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This article provides a new conceptualization of regime transformation that allows scholars to address democratization and autocratization as related but obverse processes. We introduce a dataset that captures 680 episodes of regime transformation (ERT) from 1900 to 2019 and offers novel insights into regime change over the past 120 years. The ERT has three main advantages over other approaches. First, it avoids problematic assumptions of unit homogeneity and constant as well as symmetric effects. Second, it integrates key insights from qualitative studies by treating regime change as a gradual and uncertain process. Third, the ERT is based on a unified framework for studying regime transformation in either direction. The dataset differentiates between four broad types of regime transformation: liberalization in autocracies, democratic deepening in democracies, and autocratization in both democracies and autocracies (democratic and autocratic regression). It further distinguishes ten patterns with distinct outcomes, including standard depictions of regime change (i.e. democratic transition or breakdown). A minority (32%) of ERTs produce a regime transition, with the majority of episodes either ending before a transition takes place or not having the potential for such a transition (i.e. further democratization in democratic regimes or further autocratization in autocratic regimes). We also provide comparisons to other datasets, illustrative case studies to demonstrate face validity, and a discussion about how the ERT framework can be applied in peace research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many democracies around the world face the challenge of democratic recession and autocratization as democratically elected incumbents increasingly show autocratic tendencies. Existing research has mainly focused on the circumstances under which these autocratizing incumbents erode democracy and on the structural factors explaining the resilience of democratic institutions. Much less is known about the actors within those institutions and when they stand up against the autocratizing incumbent to defend democracy. In this article, we present a novel theoretical framework of democratic defence that focuses on the interaction between the incumbent, institutional elites, and citizens. Developing a two-level model of democratic defence, we show how the democratic defender's personal interests, repression by the incumbent, the perceived ambiguity of the autocratic action, and the perceived credibility of the democratic defender interact to affect the occurrence of democratic defence. The resulting framework can guide future research on the role of specific actors in defending democracy. We demonstrate the utility of our framework with illustrative case studies of (attempted) democratic defence in Senegal (2011–2012) and Poland (2017–2018). An actor-based approach of democratic defence is crucial to understand what actions domestic and international actors can take to prevent (further) democratic recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do mutually reinforcing cleavages harm democracy? Evidence from specific cases suggests that autocratization can be related to the predicament of ethnic groups, if ethnicity is politicized and involves resource distribution. However, we know little about whether this is a cause of autocratization more broadly. The article demonstrates that, with increasing inequalities between ethnic groups, a country experiences a decline in its level of democracy and higher propensity to start autocratizing. The analysis thus advances previous contributions, focusing on individual inequalities and power-sharing institutions as explanations of democratization or democratic quality, in two ways. First, isolating autocratization as downturns in democracy levels and the onsets of related timespans (autocratization episodes), and comparing the impact of (economic, political, and social) types of inequalities between ethnic groups. Second, adopting a global sample of (democratic and non-democratic) countries since 1981, with an original data collection integrating expert surveys with survey data. Quantitative evidence confirms most expectations, particularly on economic inequalities between ethnic groups, and – although less precisely – economic, political and social dimensions combined. The findings have important implications for political regime and ethnic studies, showing that preventing the mutual reinforcement of sociocultural and economic cleavages is key to stabilize democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across the globe implemented severe restrictions of civic freedoms to contain the spread of the virus. The global health emergency posed the risk of governments seizing the pandemic as a window of opportunity to curb (potential) challenges to their power, thereby reinforcing the ongoing, worldwide trend of shrinking civic spaces. In this article, we investigate whether and how governments used the pandemic as a justification to impose restrictions of freedom of expression. Drawing on the scholarship on the causes of civic space restrictions, we argue that governments responded to COVID-19 by curtailing the freedom of expression when they had faced significant contentious political challenges before the pandemic. Our results from a quantitative analysis indeed show that countries who experienced high levels of pro-democracy mobilization before the onset of the pandemic were more likely to see restrictions of the freedom of expression relative to countries with no or low levels of mobilization. Additional three brief case studies (Algeria, Bolivia and India) illustrate the process of how pre-pandemic mass protests fostered the im-position of restrictions on the freedom of expression during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy is under threat across the globe and a third wave of autocratization manifests in democratic regression and authoritarian hardening. However, although universities have been important pro-democracy hotbeds, the nexus between academic freedom and autocratization has generated little scholarly attention. This article presents the first systematic investigation of the influence of academic freedom on the onset of autocratization. In particular, it reveals how academic freedom protects regimes from an onset of autocratization and argues that more academic freedom reduces the risk of autocratization by imprinting a pro-democracy bias on students and researchers. This article's research design combines two studies. Study I tests whether graduates that were socialized under more academic freedom develop more democratic support, which I analyse using data from the World Values Surveys and linear fixed effects models. Study II tests whether more academic freedom reduces the onset probability of autocratization using V-Dem data and binomial-response GLMs. This article finds evidence that while high levels of academic freedom reduce the probability of an onset of autocratization, low levels also reduce the probability of an onset. Overall, the article highlights the crucial role of academic freedom for democracy, especially in times of severe threats to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Resistance against autocratization is a neglected area of inquiry. Although we have solid knowledge of the structural pre-conditions, modalities, and patterns of autocratization, as well as the motivations and strategies used by authoritarian actors, very little is known about the actors resisting autocratization and their strategies. This article provides an answer to the following questions: why does resistance against autocratization matter and why do we need to address it? How to define it? Who are the actors involved and what are the main strategies adopted? This article contributes to the current debate on autocratization by providing a detailed discussion on the topic of resistance and a definition that can be operationalized for empirical research. It also addresses this issue in a comparative perspective by analysing resistance against autocratization across different types of political regimes, therefore overcoming the narrow focus on democratic backsliding in democratic regimes. Eventually, based on the analysis of selected cases of successful resistance, we conclude by formulating working hypotheses to be further investigated on the density of resistance networks and the shifting nature of resistance when moving from democracy to authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can we assess the institutional resilience of consolidated democracies in emergency situations? How can we know which regulations of the state of emergency best immunize democratic systems from intra- or inter-regime shifts? With the COVID-19 pandemic, these questions have become urgent. Although worries that intra- or inter-regime shifts may increase due to the proclamation of the state of emergency mainly target countries that were already prone to autocratization, specific complaints have been addressed at undue impingements on fundamental rights in consolidated democracies, too. In most of the current indexes, the presence or absence of certain institutional features is usually considered as per se sufficient to determine the degree of a system's resilience. Instead, our analysis suggests that these criteria ought to be used as heuristics in the context of an in-depth analysis of institutional mechanisms. This would lead to a reformulation of how such indexes are made. In order to make this point, the article presents a qualitative methodology based on the classical theory of the "state of exception", taking the divergent cases of Italy and Portugal as an illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of POSTData: Revista de Reflexión y Análisis Político is the property of Grupo Interuniversitario Postdata and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyses the state of democracy in 2020. The world is still more democratic than it was in the 1970s and 1980s, but a trend of autocratization is ongoing and affecting 25 countries in 2020, home to 34% of the world's population. At the same time, the number of democratizing countries has dwindled by nearly half, reducing to 16 countries, home to a mere 4% of the global population. Freedom of expression, deliberation, rule of law and elections show the most substantial net declines in the last decade. A major change is that India, formerly the world's largest democracy, turned into an electoral autocracy. The V-Dem data suggests that direct effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on levels of liberal democracy were limited in 2020. Still, the longer-term consequences may be worse and must be monitored closely. Due to the pandemic and state restrictions on the freedom of assembly, mass mobilization declined to its lowest level in over a decade, yet the decline in pro-democracy protests in 2020 may well prove to be short-lived once the pandemic subdues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a response to Luca Tomini's "Don't think of a wave!" and Svend-Erik Skaaning's "Waves of autocratization and democratization". With this rejoinder we make three arguments: First, the question how global waves shape autocratization processes and regime transformations is now more urgent than ever. Since 1994, civil liberties and political rights of one third of the global population have been substantially and increasingly reduced due to autocratization. Second, waves of any concept can only be studied meaningfully if the underlying concepts as well as the waves are clearly defined. We argue that the conceptualization of episodes of regime transformations (ERT) in the ERT dataset provides exactly such a clear state-of-the-art empirical mapping of processes of democratization and autocratization at the national level. In addition, we highlight how our conceptualization of waves builds upon Huntington, 1993. It even improves upon it by allowing for overlap and modelling it closer to its real world counterpart. Third, we view the present debate as a prime example of fruitful scholastic argument. Ultimately, this is what will generate a better understanding of global trends of democratization and autocratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary autocratization is typically the result of a long sequence of events and gradual processes. How can democratic actors disrupt such autocratization sequences in order to enhance democratic resilience? To address this question, this conclusion presents an ideal-typical autocratization sequence and entry points for democratic resilience. It builds on the findings of this special issue, extant research and a novel descriptive analysis of V-Party data. In the first autocratization stage, citizens' discontent with democratic institutions and parties mounts. Remedies lie in the areas of a better supply of democratic parties and processes as well as in civic education. During the second stage, anti-pluralists – actors lacking commitment to democratic norms – exploit and fuel such discontent to rise to power. In order to avoid the pitfalls of common response strategies, this article suggests "critical engagement", which balances targeted sanctions against radicals with attempts to persuade moderate followers; and has the aim of decreasing the salience of anti-pluralists' narratives by means of democratic (voter) mobilization. Thirdly, once autocratization begins, weak accountability mechanisms and opposition actors enable democratic breakdown. Thus, resilient institutions and a united and creative opposition are the last line of democratic defense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Illiberalism and authoritarianism have become major threats to democracy across the world. In response to this development, research on the causes and processes of democratic declines has blossomed. Much less scholarly attention has been devoted to the issue of democratic resilience. Why are some democracies more resilient than others to the current trend of autocratization? What role do institutions, actors and structural factors play in this regard? What options do democratic actors have to address illiberal and authoritarian challenges? This Special Issue addresses these questions. The present introduction sets the stage by developing a new concept of democratic resilience as the ability of a democratic system, its institutions, political actors, and citizens to prevent or react to external and internal challenges, stresses, and assaults. We sketch three potential reactions of democratic regimes: to withstand without changes, to adapt through internal changes, and to recover without losing the democratic character of its regime and its constitutive core institutions, organizations, and processes. The more democracies are resilient on all four levels of the political system (political community, institutions, actors, citizens) the less vulnerable they turn out to be in the present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a novel conceptualization of democratic resilience - a two-stage process where democracies avoid democratic declines altogether or avert democratic breakdown given that such autocratization is ongoing. Drawing on the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset, we find that democracies have had a high level of resilience to onset of autocratization since 1900. Nevertheless, democratic resilience has become substantially weaker since the end of the Cold War. Fifty-nine episodes of sustained and substantial declines in democratic practices have occurred since 1993, leading to the unprecedented breakdown of 36 democratic regimes. Ominously, we find that once autocratization begins, only one in five democracies manage to avert breakdown. We also analyse which factors are associated with each stage of democratic resilience. The results suggest that democracies are more resilient when strong judicial constraints on the executive are present and democratic institutions were strong in the past. Conversely and adding nuance to the literature, economic development is only associated with resilience to onset of autocratization, not to resilience against breakdown once autocratization has begun. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given Asia-Pacific's diversity and the large variance of potentially relevant causal factors, the region presents social scientists with a natural laboratory to test competing theories of democratic erosion, decay and revival and to identify new patterns and relationships. This introductory article offers a brief review of the relevant literature and introduces the different categories of analysis that build the analytical framework considered in various forms in the special issue. The article discusses the reasons for the renewed pessimism in democratization and democracy studies and provides a survey of different conceptualizations intended to capture forms of democratic regression and the autocratization concept to which the contributors to this special issue adhere. We discuss how Asia-Pacific experiences fit into the debate about democracy's deepening global recession and examine assumptions about the causes, catalysts and consequences of democratic regression and resilience in the comparative politics literature. Finally, the remaining twelve articles of this special issue will be introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the state of democracy in the world in 2019. We demonstrate that the "third wave of autocratization" is accelerating and deepening. The dramatic loss of eight democracies in the last year sets a new record in the rate of breakdowns. Exemplifying this crisis is Hungary, now the EU's first ever authoritarian member state. Governmental assaults on civil society, freedom of expression, and the media are proliferating and becoming more severe. A new and disturbing trend is that the quality of elections is now also deteriorating in many countries. Nevertheless, there are also positive signs: pro-democracy protests reached an all-time high in 2019. People are taking to the streets to protest the erosion of democracies and challenge dictators. Popular protests have contributed to substantial democratization in 22 countries over the last ten years – including Armenia, Tunisia, and Ecuador. This was before the Covid-19 pandemic. Responses to the crisis, including many states of emergencies, risk further accelerating autocratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]