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 e ect 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.

A national “war on drugs” under former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte killed an estimated 12,000 to 30,000 victims. Duterte used state terror tactics, generating an unprecedented level of violence within a broader process of democratic backsliding. The violence peaked early, within the first few months of his term of office, then declined and remained low for years afterwards. How do campaigns of large‐scale state violence decline? This article explores the context‐specific drivers of the drug war's implementation in the Philippines. It presents findings from a model predicting violence escalation and de‐escalation using a Poisson regression to estimate the weekly number of killings from 2016 to 2021. The study's main finding is that the violence declined, and remained low throughout the rest of Duterte's term, due to the mobilization of accountability mechanisms—particularly over corruption controversies. This study offers insights into how resistance can impede autocratization, even in weak democracies.

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