| 1. |
- Lührmann, Anna, 1983, et al.
(författare)
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A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it?
- 2019
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Ingår i: Democratization. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1351-0347 .- 1743-890X. ; 26:7, s. 1095-1113
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2019, © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Less than 30 years after Fukuyama and others declared liberal democracy’s eternal dominance, a third wave of autocratization is manifest. Gradual declines of democratic regime attributes characterize contemporary autocratization. Yet, we lack the appropriate conceptual and empirical tools to diagnose and compare such elusive processes. Addressing that gap, this article provides the first comprehensive empirical overview of all autocratization episodes from 1900 to today based on data from the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem). We demonstrate that a third wave of autocratization is indeed unfolding. It mainly affects democracies with gradual setbacks under a legal façade. While this is a cause for concern, the historical perspective presented in this article shows that panic is not warranted: the current declines are relatively mild and the global share of democratic countries remains close to its all-time high. As it was premature to announce the “end of history” in 1992, it is premature to proclaim the “end of democracy” now.
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| 2. |
- Lührmann, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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State of the world 2018: democracy facing global challenges
- 2019
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Ingår i: Democratization. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1351-0347 .- 1743-890X. ; 26:6, s. 895-915
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article analyses the state of democracy in the world in 2018, and recent developments building on the 2019 release of the V-Dem dataset. First, the trend of autocratization continues and 24 countries are now affected by what is established as a "third wave of autocratization". Second, despite the global challenge of gradual autocratization, democratic regimes prevail in a majority of countries in the world (99 countries, 55%) in 2018. Thus, the state of the world is unmistakably more democratic compared to any point during the last century. At the same time, the number of electoral authoritarian regimes had increased to 55, or 31% of all countries. Third, the autocratization wave is disproportionally affecting democratic countries in Europe and the Americas, but also India's large population. Fourth, freedom of expression and the media, and the rule of law are the areas under attack in most countries undergoing autocratization, but toxic polarization of the public sphere is a threat to democracy spreading across regimes. Finally, we present the first model to predict autocratization ("adverse regime transitions") pointing to the top-10 most at-risk countries in the world.
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| 3. |
- Lührmann, Anna, 1983
(författare)
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United Nations electoral assistance: More than a fig leaf?
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Political Science Review. - : SAGE Publications. - 0192-5121 .- 1460-373X. ; 40:2, s. 181-196
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © The Author(s) 2018. Between 2007 and 2014 the United Nations (UN) assisted more than one-third of all national elections worldwide. Its experts routinely provide substantial technical advice on election management, logistical support such as the procurement of ballot papers and financial assistance. However, it remains doubtful if, and under which conditions, such assistance contributes to free and fair elections or has a positive long-term impact on democratization. This study assesses the impact of UN electoral assistance (UNEA) in Sudan, Nigeria and Libya. It finds that such assistance contributed to election quality in the presence of regime elites prioritizing electoral credibility in Nigeria (2011) and Libya (2012). In Nigeria, it seems plausible that UNEA had a medium-term impact on democratization. However, if regime elites undermine electoral freedom and fairness – as in Sudan (2010) – such positive effects are unlikely. Furthermore, in such contexts, the involvement of the UN may legitimize authoritarian practices.
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| 4. |
- Lührmann, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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When Democracy has a Fever: States of Emergency as a Symptom and Accelerator of Autocratization
- 2019
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- States of emergency grant chief executives the power to circumvent democratic constraints in order to combat existential threats. As such they are ideal tools to erode democratic institutions while maintaining the illusion of constitutional legitimacy. Therefore, it seems plausible that states of emergency are associated with a heightened risk of autocratization a decline in a regime's democratic attributes. Despite this link and the contemporary relevance of both autocratization and states of emergency, no prior study has empirically tested this relationship. This paper fills this gap using data on 60 democracies for 1974 to 2016. We find that democracies are 59% more likely to erode under a state of emergency. Like a fever, states of emergency are a potential symptom of a seriously ill democracy and they may accelerate democratic decay.
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| 5. |
- Mechkova, Valeriya, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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The Accountability Sequence: from De-Jure to De-Facto Constraints on Governments
- 2019
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Ingår i: Studies in Comparative International Development. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0039-3606 .- 1936-6167. ; 54:1, s. 40-70
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accountability is one of the cornerstones of good governance. Establishing accountable governments is a top priority on the international development agenda. Yet, scholars and democracy practitioners know little about how accountability mechanisms develop and thus can be supported by international and national actors. The present study tackles the questions of how, and in what sequence accountability sub-types develop. We consider not only vertical (elections and political parties) and horizontal accountability (legislature, judiciary, and other oversight bodies) but also diagonal accountability (civil society and media) in both their de-jure and the de-facto dimensions. By utilizing novel sequencing methods, we study their sequential relationships in 173 countries from 1900 to the present with data from the new V-Dem dataset. Considering the long-term dimensions of institution building, this study indicates that most aspects of de-facto vertical accountability precede other forms of accountability. Effective institutions of horizontal accountability—such as vigorous parliaments and independent high courts—evolve rather late in the sequence and build on progress in many other areas.
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| 6. |
- Ruth-Lovell, Saskia P., et al.
(författare)
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Democracy and Populism: Testing a Contentious Relationship
- 2019
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The phenomenon of populism and its relationship with modern democracy has gained considerable attention in recent years. This paper aims at advancing our understanding of how populism affects different models of democracy and tests the proposed arguments empirically. Building on the large scholarly literature on populism and democracy, we take stock of existing arguments and theorize which democratic models may be affected by populism in a positive or a negative way. Moreover, we move beyond the normative debate and analyse the effect of populism in power on different models of democracy empirically. We do so by merging data on populist governments in Europe and Latin America from the 1995 until today with the Varieties of Democracy data set, which enables us to capture the relationship between populism and different democratic models in these regions.
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| 7. |
- Tannenberg, Marcus, et al.
(författare)
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Regime Legitimation Strategies (RLS) 1900 to 2018
- 2019
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper we introduce new expert-coded measures of regime legitimation strategies for 179 countries in the world from 1900 up until 2018 that are comparable across time and space. Country experts have rated the extent to which the government promotes or references its performance, the person of the leader, rational-legality, and ideology in order to justify the regime in place. With regards to ideology, the experts are further asked to categorize the ideology of the regime as nationalist, communist/socialist, conservative/restorative, religious, and/or separatist. The main purpose of this paper is to describe and validate the data against expectations on claims from case studies as well as with existing regime type classifications. We show that experts do understand and can be employed to code legitimation claims. Not only do we document historical shifts in legitimation claims, but the measures also pick up recent trends, such as, an increased emphasis of the leader in countries such as Russia, Turkey, Cambodia over the last decades, and more recently also in India and the Philippines; as well as recent increases in legitimation claims based on both conservative and nationalist ideologies the European countries Serbia, Hungary and Poland, which also have experienced autocratization in recent years.
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