Democratic Backsliding

“Democratic backsliding,” writes political scientist Javier Corrales, is the term for “the process whereby existing democracies become less democratic.” This backsliding is one of the ways autocratization, the processes that move a country towards autocracy, occurs.

Autocratization through coups and revolutions/insurrections are well-known phenomena. But in established democracies, the backsliding can come about through seemingly paradoxical means. It is, as Corrales says, “initiated by the winners of democracy, not the losers.” Elected executives override institutional checks and balances to rampage over constitutional, as well as other historical-social-cultural precedents, in the name of their own power.

Corrales’s case study is Venezuela under “chavismo,” the rule of Hugo Chavez (1999–2013, died in office) and his anointed successor Nicolas Maduro (2013–present). The resulting quarter century of autocratic rule—“one of the most acute cases of democratic backsliding in the twenty-first century”—has come about through a number of mechanisms, writes Corrales: “erosion in institution of liberal democracy, distortions in institutions of participatory democracy, and declines in minimal democracy.”

Chavez and Maduro “won” much-disputed elections run by their own ruling party. Electoral irregularities—“practices, regulations, and even laws that violate international standards” for elections have been key to the undermining of Venezuelan democracy, perpetuating strongman autocratic rule, and making reform more than just an election-day challenge.

Corrales describes multiple avenues of democratic backsliding.

First, he highlights the potential of autocratic legalism, or the application of the law “harshly against enemies but softly or not all toward loyalists,” to erode democracy. He also identifies an element of constitutional tinkering, or the “amending or revamping [of] the constitution to give the executive more powers vis-à-vis other actors” as a danger sign. Another avenue relies on what he terms legislative dodging, when the executive office goes around the legislature to implement policies “or lower[s] the degree to which members of the executive branch become accountable to legislators.” Judicial co-option, which “ends the independence of the judicial branch,” is another sign of democratic backsliding, as is the “sabotaging” of “state accountability through an increase in secrecy, disinformation, and disabling voices.” And finally, the “centralization of power” can diminish “the autonomy of subnational actors or transferring power to subnational actors that are more aligned with the president.”

Distortions of participatory democracy also occurs through the mechanisms of sectarianism, or the “offering [of] state privileges mostly to loyalists and denying them to everyone else.” Demonization of the opposition party, “blocking it from participation in the decision-making process,” also erodes liberal democracy, as does “expropriating the property and assets of dissident groups.” Democracy is also harmed by efforts to suppress “pluralism.” Would-be autocrats may “populat[e] the civic space with new organizations that are semi-associated to the state and highly non-pluralistic.” And finally, of course, non-democratic rulers may “outright rejection or repression of citizens’ initiatives.”

Corrales documents the electoral rigging the ruling party has used to maintain its strongman rule in Venezuela. These include outright cheating and fraud; suppression and sometime violent intimidation of opposition voters; the banning of candidates and parties; unpredictable timing of elections; media blackouts of the opposition; and the undisguised bribing of voters (with food and household items), among other tricks.

Legacy and ever-new electoral irregularities are a major reason chavismo continues to rule Venezuela. Corrales argues that the country’s “electoral system is so tarnished that it is now an obstacle to democratic transition.” In last year’s presidential race, authorities announced that Maduro was the winner while both domestic and international sources presented much more convincing evidence that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez actually won by a solid margin. Fellow dictatorships including Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran lined up behind Maduro while Gonzalez fled the country during the reign of state terror against dissidents that followed the election.

As the case of Venezuela shows, institutional limits on the power of an executive are a hallmark of liberal democracy. But these limits can be fragile. The drafters of the Constitution of the United States, one of the foundational documents of liberal democracy, drew on their personal experience with the British monarch to argue that executive power had to be tempered by checks and balances…or else.

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