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| 1 |
ID:
189709
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| Summary/Abstract |
The drawn-out process of applying for European Union membership has encouraged cynicism in Serbia and other Western Balkan states about the value of becoming part of the bloc. Local elites have instrumentalized the accession process, making a show of superficial compliance with EU conditions while eroding democratic institutions and stoking popular backlashes against EU-mandated protections for minorities. Perceptions that Brussels has turned a blind eye to such behavior have weakened the pro-European camp in the region.
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| 2 |
ID:
175440
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Despite growing concerns expressed by international organisations about the deterioration of democracy in Vučić’s Serbia, the country has been neglected by the literature on the ‘crisis of democracy’. Using a combined qualitative/quantitative research strategy for detecting changes in regime types, including various V-DEM measures and over three dozen indicators provided by the competitive authoritarian framework, the analysis confirms the recent regression of Vučić’s Serbia to competitive authoritarianism. The peculiar features of the Serbian case—a double transition to and from democracy in less than two decades—appear to support a pessimistic outlook for the future of democracy.
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| 3 |
ID:
165526
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In a developing country like Bangladesh, the devolved local government system is widely recognized as one of the key institutional forms for the citizen-centric public service delivery system and ensuring democratic governance at the grassroots level. However, the democratic nature of local governments and their effective role in rendering services are contingent upon the political and institutional environments of the country. Competitive electoral process is key to local democratic governance. The purpose of this article is to analyze the implications of contemporary political order and institutional environments for the proper functioning of the Union Parishad (council), the lowest tier of the local government system in Bangladesh. More specifically, this study will reflect on how political clientelism, partyarchy and institutional environments have stymied competitive electoral politics at the local level which may result in democratic backsliding.
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| 4 |
ID:
162665
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The Hungarian government’s discriminatory actions against the Central European University constitute one of the most prominent conflicts between an academic institution and a government today. My contribution gives a detailed account of how the conflict has unfolded so far. Various frameworks of interpretation, including democratic backsliding, cultural war, and international politics are discussed. I place the story of the university in the context of the polarized cultural climate of Eastern Europe and draw attention to the power of universities in collaborating across borders in defense of academic freedom—and freedom in general.
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| 5 |
ID:
147251
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| Summary/Abstract |
Governments in Southeast Asia have adopted policies that are fueling militancy by restricting freedoms and fostering authoritarianism
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| 6 |
ID:
184251
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the academic literature, Hungary and Poland are often cited as paradigmatic cases of democratic backsliding. However, as the backsliding narrative gained traction, the term has been applied to the rest of the post-communist region, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We suggest that this diagnosis is in part based on conceptual stretching, and set out to rescue the concept as an analytical tool. We then assess the extent of backsliding in the four Visegrád countries, explaining backsliding (and the relative lack of it) in terms of motive, opportunity, and the strength or weakness of opposing or constraining forces. We conclude that the situation is not as desperate as some commentators would have it: democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland was contingent on a few exceptional factors, and EU leaders therefore need not be paralysed by the fear of contagion when they contemplate forceful action against backsliding member states.
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| 7 |
ID:
189710
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| Summary/Abstract |
Democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland has raised questions as to whether Czech politics would follow a similar path. Focusing on transformations in the country’s political system over the past decade, this article argues that Czech democracy has proved resilient and defied the Central European illiberal trend. The starkly divergent outcomes are attributable to differences that set the Czech political tradition apart from those of Poland and Hungary. The liberal, secular, and pluralist tendencies present in the Czech democratic myth have made it more difficult to form an ideologically based movement built around a national-religious conservative narrative challenging liberal democratic values.
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| 8 |
ID:
191993
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Trump presidency generated concern about democratic backsliding and renewed interest in measuring the national democratic performance of the United States. However, the US has a decentralized form of federalism that administers democratic institutions at the state level. Using 51 indicators of electoral democracy from 2000 to 2018, I develop a measure of subnational democratic performance, the State Democracy Index. I then test theories of democratic expansion and backsliding based in party competition, polarization, demographic change, and the group interests of national party coalitions. Difference-in-differences results suggest a minimal role for all factors except Republican control of state government, which dramatically reduces states’ democratic performance during this period. This result calls into question theories focused on changes within states. The racial, geographic, and economic incentives of groups in national party coalitions may instead determine the health of democracy in the states.
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| 9 |
ID:
148258
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002 Turkey has undergone double regime transitions. First, tutelary democracy ended; second, a competitive authoritarian regime has risen in its stead. We substantiate this assertion with specific and detailed evidence from 2015 election cycles, as well as from broader trends in Turkish politics. This evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are being systematically violated; and the playing field is highly skewed in favour of the ruling AKP. The June 2015 election results and their aftermath further confirm that Turkey has evolved into a competitive authoritarian regime.
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| 10 |
ID:
190757
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Political actors often resort to electoral violence to gain an edge over their competitors even though violence is harder to hide than fraud and more likely to delegitimize elections as a result. Existing explanations tend to analyze violence in terms of the same factors as fraud, or to treat violence as a means of last resorts given its overtness. We introduce a novel explanation that does neither, arguing that political actors often use violence for the very reason that it is hard to hide. Its overtness, we argue, allows political actors to observe whether the agents they enlist to manipulate elections for them do so and reduces these agents’ likelihood of shirking in turn. We develop our argument through a formal model showing that electoral monitors, by exacerbating problems of moral hazard (shirking), can induce actors to increasingly turn to violence and use process tracing to examine the implications of this model through the example of Egypt.
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| 11 |
ID:
186544
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NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept established three core tasks for the Alliance: collective defense, crisis management, and cooperative security. While those tasks remain sound, the 2010 Concept reflected a different geopolitical, geostrategic, and security environment from today’s, characterized by renewed conflict with Russia, concerns about China’s strategic and economic ambitions, and new security challenges like hybrid threats and disinformation. Considering the changed strategic landscape and emerging challenges, we argue that NATO should make several refinements to its core tasks. European Allies must improve defense capabilities, ensuring their ability to help NATO meet its core tasks. In conjunction with the other Allied nuclear powers (the United Kingdom and France), the U.S. must renew its commitment to maintaining NATO as a nuclear alliance. NATO should adopt a more rigorous operational definition of crisis management, and a more systematic emphasis on the early warning and pre-crisis phases. Finally, while national “resilience” is already implied in Article 3ʹs requirement for member states to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack,” adding it as a fourth core task would powerfully emphasize the need for allies to address new elements of resilience, to include both technological threats and democratic backsliding.
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| 12 |
ID:
160305
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| Summary/Abstract |
This essay examines the impact of Turkey's growing international links to China, Russia, and other non-Western powers on democratic backsliding by the administration of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The essay finds that China's and Russia's growing engagement with Turkey since the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, coupled with Turkey's stalled bid for European Union membership, played an important role in deleveraging Western democratizing influence on Turkey. This shift in the international balance opened a window of opportunity for the Erdogan administration to engage in backsliding activities and proved to be a more significant driver for backsliding than other common predictors.
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| 13 |
ID:
187735
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| Summary/Abstract |
As president from 2016 to 2022, Rodrigo Duterte captured the judiciary, dominated the legislature, attacked the media, and presided over a campaign of mass killing, leaving an estimated 30,000 alleged drug criminals dead. Despite wielding vast amounts of power, Duterte stepped down after the national elections on May 9, 2022 in a largely peaceful transfer of power to Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son and namesake of the former dictator deposed in 1986. Why did Duterte amass power without causing full democratic collapse into authoritarian rule? The Philippines experienced backsliding to competitive authoritarianism: while elections remain free and somewhat fair, other features of democracy like civil liberties and political freedoms have eroded badly because of mass violence. The Philippine case demonstrates the autocratizing effect of an emerging form of political violence: a focused campaign of state terror that produces fear and electoral success. I present evidence from two cases—the national “war on drugs” and its local antecedent in Davao City—to explain how violence escalates, provokes accountability, evades culpability, and contributes to democratic backsliding without immediate collapse to authoritarianism. With the election of Marcos Jr., the impunity of the former incumbent is likely to become institutionalized, and democratic backsliding is unlikely to be reversed.
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