Are democracies around the world in decline? The concern resonates across the globe- from Hungary in Europe to Turkey, from Venezuela to Tunisia, where the democracies have been seen deteriorating. The trends in Russia and China suggest a move towards a more authoritarian style of government. Moreover, the repeated protests and anger against the ruling dispensation in Israel, Sri Lanka and France suggest deep-rooted problems.
To add to the problem, the rise of the far-right across the world is magnanimous, if not unprecedented. In France, Marine Le Pen is trailing closest ever against President Macron, in Israel, there seems no clear alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu and similar concerning trends is observed in other countries including Italy, Germany and Spain.
What is Democratic Backsliding?
In the past two decades, and especially since 2016, democratic backsliding has become a defining trend in the global politics. Democratic backsliding and democratic erosion are defined as “a process in which democratically elected leaders weaken democratic institutions.”
According to Nancy Bermeo, political scientist at University of Oxford, democratic backsliding is “the state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing democracy.
The most common explanations given by experts including the role of Russia and China, rise of populism, political polarization, rise of far-right and democracies’ failure to deliver.
Some of the common indicators of the phenomenon include:
– hardening of autocratic rule in countries
– polarization
– weakening of opposition
– rise of illiberal forces in a democracy
– economic anxiety
Democratic backsliding denotes an erosion of the norms and institutions that support and allows democratic systems to function.
The backsliding can be due to a major like a military coup, but it can also be brought on at the hands of democratically-elected governments, who choose to subvert the basic tenets of democracy. The backsliding can be determined by a number of factors like checks and balance on the executive power, ensuring fundamental rights, impartial administration and public participation.
Is the World Really Seeing Democratic Backsliding?
While there is a popular opinion in the global media and academic discourse, a research paper has challenged the popular and academic commentary that the world is facing a systemic crisis of democracy.
In “Subjective and Objective Measures of Democratic Backsliding,” the political scientists Andrew Little of the University of California at Berkeley and Anne Meng of the University of Virginia claim the opposite.
The two political scientists claim that the post-Cold War expansion of democracy in nations around the world has, on average, held. They have argued that the recent studies that find evidence of global backsliding rely heavily on subjective indicators and ask experts to rate based on their own judgment.
In the research, the two authors have relied on more objective indicators of democracy like electoral competitiveness, executive constraints, and media freedom.
The two researchers claimed that they found “little evidence of backsliding on these variables over the past decade.” Instead, the global pattern seems to be one of democratic stability, rather than decline, they added in the research paper.
However, the paper stated that the democratic backsliding has occurred recently in places like Hungary, Poland, and Venezuela. But these declines have been balanced by more-democratic processes in other countries.
They also added that the indicators which shows democratic backsliding as taking place were based on relatively subjective measures which had disagreement among expert.
In Support of Democratic Backsliding
Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance or International IDEA has said half of the world’s democratic nations are in retreat and added that 52 the 104 democracies studied were considered to be eroding.
Experts say that the rise of right-wing parties in Europe, the denial of climate change, rise of authoritarian government is due to a worldwide wave of democratic backsliding.
According to V-Dem, a Sweden based monitoring institute, more democracies were deteriorating and even slipping into autocracy in 2021, than at any point in the past 50 years.
The monitoring institute said that only 34 liberal democracies exist as of today, down to the same number as in 1995. Experts have called it “a third wave of autocratization,” the first beginning in the 1920s and the second in the 1960s.
The democracy was under siege last year marked by attempted coups in Peru, contested elections in Brazil and crackdowns on peaceful protesters in Iran, China and other nations, according to Time magazine.
The number of countries moving toward authoritarianism today are more than double those that are moving toward democracy, International IDEA added.
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