The Hidden Dimension in Democracy

Wilson, Matthew Charles; Wiesner, Karoline; Bien, Samuel

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4453098

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Modeling studies show that the dynamic demands of political (e.g., voters, parties, politicians, lobbyists) and economic (e.g., budget constraints, inflation) factors introduce additional risks by pushing the system to operate at the limits of acceptable strain (Eliassi-Rad et al, 2020;Morrison & Wears, 2022;Wilson et al, 2023, May). Like technical systems, democracies can absorb small deviations from the ideal operational practice.…”

Section: Modeling Democratic Near Missesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dodging the autocratic bullet: Enlisting behavioural science to arrest democratic backsliding

Abels,

Huttunen,

Lewandowsky

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite a long history of research on democratic backsliding, the process itself---in which the executive branch amasses power and undermines democratic processes and institutions---remains poorly understood. We seek to shed light on the underlying mechanisms by studying democratic near misses: cases in which a period of autocratic governance is quickly reversed or full backsliding is prevented at the last minute. Building on the literature on near misses in socio-technical systems such as nuclear power plants, we adapt the drift-to-danger model to the study of democratic systems. Two key findings emerge: First, democratic backsliding is triggered by political elites pushing the boundaries of their power by violating norms, which are crucial yet vulnerable safeguards for democracy. Second, democratic backsliding is unpredictable and non-linear, being driven by the interaction between political elites and the public. Norm-violating elites may feel legitimised by a supportive public that sees norm violations as justified. At the same time, political elites may signal that norm-violating behaviour is acceptable, potentially leading the public to adopt anti-democratic beliefs and behaviours. We identify risk factors that make norm violations more likely and offer behavioural sciences-based interventions to address these violations.

show abstract

Section: Modeling Democratic Near Missesmentioning

confidence: 99%