The Antidemocratic Drift in the Early 21st Century: Some Thoughts on its Roots, Dynamics and Prospects

Abstract

In the first two decades of the 21st century, the previous democratization progress was partly reversed. It is well seen in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe but also in other geographic regions. In search for causes of this warning trend, many authors point out economic factors such as economic stagnation, unemployment, inequality, consequences of the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 and side-effects of globalization. Not negating the role of economic factors, it is important, however, to see noneconomic determinants such as immature political institutions and their dysfunctionality, nationalism and cultural prejudices, and side-effects of the ICT revolution, which destroyed traditional media and public debate. The antidemocratic drift is dangerous not only for political and civil freedom but also has a negative impact on economic governance, making economies less open and competitive and easy victims of oligarchic predation ('crony' capitalism).

Thirty years of economic transition in the former Soviet Union: Microeconomic and institutional dimensions

“…Several comparative cross-country analyses confirm a positive correlation between changes in political and economic systems (Dabrowski, 2021;Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2022). It should not be surprising if one analyzes the impact of democratic mechanisms and institutions on the functioning of a market economy (de Haan and Sturm, 2003).…”

“…Disaggregation of the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom 2021 (on a scale of 0-100). of Russia), and independent media and civil society organizations (CSOs) (Dabrowski, 2021). Not surprisingly, four FSU countries that were rated in the Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2021 (Repucci and Slipowitz, 2022) as "partly free" (Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) departed from the presidential form of government in favor of either the parliamentary-cabinet regime or the mixed one.…”

Thirty years of economic transition in the former Soviet Union: Macroeconomic dimension

“…Meanwhile, further economic reforms have been stopped or delayed. In some cases, there has been a reversal of the earlier reforms associated with the continuous autocratic trend in the political sphere (Dabrowski, 2021a).…”

“…Most FSU countries managed to move from a planned to a market economy model, albeit highly imperfect. It can be characterized as distorted capitalism with many structural and institutional distortions determined by the dominance of autocratic regimes (Dabrowski, 2020(Dabrowski, , 2021a.…”