From chaos in the House of Representatives to multiple criminal trials of a former president, there are many unprecedented events occurring in American politics and plenty of reasons to be concerned about the health of American democracy. For those feeling overwhelmed, disoriented, or just need a recap, Brookings has you covered. Understanding Democratic Decline in the United States provides a framework for understanding the challenges of democracy in the United States, to help citizens contextualize and respond to the onslaught of current events.
In the coming days, FixGov will publish elements of the report as a blog series. First: four things to know about democratic erosion.
1. Democratic erosion is more subtle than a coup d’état
For many decades, the death of a democracy has often been a dramatic event: a dictator overthrowing an elected government and taking power by force. But today, it is rare for an authoritarian regime to come to power through a coup.
On the contrary, democracies in decline generally experience slow erosion. Elections still occur, but legislative and procedural changes make it harder to vote, harder for challengers to seriously challenge incumbents, or harder to turn electoral victory into substantial policy impact. This process is often gradual and episodic. In the words of political scientists Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky:
“The electoral path to collapse is dangerously misleading… People continue to vote. Elected autocrats maintain a veneer of democracy while eviscerating its substance. Many government attempts to subvert democracy are “legal,” in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. »1
Political scientists use various terms to describe this phenomenon, including “democratic erosion,” “democratic backsliding,” “democratic regression,” and “autocratization.”
2. The United States has already experienced democratic decline
Before examining democratic decline in the United States in the 21st century, it is important to recognize the historical context.
Many long-standing aspects of American government institutions can reasonably be criticized as undemocratic or a danger to civil liberties. The Senate and the Electoral College are part of the Constitution; the systematic obstruction and the doctrine ofjudicial supremacy» date from the 19th century. The United States has historically relied on winner-takes-all geographic representation, which can lead to misrepresentations when supporters are separated…even in the absence of intentional gerrymandering. Furthermore, although the nation’s founders viewed a standing army and a strong executive branch as dangers to the republic, the power of the presidency has continued to grow over time, and the U.S. military has been far behind , for decades, the most expensive in the world.
The United States has also experienced democratic setbacks in the past. After the Civil War, during the brief period known as “Radical Reconstruction,” black men voted and held elected office throughout the South. These multiracial governments were overthrown, often violently, and over the following decades, white supremacist regimes of the “Jim Crow” era consolidated their hold on power. The United States did not achieve near-universal suffrage until after 1965, when the federal government finally protected the voting rights of black Americans in the South. The achievements of the civil rights movement have not gone unchallenged since; for example, massive expansions in policing and incarceration have significantly reduced the civic and electoral power of over-policed communities. Many of the pathologies that assail American governance today are best understood as part of the long reaction against the successes of the civil rights movement.
3. Globally, democracy is in decline
The peculiarities of American government and the long history of race-based political exclusion create specific susceptibilities to democratic erosion, but the United States is far from alone in experiencing democratic backsliding.
Democracy is in decline all over the world. For the first time in decades, there are more closed autocracies than liberal democracies in the world. Nearly three-quarters of the world’s population lives in an autocracyand overall, levels of democracy around the world have declined to levels last seen in the mid-1980s.
4. The decline of democracy in the United States is not solely due to Trump
In recent years, experts have sounded the alarm: the United States is experiencing democratic decline.
To measure and compare the fundamental elements of democracy across countries and over time, social scientists have developed a robust toolbox of indices that track and aggregate indicators of electoral processes, political participation, functioning government and civil liberties. THE V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index has been sounding the alarm about autocratization in the United States since 2016. “Freedom in the World” by Freedom House This measure reflects a decade of decline in freedom in the United States.
According to the economist’s democracy indexthe United States is no longer classified among “full democracies” (like Canada, Japan and most of Western Europe) but among “imperfect democracies” (like Greece, Israel, Poland and Brazil).
Overall, leading democracy indices demonstrate a substantial erosion of democratic functioning in the United States.
It is worth noting that this erosion far precedes the shocking events following the 2020 elections, when the sitting President of the United States, knowing that he had failed to be re-electednevertheless refused to concede, sought to subvert the vote counting and certification process, and encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol. And, even if several indicators indicate an improvement in democratic functioning since 2020, the health of democracy in the United States has not returned to the level of the early 2000s. Even if the 2022 elections were reassuring from the point of view of democratic functioning, we have not seen a change in the fundamental political dynamics behind the erosion of American democracy. The decline of democracy in the United States is not solely due to Donald Trump.
What factors have led experts to devalue American democracy? Two key questions are freedom and fairness of elections And expansion of executive power. These questions will each be the subject of a blog later this week, or you can read them now in the full report, Understanding Democratic Decline in the United States.
