Unravelling democratic erosion: who drives the slow death of democracy, and how?

ABSTRACT

Empirical evidence points to democratic erosion as dominant pattern in Post-Cold War cases. The debate about democratic erosion so far remains fragmented due to the proliferation of labels, and the lack of conceptualization and a shared definition. This paper presents a concept of democratic erosion as a route of “slow death” of democracy developing three definatory features: agency, opportunity and sequencing. Regarding the drivers of this change, the argument presented here is actor-centered, conceiving democratic erosion as a process shaped by the intentionality and systematic actions of an erosion agent. In view of the mechanism, the article introduces sequencing as specific logic of action that is able to explain the incremental dismantling. This logic of action is derived inductively from the Venezuelan case and illustrates the pattern of active and intentional change of rules realized in sequenced hollowing out of democratic structures, processes, norms, and principles. Five developed sequences serve as framework for the analysis of democratic erosion.

KEYWORDS:

• regime change
• democratic erosion
• agency
• autocratization
• Venezuela

Acknowledgement

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Earlier versions of this text has been presented at the ECPR General Conference in Hamburg 2018 and at the Kellogg Institute, Notre Dame, in 2020. The author is grateful for the comments she received on these occasions and especially for the exchange with Luca Tomini, Scott Mainwaring, Aníbal Pérez-Liñán and Samuel Valenzuela.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Recently Svend-Erik Skaaning, “Waves of Autocratization and Democratization”, raised severe concerns on how Lührmann and Lindberg , “A Third Wave of Autocratization Is Here”, conceptualize waves of autocratization.

2 Huntington, “Democracy for the Long Haul,” 9.

3 O’Donnell, “Do Economists Know Best?,” 27.

4 Erdmann and Kneuer, “Introduction.”

5 Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession.”

6 Lust and Waldner, “Unwelcome change”; Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding.”

7 Foa and Mounk, “The Danger of Deconsolidation.”

8 Bogaards, “De-democratization in Hungary.”

9 Levistky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die; Runciman, How Democracy Ends.

10 Inter alia: Coppedge, “Eroding Regimes: What, Where, and When?”; Mainwaring/Pérez-Liñán, Cross Currents in Latin America.

11 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding”; Lust and Waldner, “Unwelcome change”; Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave.”

12 Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave,” 1105.

13 Lust and Waldner, “Unwelcome change,” 1.

14 Cassani and Tomini, Autocratization in Post-Cold War, 19.

15 Ibid.

16 Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave.”

17 Erdmann and Kneuer (“Introduction”) take up O’Donnell’s terminology.

18 See Ding and Slater, “Democratic Decoupling“ and Gerschewski, “Erosion or Decay?”

19 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding”; Huntington, “Democracy for the Long Haul”; ÒDonnell, “Do Economists Know Best?”; Levistky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die; Weyland, “The Threat from the Populist Left.”

20 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding”; Cassani and Tomini, Autocratization; Erdmann and Kneuer, “Introduction”; Foa and Mounk, “The Danger of Deconsolidation”; Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die; Runciman, How Democracy Ends; Lust and Waldner, “Unwelcome change”; Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave.”

21 Erdmann and Kneuer, “Introduction.”

22 Ibid., 9.

23 O’Donnell, “Do Economists Know Best?,” 27.

24 Erdmann and Kneuer, “Introduction,” 13.

25 Lust and Waldner, “Unwelcome change.”

26 Ibid., 3.

27 Ibid.

28 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding,” 7.

29 Bogaards, “De-democratization in Hungary,” 1482; Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave,” 1099.

30 Foa and Mounk, “The Danger of Deconsolidation.”

31 Howe, “Eroding Norms and Democratic Deconsolidation.” Howe even rejects the account the authors present. Howe holds that we are not dealing with such an erosion of support of democratic principles, but with a shift of social and cultural norms.

32 See Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation.

33 Bogaards, “De-democratization in Hungary.”

34 Ibid., 1482.

35 Cassani and Tomini, Autocratization.

36 Ibid., 20. Emphasis in the original.

37 Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave,” 1099.

38 Ibid., 1110.

39 Gerschewski, “Erosion or Decay?”

40 Cassani and Tomini, Autocratization; Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave.”

41 Erdmann and Kneuer, “Introduction.”

42 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding”; Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave.”

43 Cassani and Tomini, Autocratization, 38-56; Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave,” 1107.

44 See inter alia Kneuer and Demmelhuber, “Autocratization and its Pull and Push Factors”; Tansey, The International Politics of Authoritarian Rule; Vanderhill Promoting Authoritarianism; Weyland, “Autocratic Diffusion and Cooperation.”

45 See inter alia Kneuer, “Democratic Erosion and Autocratization in Latin America”; Tansey, The International Politics of Authoritarian Rule, Vanderhill Promoting Authoritarianism, Weyland “Autocratic diffusion and cooperation”; for Venezuela: Kneuer, “Exporting the Chavista Model.”

46 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding.”

47 Weyland, “Autocratic diffusion and cooperation”; Kneuer, “Legitimation beyond Ideology.”

48 Corrales, “Why polarize?”, 69.

49 Bueno de Mesquita et al., The Logic of Political survival.

50 Corrales, “Why polarize?.” This relationship cannot be dealt with profoundly here. See also Coppedge (“Eroding Regimes”, 21–2), whose analysis shows that regimes with eroded accountability are the most corrupt countries in the world: among them Russia, Venezuela, Thailand. Moreover, the aspect of rewarding the coalition of supporters with financial resources is a strong argument by Bueno de Mesquita et al. for political survival, especially of autocrats (The Logic of Political Survival).

51 Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession”

52 Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave,” 1101. For the calculation, see Annex A.

53 Coppedge, “Eroding Regimes,” 3, 12.

54 Ibid., 21.

55 The plethora of literature on Venezuela’s evolution under Chávez is quite polarized on the evaluation of the Bolivarian Revolution. In particular, disagreement exists as to the point at which the demolition of democracy was promoted by Chávez in favor of revolutionary democracy. Some argue that Chávez implements the illiberal project only from 2006 onwards with an aggressive political polarization, the reduction of public space and political pluralism. The interpretation of others boils down to the fact that the 1999 constitution and, in particular, the constitutional process as well as the first years of the Chávez government already meant a dismantling of democracy (see Brewer-Carias, Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela; Coppedge, “Popular sovereignty versus liberal democracy”; Lopez-Maya 2016, El ocaso del chavismo; Lander, “Venezuela. Izquierda y Populismo”).

56 Corrales, “Autocratic legalism”; Mainwaring/Pérez-Liñán, “Cross Currents in Latin America”; Weyland, “The Threat from the Populist Left”; Weyland, “Autocratic diffusion and cooperation”; Kneuer, “Democratic Erosion and Autocratization in Latin America“; Kneuer, ”Exporting the Chavista Model.”

57 Coppedge et al., “V-Dem Dataset v10”

58 Gerschewski, “Erosion or Decay?“

59 Bracher, “Stufen totalitärer Gleichschaltung,” Bracher, Stufen der Machtergreifung.

60 Bracher, (“Stufen totalitärer Gleichschaltung”) puts this process of replacement between January 30, 1933 and August 19, 1934. The four stages comprise: (1) the shifting and capturing of power which includes the elimination of all parties and groups, the replacement of elites and the founding of the one-party-state; (2) expansion of the achieved position referring to those persons who have not been covered by the first stage (the social and economic realms, culture and churches); (3) cleansing vis-a-vis of internal power conflicts; (4) institutionalization of the Nazi rule: consolidation of the Führerstaat (oath of the Wehrmacht, merging of the offices of President and Chancellor).

61 Grauvogel and von Soest, “Legitimationsstrategien von Autokratien”; Weyland, “Autocratic diffusion and cooperation”; Kneuer, “Legitimation beyond Ideology.”

62 Chávez, Agenda Alternativa Bolivariana.

63 Chávez, Una Revolución Democrática.

64 Chávez, Agenda Alternativa Bolivariana, 5.

65 GBRV, Líneas Generales del Plan, 31, 43.

66 Coppedge, “Popular sovereignty.”

67 Mijares, “Post-Chávez Foreign Policy,” 80

68 Latinobarómetro

69 Diamond, “Facing Up to the Democratic Recession,” 145.

70 Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding,” 10.

71 Coppedge, “Eroding Regimes.”

72 Corrales, “Autocratic legalism.”

73 Corrales, Fixing Democracy, 40.

74 Scheppele, “Autocratic legalism,” 556, 562. Recently, there has emerged more research on constitutional rewriting and authoritarian regimes, e.g. Ginsburg and Simpser, Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes.

75 Müller, “Rising to the challenge.”

76 For a detailed analysis: Brewer-Carrias, Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela;, Coppedge, “Popular Sovereignty versus Liberal Democracy”; Corrales, “Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela.”; Corrales, Fixing Democracy; Kneuer, “Democratic Erosion and Autocratization in Latin America.”

77 Ibid., 108f.

78 See in detail García-Sierra, “The ‘Enabling Law’.”

79 Brewer-Carias, Dismantling Democracy, López-Maya, El ocaso del chavismo.

80 Corrales, “Can Anyone Stop the President?”

81 Corrales, “Why Polarize?,” López-Maya, El ocaso del chavismo, Lander, “Venezuela”

82 Lust/Waldner, “Unwelcome change.”

83 O’Donnell, “Do Economists Know Best?,” 27.

84 Kneuer et. al., “Playing the regional card”; Romero, “Imposing the International Bolivarian Project”; Kneuer, “Exporting the Chavista Model.”

85 Lührmann and Lindberg, “A Third Wave,” 1108.

86 Ding and Slater, “Democratic decoupling”; Gerschewski, “Erosion or Decay?”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marianne Kneuer

Marianne Kneuer is Full Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Hildesheim.