{"title":"Democracy and its Vulnerabilities: Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding","authors":"Zhaotian Luo, A. Przeworski","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.3469373","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The puzzle entailed in erosion of democracy by backsliding is how a catastrophic situation can be gradually brought about by steps against which people who would be adversely affected do not react in time. We investigate conditions which render democracy impregnable to backsliding and conditions which make it vulnerable. Democracy is sustainable, free from the threat of backsliding, when opposing politicians are neither very attractive nor very unattractive to citizens. To sustain it, citizens must allow more appealing incumbents to gain some security in office. Backsliding occurs either under \"populism,\" when citizens knowingly consent to erosion of democracy because they find the incumbent highly appealing, or under \"polarization,\" when citizens oppose the incumbent regardless of the attractiveness of the challenger, so that the incumbent can remain in office only by backsliding.","PeriodicalId":51622,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Political Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2019-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"17","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quarterly Journal of Political Science","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.3469373","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 17
Abstract
The puzzle entailed in erosion of democracy by backsliding is how a catastrophic situation can be gradually brought about by steps against which people who would be adversely affected do not react in time. We investigate conditions which render democracy impregnable to backsliding and conditions which make it vulnerable. Democracy is sustainable, free from the threat of backsliding, when opposing politicians are neither very attractive nor very unattractive to citizens. To sustain it, citizens must allow more appealing incumbents to gain some security in office. Backsliding occurs either under "populism," when citizens knowingly consent to erosion of democracy because they find the incumbent highly appealing, or under "polarization," when citizens oppose the incumbent regardless of the attractiveness of the challenger, so that the incumbent can remain in office only by backsliding.
期刊介绍：
In the last half-century, social scientists have engaged in a methodologically focused and substantively far-reaching mission to make the study of politics scientific. The mutually reinforcing components in this pursuit are the development of positive theories and the testing of their empirical implications. Although this paradigm has been associated with many advances in the understanding of politics, no leading journal of political science is dedicated primarily to the publication of positive political science.
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