[EnglishArticle]The V-Dem project is a joint initiative of the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg and the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame. With more than 50 regional specialists and 2,800 national experts—one of whom is the author of this column—V Dem produces a robust database, updated every year, that measures seven types of democracy: electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, egalitarian, majority, and consensual. The database also reconstructs the trajectory of the world’s political regimes from 1902 to the present day. A sophisticated and colossal effort.
Through V-Dem, the political scientists Anna Luührmann and Staffan I. Lindberg warn about the arrival of a third wave of “autocratization”—the takeover and erosion of democratic institutions by elected leaders. Unlike previous autocratic waves—which occurred from 1926 to 1942 and from 1961 to 1977—the current wave, which started in the mid-1990’s, affects a majority of established democracies at different moments in time. This wave can be broken down into three phases: recession, the early stages of the creeping control by autocrats over the checks and balances of democracies; rupture or the qualitative leap from democracy to autocracy; and finally, the consolidation of authoritarian regimes.
Currently, different countries are undergoing various stages of autocratization. The first phase, recession, is evident in Viktor Orban’s Hungary. In Turkey, the rupture stage is quickly advancing under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. And in Russia, the consolidation stage has developed hand in hand with 20 years under Putin and his lackeys. Each country’s own national context, the presence of both incumbent and opposition leaders, civil society and the extent of democratic political culture—among other factors—mark the respective trajectories to autocracy.
In these cases, aspiring dictators slowly erode democracy and consolidate power. These modern-day autocrats come to power legally—through elections—and gradually degrade democratic norms and institutions. In fact, nearly 70 percent of all contemporary autocratizing episodes are driven by leaders whose democratic legitimacy is unquestionable. Once in power, the ambitious autocrats work to change constitutions, undermine independent electoral authority (domestic and international), weaken the opposition, besiege civil society and persecute critical media. It’s an autocratic playbook that, no matter the different cultural and national factors, is being replicated and reused on a global scale from Asia to Latin America, from Eastern Europe to sub-Saharan Africa.
As in any other gradual process, under the third wave of autocratization, democratic actors have some opportunity to consolidate their presence while they build their capability to mobilize. Approximately half of these countries still classify as partially democratic or under some democratic modality. And those affected nations today remain even more democratic than their counterparts affected by the previous waves of autocratic consolidation. If these affected nations today are supported by the existing democratic global network—NGO’s, pro-democratic governments, movements and scholars—committed to safeguarding polyarchies and human rights, the third autocratic wave may not have a guaranteed victory. The fight is well worth it. In fact, it’s necessary.
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