Authoritarian Reversals and Democratic Consolidation

Svolik, Milan W.

doi:10.1017/s0003055408080143

Cited by 236 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 48 publications

(73 reference statements)

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“…Differences in authoritarian regimes account for variance in their economic growth and investment (Wright 2008), conflict behavior (Peceny et al 2002;Lai and Slater 2006;Weeks 2008), political survival (Geddes 1999), prospects for democratization (Linz and Stepan 1996;Bratton and van de Walle 1997;Hadenius and Teorell 2007) and democratic consolidation (Svolik 2008). …”

Section: Monarchic Military and Civilian Dictatorshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy and dictatorship revisited

2009

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We address the strengths and weaknesses of the main available measures of political regime and extend the dichotomous regime classification first introduced in Alvarez et al. (Stud. Comp. Int. Dev. 31(2):3-36 1996). This extension focuses on how incumbents are removed from office. We argue that differences across regime measures must be taken seriously and that they should be evaluated in terms of whether they (1) serve to address important research questions, (2) can be interpreted meaningfully, and (3) are reproducible. We argue that existing measures of democracy are not interchangeable and that the choice of measure should be guided by its theoretical and empirical underpinnings. We show that the choice of regime measure matters by replicating studies published in leading journals

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Section: Monarchic Military and Civilian Dictatorshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democracy and dictatorship revisited

2009

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“…The new contributions build on case examples (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018), statistics on selected indicators of gradual autocratization -i.e., military coups and electoral fraud (Bermeo 2016), opinion polls (Mounk 2018) or on changes in quantitative measures over a set time period (Diamond 2015. Most existing comparative studies on the causes of autocratization (Svolik 2008, Bernhard et al 2001, Ulfelder and Lustik 2007, Przeworski et al 2000 as well as descriptive overviews (Merkel 2010, Erdmann 2011, Levitsky and Way 2015 are also biased in that they include only cases of complete breakdown of democracies. Such binary approaches not only fail to capture the often protracted, gradual and opaque processes of contemporary regime change (Luedders and Lust 2018), but also exclude important variations: autocratization in democracies that do not (yet?)…”

Section: State Of the Art At Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Keeping the Democratic Façade: Contemporary Autocratization as a Game of Deception

Lührmann

Lindberg

2018

SSRN Journal

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Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualization and measurement of democracy. The headquarters -the V-Dem Institute -is based at the University of Gothenburg with 17 staff. The project includes a worldwide team with six Principal Investigators, 14 Project Managers, 30 Regional Managers, 170 Country Coordinators, Research Assistants, and 3,000 Country Experts. The V-Dem project is one of the largest ever social science research-oriented data collection programs.Please address comments and/or queries for information to: University of Gothenburg * For helpful comments, we thank Scott Gates, Kyle Marquardt, Jan Teorell, and participants of the APSA General Conference (8/2017), the V-Dem Research conference (5/2018) the post-doctoral working group at the University of Gothenburg and the HU/Princeton workshop on constitutionalism, dissent and resistance (6/2018), where earlier versions of this paper were discussed. In particular, we are grateful to Rick Morgen who helped to better operationalize our idea of autocratization episodes. We also benefited immensely from Philipp Tönjes' skillful research assistance. This research was supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Grant M13-0559:1, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to Wallenberg Academy Fellow Staffan I. Lindberg, Grant 2013.0166, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; ERC Consolidator Grant 724191, PI: Staffan I. Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; as well as by internal grants from the Vice-Chancellor's office, the Dean of the College of Social Sciences, and the Department of Political Science at University of Gothenburg. 2 AbstractLess than thirty years after Fukuyama and others declared liberal democracy's eternal dominance, a third wave of autocratization is manifest. Gradual declines of democratic regime attributes characterize contemporary autocratization. Yet, we lack the appropriate conceptual and empirical tools to diagnose and compare such elusive processes. Addressing that gap, this paper provides the first comprehensive empirical overview of all autocratization episodes from 1900 to today based on data from the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem). We demonstrate that a third wave of autocratization is indeed unfolding. It mainly affects democracies with gradual setbacks under a legal façade. While this is a cause for concern, the historical perspective presented in this paper shows that panic is not warranted: the current declines are relatively mild and the global share of democratic countries remains close to its all-time high. As it was premature to announce the "end of history" in 1992, it is premature to proclaim the "end of democracy" now.3

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“…Using a different statistical approach,Svolik (2008) finds support for the claim that democratic consolidation occurs but cannot address the question when democracies consolidate.10 This and related terminology is employed for instance byO'Donnell (1996),Diamond (1999),Acemoglu and Robinson (2005),Epstein et al (2006), andKapstein and Converse (2008).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Democracies Will Last? Coups, Incumbent Takeovers, and the Dynamic of Democratic Consolidation

Svolik¹

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

139

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This article develops a change-point model of democratic consolidation that conceives of consolidation as a latent quality to be inferred rather than measured directly. Consolidation is hypothesized to occur when a large, durable, and statistically significant decline in the risk of democratic breakdowns occurs at a well-defined point during a democracy's lifetime. This approach is applied to new data on democratic survival that distinguish between breakdowns due to military coups and incumbent takeovers. We find that the risk of an authoritarian reversal by either process differs both in its temporal dynamic and determinants. Crucially, new democracies consolidate against the risk of coups but not incumbent takeovers, suggesting that distinct mechanisms account for the vulnerability of new democracies to these alternative modes of breakdown.

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Authoritarian Reversals and Democratic Consolidation

Cited by 236 publications

References 48 publications

Democracy and dictatorship revisited

Democracy and dictatorship revisited

Keeping the Democratic Façade: Contemporary Autocratization as a Game of Deception

Which Democracies Will Last? Coups, Incumbent Takeovers, and the Dynamic of Democratic Consolidation

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