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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe term \u2018backsliding\u2019 has been coined to describe the phenomenon by which leaders who come to office within a democratic framework, only to attack some of democracy\u2019s core features when in office. Stephan Haggard<\/strong> and Robert R Kaufman <\/strong>outline some of the key features of \u2018backsliding\u2019, discuss how and why it can take hold, and whether there are warning signs that such a process could happen in the UK. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n During the presidency of Donald Trump, American democracy suffered the most serious challenge it has faced since the country\u2019s Civil War. Trump and his administration inflamed divisions that jeopardise the rights of women and minorities; attacked the press; defied oversight; sought to stack the judiciary and law enforcement agencies with partisan loyalists; challenged the integrity of the electoral system, and ultimately stoked a violent challenge to the democratic transfer of power. These threats were different from conventional forms of democratic reversion, such as the coup d\u2019etat<\/em>. Instead, they reflected a more insidious process that has come to be known as \u2018backsliding,\u2019 in which illiberal leaders rise to power within a democratic framework and attack core features of democracy from within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the United States occupies a unique position at the heart of the international system, backsliding there commanded worldwide attention. But the United States was hardly alone. In a new study<\/a>, we identified at least 15 other countries in which duly-elected democratic governments recently moved along similar paths. Not all of these paths lead all the way to autocracy; in the United States, democracy survived the Trump era badly damaged but intact. But depending on the metric used, more than half of these cases slid into \u2018competitive authoritarian rule\u2019: systems in which elections persisted but were manifestly rigged. Notably, although many of the failed democracies we examined were weakly institutionalised at the outset (for example, Bolivia, Ukraine, and Zambia), others such as Hungary, Poland, and Venezuela were once considered relatively robust democratic regimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These cases raise the question of whether similar adverse developments could occur in other seemingly stable democracies. Could they perhaps even happen in the UK? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n How backsliding challenges the three pillars of democratic rule<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In all of the countries that we featured in our book \u2013 as well as other, more recent examples such as India \u2013 backsliding has been marked by the erosion of three core features of democratic rule: <\/p>\n\n\n\n The centrality of political polarisation to the backsliding process<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What are the roots of backsliding? Both in the United States and elsewhere, it has resulted from three interrelated processes. First, the seedbed of backsliding can typically be found in political polarisation, a process in which both political elites and mass publics become increasingly internally divided over public policy, ideology, and partisan attachments. There is no uniform source of polarisation. It can be rooted in economic inequalities and anxieties, cultural divisions, or both. And it can emerge either from below through social movements or be stoked from above by political elites. In extremis, however, cross-cutting social cleavages are submerged into a single reinforcing division that pits \u2018Us\u2019 versus \u2018Them.\u2019 Political adversaries become not only competitors, but traitors and enemies. Here the resonance with UK experience is most palpable, with research unmistakably showing the polarising effects of Brexit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polarisation increases the vulnerability of democracies to backsliding because it reduces incentives for the kinds of policy compromises and civil discourse required for effective democratic governance. Governments are more susceptible to either stalemates or swings between policy extremes, with a corresponding increase in more general disaffection and distrust of institutions and a greater tolerance for bold sweeping actions that promise to cut through the politics of \u2018the swamp.\u2019 With governments viewed as increasingly dysfunctional and elites and publics deeply divided, aspiring autocrats offer facile solutions. Populist movements such as Trump\u2019s convey a vision of society that pits \u2018the virtuous people\u2019 \u2013 typically rooted in some exclusive definition of the nation \u2013 against corrupt elites, justifying authoritarian practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Populists and majority rule<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ironically, although claiming to speak for \u2018the nation,\u2019 populist leaders who develop into autocrats generally do not sweep to power with massive popular support. A surprising finding of our study was that they more frequently reached office with narrow electoral majorities, pluralities, or \u2013 in the case of Trump \u2013 having received fewer votes than their opponent. But they nevertheless bid for power with a \u2018winner takes all\u2019 approach to democracy, in which executives are unfettered by checks on their discretion or procedural niceties. They not only promise to cut through the political clutter, but make quite specific institutional promises that would allow them to do so: weakening \u2018unelected judiciaries\u2019 by packing courts, colonising a hostile administrative state with loyalists, and weakening a variety of important agencies, from central banks, to budget offices, to scientific councils and regulators. Even constitutive rights, for example, to due process or free speech, are not immune from attack; they are increasingly portrayed not as the bedrock of democratic rule but as entitlements enjoyed by \u2018Them\u2019 at the expense of \u2018the people.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The pivotal role of parliaments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To implement these promises, aspiring autocrats must capture control of the executive, but a full expansion of their power also depends on securing loyal majorities in the legislature. The routes through which autocrats\u2019 parties gain such majorities varied across the cases we examined. In Venezuela<\/a>, Bolivia<\/a>, and Ecuador<\/a>, the way was paved by constitutional \u2018reforms\u2019 that restructured districts and electoral rules. In Nicaragua<\/a> and Poland<\/a>, it was made possible by divisions among competing parties. And in many other cases (most notably, Turkey<\/a>, Hungary<\/a>, Serbia<\/a>, Zambia<\/a>, and the United States<\/a>), ruling parties capitalised on the disproportionality between the popular vote and the share of legislative seats, transforming plurality popular votes into legislative majorities or even supermajorities. But however legislative majorities were established, they were crucial to the consolidation of control over the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where parliamentary majorities fall under the thumb of the autocrat, the legislature is eliminated as a pivotal source of oversight. Acquiescent legislators thereby facilitate, if only by inaction, the misuse of the state bureaucracy and corruption. They allow the leader to deploy public resources to reward friends, target political enemies, and harass and intimidate civil society groups. Vigilance by members of parliament \u2013 and indeed by the majority party \u2013 is therefore essential to keeping a leader\u2019s autocratic tendencies at bay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the countries that we examined, loyal legislative majorities took positive steps that more directly weakened or dismantled other institutions of accountability. Republicans in the United States Senate, for example, ratified Trump\u2019s appointment of political allies<\/a> to formerly independent agencies, and collaborated in a concerted campaign to tilt judicial appointments well to the right<\/a>, after a period in which they had blocked nominees<\/a> put forward by then-President Obama. In other cases, such as Hungary<\/a>, appointments were further enabled by complementary administrative restructuring that created new layers of authority under executive control, altered rules of employment, or expanded the number of positions that autocrats and their legislative allies could fill. Once rulers had extended control over these crucial nodes of power, they could draw on them to advance the autocrat\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, through both constitutional reforms and ordinary legislation, legislatures could delegate additional formal powers to the autocrat. In most of the backsliding cases, legislatures expanded the discretionary power of the heads of government. In presidential systems; legislators also allowed executives to extend their power through an expansion of term limits. In five of the 16 cases (Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Russia, and Venezuela) these measures opened the way to exceptionally long executive runs: 11 years for Rafael Correa in Ecuador, 13 years for Evo Morales in Bolivia, 14 years for Hugo Ch\u00e1vez in Venezuela, and (as of 2021) 14 years for Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and 21 years for Vladimir Putin in Russia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The slow creep of backsliding, and the constant need for vigilance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The third causal factor at work in the backsliding process is its incremental nature. Elected autocrats test normative limits one initiative at a time, with each derogation making subsequent steps easier to pursue. Curtailing the independence of the judiciary and civil service expands opportunities for the autocrat to test limits by attacking the rights and liberties of critics and political opponents. With horizontal checks weakened or eliminated, there is little that stands in the way of further restrictions on core rights that are crucial for the functioning of democracy, such as free speech \u2013 including a free media \u2013 and the right to free assembly and association. In every case we examined, executives also worked to increase their leverage over the electoral process, narrowing the spaces available to civil society groups and opposition parties in order to minimise the risk of defeat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Incrementalism has social psychological, as well as institutional and legal effects. Legally ambiguous steps \u2013 especially ones which enjoy popular support \u2013 work to disorient the public, which frequently cannot see that backsliding is taking place until it is too late to respond. Purposeful obfuscation and control of information compounds these difficulties. Initial assaults on horizontal checks, rights and the integrity of the electoral system can easily compound into self-reinforcing cycles, both through the additional powers executives gain and through the disorganisation of oppositions and publics. There is a \u2018frog in the pan\u2019 analogy \u2013 that before those affected are aware of what\u2019s happening, the key damage may already have been done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So could it happen here?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the United States, the violent attack of 6 January, 2021<\/a> on the Congressional ratification of the presidential election would have been unthinkable four years earlier. Yet broader efforts to overturn the election were implicitly condoned by large swathes of the Republican party that continued to deny the legitimacy of the Biden presidency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Historically \u2013 from the interwar period until today \u2013 democracies have fallen from sudden takeovers. But backsliding democracies can die slow, as well as sudden deaths \u2013 undermined by the very leaders that publics elect. And even when \u2013 as in the United States \u2013 they do not die, they can emerge from backsliding episodes with democratic institutions badly weakened and potentially unable to resist further blows. Autocracies do not necessarily arrive with a general standing in front of bank of microphones, announcing a state of emergency; they can come by stealth as well. Backsliding is a development which should give all democrats, even those in the seemingly most stable democracies, cause for concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Backsliding: democratic regress in the contemporary world<\/em><\/strong> is available from Cambridge University Press.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you enjoy the Constitution Unit blog, <\/em>sign up<\/em><\/strong> for updates in the left sidebar, <\/em>join our mailing list<\/em><\/strong><\/a> for news of our events and research, and <\/em>support us<\/em><\/strong><\/a> through a one-off or regular donation. Donations are crucial to funding the blog, and the Unit\u2019s research.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n About the authors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n S<\/i>tephan Haggard<\/a> <\/strong>is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California San Diego<\/em>, and co-author of<\/em> Backsliding: democratic regress in the contemporary world<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Robert R Kaufman<\/a> <\/em><\/strong>is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and<\/em> co-author of<\/em> <\/em><\/strong><\/a>Backsliding: democratic regress in the contemporary world<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The term \u2018backsliding\u2019 has been coined to describe the phenomenon by which leaders who come to office within a democratic framework, only to attack some of democracy\u2019s core features when in office. Stephan Haggard and Robert R Kaufman outline some of the key features of \u2018backsliding\u2019, discuss how and why it can take hold, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28904612,"featured_media":11259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[119286966,60369396,4328,2311,5142,31448690,35163924,463530440],"tags":[73454,14837,189091,5207,169390,31174,604737349,2720,32875,705439447,2778539,3869867,292898,214369,162301,4340,715733519,376028,8523964,14275258,53305532,10759,108644,20716159,1148,22735,699,17923,421306,208704,616921,20796],"class_list":["post-11258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brexit","category-elections-and-referendums","category-europe","category-government","category-international","category-judiciary-and-human-rights","category-parliament-2","category-parties-and-politicians","tag-backsliding","tag-bolivia","tag-donald-trump","tag-ecuador","tag-election-monitoring","tag-elections","tag-electoral-integrity-bill","tag-human-rights","tag-hungary","tag-independent-review-of-administrative-law","tag-judicial-appointments","tag-judicial-independence","tag-judicial-review","tag-misinformation","tag-nicaragua","tag-poland","tag-police-crime-sentencing-and-courts-bill","tag-populism","tag-prorogation","tag-proroguing-parliament","tag-robert-r-kaufman","tag-russia","tag-serbia","tag-stephan-haggard","tag-turkey","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-venezuela","tag-voter-id","tag-voter-registration","tag-voting-reform","tag-zambia"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/9781108958400.jpg?fit=180%2C271&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1hi4Y-2VA","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28904612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11258"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11283,"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11258\/revisions\/11283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constitution-unit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}