Democratic Backsliding- EBP

 Bermeo, Nancy. “On Democratic Backsliding.” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 1 (January 2016): 5–19. 

Democratic Backsliding

In this article, Nancy Bermeo discusses forms of democratic backsliding, and how they have changed over time. It is a Political science study drawing strongly on historical events and context. She analyses why these changes have happened, what this means for democracy, and how we need to adjust to these changes if we want to prevent it from happening. 

Bermeo uses multiple historical accounts and records of backsliding occurring. She makes the point many times in the article that democratic backsliding is an under-researched area and that because of these changes, make it more critical that more systematic research goes into it. 

Using data from Susan Hydes's NELDA project which documents "National Elections Across Democracy and Autocracy" Bermeo backs up her argument showing the changes documenting the increase and decrease in these forms of backsliding through graphs. 

What is democratic backsliding? 

Democratic Backsliding is the term used to describe the regression of processes and/or institutions that uphold a democracy. 

The different forms of democratic backsliding: 

Forms in decline:

Coup d'etats

The classical Coup D'etat is defined as the illegal act of military or other state elites outsing a sitting executive. As this graph shows, there has been a decline in the frequency of classic Coup D'etats over time, reaching a peak between the 50s and turning down by the end of the 60s'. This peak in Coup d'etats can be correlated with the dictatorships and other non-democracies that were born during the Cold War era. In this section of the article, Bermeo leaves out examples of such non-democracies.

Executive Coups

Executive Coups are Coups done by an elected sitting executive to quickly transfer more power to themselves via personally suspending the constitution. Executive Coups are also associated with the Cold War, with this article naming Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. There were five executive Coups in the 1990s, but between 2000 and 2013, Nigeria was the only country to experience an Executive Coup. 

Election Day Vote Fraud

While voter malpractice continues on, blatant election-day fraud has been reported as being down. These forms of fraud can include count falsification, ballot stuffing, and ballot-box fraud. The consensus behind this is that cheating in this regard has become more subtle. Bermeo notes that it is still debated whether this change is because of normative change, the rise of election monitoring, or the deterrent effects of parallel vote tabulation, but it is decided that it is on the rise, as displayed by another graph included in the article. 

Forms with an increase or with no change:

Promissory Coups

Promissory Coups are still Coups, however, the ousting of an elected official is framed as a defence of democracy and promises restorations of elections quickly after the Coup. The 'temporary' nature of these Coups is strongly emphasized by the Coup-doers, who claim the Coup is necessary for a more just and better democracy.  The amount of Coups that are regarded as promissory Coups has risen dramatically, from 35 per cent before 1990 to 85 per cent.    

The largest concern surrounding Promissory Coups is their unlikelihood of efficiently becoming the new and improved democracy they promise. The timing between the Coup and subsequent election has historically varied significantly, such as 5 months in Honduras, or more than 6 years in Pakistan. On top of that, many postcoup elections were won either by the actual coup perpetrators or their candidates. 

Executive Aggrandizement 

The core difference with Executive Aggrandizement is the pace it takes. Executive Aggrandizement has a much slower form of backsliding is seen through the breaking down of institutions that uphold democratic institutions, thus removing the checks on the amount of power a sitting executive has. This makes it harder for opposition to come against said executive. As described in the article, Executive Aggrandizement is uniquely defined by; "institutional change is either put to some sort of vote or legally decreed by a freely elected official—meaning that the change can be framed as having resulted from a democratic mandate." The process of Executive Aggrandizement often removes media and legal accountability to those in power, giving them more freedom to make changes to legal systems without opposition. For example, Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych interfered with courts and police and changed the constitution so that he could hire and fire government officials.

The Strategic manipulation of elections

The Strategic manipulation of elections is on the rise and comes in many forms such as hampering media access, using government funds for incumbent campaigns, keeping opposition candidates off the ballot, and harassing opponents. All of these are done in a way that the elections themselves appear within the law. 

The heart of this strategy is that it can go unseen, and therefore uncriticized, by both domestic and global communities. 

Something I feel has been left out of this section of the article is more explanations on what can be considered Strategic election manipulation, as the term and features are so ambiguous, it is not very clear how this can be accurately defined. 

The graph below represents the increase in opposition harassment and leader disqualification.

Why are these changes important? 

A core feature of these changes is the pace of democratic breakdown. These changes mean that democratic breakdowns are more likely to slowly erode than have a dramatic ending. 

Bermeo points out that scholarship in the field of studying democracies has a much stronger focus on the clear collapses of democratic countries, leaving the slower breakdowns understudied, despite the commonality in the history of democratic backsliding. By ignoring the more incremental breakdown of democracies, you are ignoring the fact that democracies are built on an array of institutions and thus can be broken down slowly by slowly removing parts of these institutions. She notes that political scientists need to catch up to these ideas.   

This also makes the prevention of full democratic breakdown harder once the incremental erosion has begun, as due to its slow and spread-out nature, small erosions of autonomy may only experience resistance by certain affected groups. 

The article only lightly touches on a feature I see as very important to this equation- the idea of how the promotion of democracy has been a significant feature in these changes. As we discussed in class, there are very few countries that outwardly present themselves as non-democracies. The global promotion of democracy has done so well that those interested in having more power than can exist within a democracy, have quickly adapted to make their leaps for power more subtle, hidden, and generally harder to identify. It is mentioned in the article how Promissory Coups are on the rise because it is a way to limit foreign interference post-coup. I think this feature relating to the global acceptance of democracy as a strong value of society is most important to analysing why these changes have happened. 

Another point missed in this article that we touched on in class is the idea of Hegemonic shocks. The article dances around the idea of hegemonic shocks by regularly referencing the Cold War era and the giant changes to global politics within, without mentioning this. The changing of hegemonic powers influenced how the value of democracy was spread Post-Cold War. The change to global power with the USA rising as a global hegemon contributed to the increase of democratization around the world. Also, the increase in de-colonialism and independence post-Cold War lead to many governmental structures changing dramatically which has an impact on how the management of power exists within a state. 

A positive note: Despite these complex changes, positive changes are occurring also. Bermeo notes the decrease in the length of time that a country with a toppled democracy stays autocratic and, the fact that dictatorships that have followed failed democracies are, on average, less authoritarian than their predecessors. Though the connection of these positive trends concerning the changes to backsliding is not yet conclusive, it remains positive. 

In conclusion, the changing face of democratic backsliding is an under-researched area of political science, despite its consequences. Its changes have meant that backsliding has become more subtle and hidden to observers, making it harder to notice, and harder to prevent. These changes have occurred for a variety of reasons but namely, the strong push for democracy as a global value has meant that non-democracies work harder to hide themselves in recent times. Though the changes in backsliding are now harder to notice, they are also less violent and destructive and can be corrected with incremental change.

Sources

Bibliography

                 Bermeo, Nancy. “On Democratic Backsliding.” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 1 (January 2016): 5–19.

Hyde,   

                Susan , and Nikolay Marinov. “NELDA.” NELDA, 2012. https://nelda.co/.

             

                Siracusa, Joseph M. “Andrew Baker. Constructing a Post-War Order: The Rise of US Hegemony and the Origins of the Cold War.” The American Historical Review 117, no. 4 (September 21, 2012): 1253–54. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/117.4.1253a.