Heresthetic Threats to Democracy

• In Event: The Political Economy of Democratic Backsliding

Abstract

How do aspiring autocrats get elected? Prominent explanations posit that voters accept the subversion of democracy as the price they pay for a powerful executive with favorable distributional preferences. We propose instead that skillful rhetoricians advertise autocratic reforms not as "the subversion of democracy" but rather as "institutional change," which has positive appeal for a subset of voters from across the traditional political spectrum. We formalize this logic and then consider the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, a prominent case of democratic deconsolidation. Using original data on historical election returns and the speeches of five former Venezuelan presidents, we find that both voting patterns and political rhetoric are consistent with the empirical implications of our theory. Chávez came to power with the support of voters from the traditional right and the traditional left, and the campaign emphasized rather than obscured his proposal to remake political institutions.

Authors

• Dorothy Kronick, University of Pennsylvania

• Barry Plunkett

• Pedro L. Rodriguez, Vanderbilt University