Formal Models of Democratic Backsliding

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Democracies around the world are backsliding. From the United States to Eastern Europe to Africa, the challenges to maintaining and strengthening democratic competition continue to mount. This panel uses the tools of formal theory to analyze democratic backsliding and to identify key mechanisms for this decline at the elite and mass level. Four key puzzles are addressed by our panel. The first is what accounts for asymmetries in constitutional hardball? Specifically, under what conditions does only one of the parties exploit flexibilities within the formal constitution to undermine norms of cooperation? The second, is how do incumbents fracture their opposition? In contrast to outright electoral fraud, incumbents may instead co-opt selectively the opposition, thereby reducing the latter’s ability to pose a challenge to government in power. The third puzzle explores the conditions under which voters turn to outsiders, highlighting particularly the role played by ideological polarization. The fourth and related puzzle is how polarization enables closet authoritarians to exploit citizens’ uncertainty and thereby undermine democratic candidates.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 11: Comparative Politics

Chair

• Milan Svolik Yale University

Discussants

• Michael K. Miller George Washington University

• Milan Svolik Yale University

Individual Presentations

• Playing to Win: Strategic Constitutional Hardball and Democratic Erosion - Gretchen Helmke, University of Rochester; Jack Paine, University of Rochester

• Crashing the Party? Elites, Outsiders, and Elections - Peter Buisseret, University of Chicago; Richard Van Weelden, University of Pittsburgh

• Elections without Competition: Elite Cooptation and Opposition Fragmentation - Leonardo R. Arriola, University of California, Berkeley; Anne Meng, University of Virginia

• Authoritarian Backsliding - Georg Vanberg, Duke University; Monika Nalepa, University of Chicago; Caterina Chiopris, Harvard University