Towards a Political Theory of Democratic Backsliding? Generalising the East Central European Experience

Abstract

This chapter argues in favour of a general theory of democratic backsliding which should cover three dimensions: (1) the societal one (changing citizenry), (2) the institutional one (changing institutions of democratic government) and (3) the processual one (the nature of the democratic backsliding itself). Following these aspects, the chapter explores general developments of democratic backsliding, which also apply to East Central Europe. Regarding the societal dimension, it points to changes in the nature of citizenship towards spectatorship and plebiscitary understanding of democracy. Considering the institutional dimension, it focuses on two types of state capture: the party state capture and the corporate state capture. With regard to the processual dimension, the chapter argues that democratic backsliding does not imply fully fledged authoritarianism but rather represents a retrogression to semi-democracy—a potentially stable regime type, in which the dismantling of the rule of law goes hand in hand with cyclical elections preserving democratic standards.

Democratic Backsliding in Poland: The Importance of the Values of Liberal Democracy and the Rule of Law in Polish-American Relations

“…This situation changed significantly in the 21 st century, and especially in the second decade of the century. Democratic backsliding is gaining momentum and its range basically covers all regions of the world, becoming a global trend, which is clearly noted in the literature (Karolewski, 2021). However, there is no consensus among researchers around the world that pessimistic visions of the erosion of democracy prevail (Sönmez, 2020).…”

The state of democracy in Africa

“…Although still largely unknown, it is believed that the proliferation of democratic recession is a result of the polarization of western societies, weak political institutions, failure of the political elite to address the inadequacies of the system, imitation and fragility of liberal democracies (Karolewski, 2021). Anderson (2019) claims that democratic recession emerges as a result of a weak democracy syndrome characterized by praetorianism (lack of control over the military and its perceived role in nationbuilding), weak political institutionalization (expected constraints on the executive by political actors) and economic performance.…”

“…The state of democracy in the world is faced with pessimism arising from recurring relapse. This is explained using terms such as democratic backsliding (Bermeo, 2016;Karolewski, 2021), democratic rollback (Diamond, 2008), democratic decline (Salih, 2021), democratic reversal (Andersen, 2019), democratic erosion (Hartmann & Thiery, 2022;Silva-Leander, 2021), democratic recession (Diamond, 2015;Loanda, 2010;Zamfir, 2021) and democratic decay (Daly, 2016). The nomenclature regardless, these terms refer to a varying state of deterioration in the democratic process and the rise of autocratization.…”

“…Advanced democracies including the UK and US have experienced democratic backsliding as they have fallen prey to attacks on the institutions of liberal democracy and populist post-truth rhetoric (Karolewski, 2021). Meanwhile, in the past ten years, one in five democracies has experienced a democratic decline.…”

The Ideological Recomposition of Political Elites in Serbia since 2012

“…With regard to post -communist countries specifically, over the past decade, scholars have underlined various trends, from global patterns of an updated version of 'competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky -Way 2010;Bieber 2018a) to 'situational nationalism' in Montenegro (Jenne -Bieber 2014), 'illiberalism/illiberal democracy' in Hungary (Kürti 2020) and Poland (Karolewski 2020), 'conservatism' in Slovakia (Sekerák 2019) and, broadly speaking, 'de--democratization' (Szymański -Ufel 2018;Procházka -Cabada 2020). The common denominator of these regimes is democratic backsliding which is rooted in the failure of reformist governments in forming independent and democratic institutions since the beginning of the 2000s.…”