebrecht is a Brazilian construction giant, which was systematically bribing officials to obtain public sector contracts across Latin America and the Caribbean. An investigation by the US Department of Justice unearthed ample evidence of corruption across the region. See Shiel and Chavkin. “Bribery Division: What is Odebrecht? Who is Involved?” June 25, 2019. https://www.icij.org/investigations/bribery-division/bribery-division-what-is-odebrecht-who-is-involved/.
78 Labarthe and Saint-Upéry, “Leninismo versus Correísmo,” 34.
79 Burbano de Lara and de la Torre, “The Pushback.”
80 New York Times, “South Korea Scandal,” April 9, 2012. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/world/asia/government-spying-charges-complicate-korean-vote.html.
81 ho and Kim, “Procedural justice,” 1185. BBC News, “South Korea's Spy Agency Admits Trying to Influence 2012 Poll,” August 4, 2017. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40824793.
82 Hyun-Soo Lim, “A Closer Look.”
83 New York Times, “6 Ex-Officials in South Korea Are Sentenced for Blacklisting Artists,” July 27, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/world/asia/south-korea-park-aides-artists-blacklist.html.
84 Cho and Kim, “Procedural Justice and Perceived Electoral Integrity,” 1186. “Prosecutors Detail Attempt to Sway South Korean Election”, November 21, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/world/asia/prosecutors-detail-bid-to-sway-south-korean-election.html
85 Cho and Kim, “Procedural Justice and Perceived Electoral Integrity,” 1187. Fish, “Internet censorship.”
86 Kim, “The 2012 Parliamentary and Presidential Elections”, 20.
87 New York Times, “Investigators Raid Agency of Military in South Korea,” October 22, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/world/asia/south-korean-military-agencys-headquarters-raided-in-growing-scandal.html.
88 “South Korea After Impeachment,” 119.
89 BBC News, “South Korea's Ex-Leader Jailed”. April 6, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43666134
90 A Gallup poll showed an approval rating of only 5% for the President in early November 2016. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-politics-poll-idUSKBN12Z04Y.
91 Shin and Moon, “South Korea After Impeachment,” 130; Turner et al. “Making Integrity Institutions Work,” 980.
92 Gamboa, “Opposition at the Margins” and Cleary and Öztürk, “Opposition Strategies.”
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Melis G. Laebens
Melis G. Laebens is Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics in Nuffield College and in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Oxford. Her work has focused on contemporary democratic backsliding and incumbent takeovers as well as on party politics and partisanship with a focus on Turkey, Ecuador and Poland.
Anna Lührmann
Anna Lührmann is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg and Senior Research Fellow at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute. Her research on autocratization, elections and democracy aid has been published among others in American Political Science Review, Democratization, Electoral Studies, International Political Science Review, and the Journal of Democracy.