The Cultural Roots of Democratic Backsliding

• In Event: Countering Illiberalism in Liberal Democracies II: Norms and Political Behavior

Abstract

The early 21st Century has seen warning signals that peoples in every world region face clear and present danger from democratic backsliding and authoritarian resurgence (1). Despite intense concern, no consensus has emerged about the most important drivers of these developments. Today more is known about ‘how’ democracies die than the reasons ‘why’ this occurs -- still less what can be done to reverse this trend.

To understand these developments, Part I in the paper starts from the premise that regime stability is strengthened by feelings of political legitimacy, implying that the principles, institutions, and authorities are seen as the rightful and proper ones. It requires a normative yardstick and evaluative beliefs about whether governance practices reflect these standards (2). Drawing upon a revised and updated version of congruence theory, the argument predicts that democratic and authoritarian regimes will prove most stable where formal state institutions fit cultural values, norms and beliefs in mass society (3). In cases of progressive democratization, however, authoritarian regimes are conventionally expected to be more vulnerable to challenge from below where ordinary citizens demand democracy, freedom, and human rights, mobilizing support for pro-democracy forces (4). Cases of democratic backsliding -- the other category most of interest for regime change --involves states with democratic constitutions, multiparty elections, and human rights, but where the formal safeguards and informal norms underpinning these institutions have been challenged by popular support for authoritarian values, institutions, and leaders. This disconnect provides opportunities for strongman rulers and for authoritarian populist parties and movements to further foment popular discontent and gradually undermine democracy.

To explore congruence theory, Part II describes the data and methods. To monitor political culture, the book draws upon the European Values Survey/ World Values Survey conducted in over 100 societies around the globe, in some countries over four decades from the early-1980s to 2022 (5). This includes a wide range of states governed by authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China, as well as diverse cases such as Venezuela, Iran, Hungary, Nicaragua, Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar, and Thailand. Cultural attitudes are compared at three levels: support for regime principles and values, for formal regime institutions and informal norms, and for authorities and leaders. List experiments are used to monitor the reliability of the survey data (6). Party positions towards democratic governance, as the key intermediary agencies, are classified from the Global Party Survey, covering 1,043 political parties in 163 countries (7). The regime typology, and measures of the degree of regime stability and change, draw on data in the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project matched to the survey year (8).

The results in Part III use standard econometric techniques, data visualizations, and selected historical case studies.

The conclusion in Part IV summarizes the key findings to throw new light on processes of regime stability and change, considers the next steps in the research agenda, and discusses the broader policy implications for what can be done to reverse the risks of democratic backsliding around the world.

1) S. Rapucci and A. Slipowitz. 2022. Freedom in the World 2022. Freedom House; International IDEA. 2021. The Global State of Democracy Report 2021. Stockholm: International IDEA.
2) See J. Thomassen, C. van Ham, K. Arts & R. Andeweg. 2018. Myth and Reality of the Legitimacy Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press.
3) G. Almond & S. Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
4) N. Bermeo. 2003. Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
5) http://Worldvaluessurvey.org
6) B.Rosenfeld, K. Imai and J. N. Shapiro. 2016. ‘An empirical validation study of popular survey methodologies for sensitive questions.’ AJPS 60(3): 783–802.
7) www.GlobalPartySurvey.org
8) https://www.v-dem.net/

Author

• Pippa Norris, Harvard University