MECHANISMS OF DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING - A Systematic Literature Review
(2025) UTVK03 20251Sociology
- Abstract
- In recent years, democratic backsliding (DB) has emerged as a pressing global concern, threatening the stability of established democracies and challenging democratic principles worldwide. As democratic backsliding evolves into a global trend, understanding its pace and underlying mechanisms, becomes essential for evaluating democratic resilience and shaping effective international responses. Hence, this research aims to synthesize existing scholarship to develop a structured and nuanced understanding of mechanisms that drive democratic backsliding. The research was conducted through a systematic literature review. Followed by the PRISMA approach, 36 peer-reviewed studies were analyzed, 31 from Web of Science and 5 added manually. The... (More)
- In recent years, democratic backsliding (DB) has emerged as a pressing global concern, threatening the stability of established democracies and challenging democratic principles worldwide. As democratic backsliding evolves into a global trend, understanding its pace and underlying mechanisms, becomes essential for evaluating democratic resilience and shaping effective international responses. Hence, this research aims to synthesize existing scholarship to develop a structured and nuanced understanding of mechanisms that drive democratic backsliding. The research was conducted through a systematic literature review. Followed by the PRISMA approach, 36 peer-reviewed studies were analyzed, 31 from Web of Science and 5 added manually. The results show that there are two major categories or types of mechanisms: gradual erosion mechanisms and sudden disruptive mechanisms. The first category included mechanisms that the thesis refers to as political polarization, overreliance on legalism, weak institutions, assuming voter rationality, the abuse of law and delegitimizing opposition. The second category included mechanisms like elite manipulation, populist rhetoric, crisis exploitation, executive aggrandizement, electoral manipulation, media control and suppressing civil society. Moreover, the research found that these mechanisms work sequentially and in parallel. Gradual erosion, like judicial weakening, sets the stage for sudden disruptions, while crises can accelerate both processes, reinforcing authoritarian control. Therefore, three stages were identified: societal fragmentation, weakening of democratic institutions and accountability and centralization of power. This research encourages future studies to create a unified conceptualization of democratic backsliding and more context-specific studies to develop tailored preventative measures and counterstrategies for each democratic backsliding case. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9194254
- author
- Sellgren, Kajsa LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- UTVK03 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- democratic backsliding, democratic erosion, undemocratic, democracy, gradual erosion mechanisms, sudden disruptive mechanisms
- language
- English
- id
- 9194254
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-18 10:49:48
- date last changed
- 2025-06-18 10:49:48
@misc{9194254,
abstract = {{In recent years, democratic backsliding (DB) has emerged as a pressing global concern, threatening the stability of established democracies and challenging democratic principles worldwide. As democratic backsliding evolves into a global trend, understanding its pace and underlying mechanisms, becomes essential for evaluating democratic resilience and shaping effective international responses. Hence, this research aims to synthesize existing scholarship to develop a structured and nuanced understanding of mechanisms that drive democratic backsliding. The research was conducted through a systematic literature review. Followed by the PRISMA approach, 36 peer-reviewed studies were analyzed, 31 from Web of Science and 5 added manually. The results show that there are two major categories or types of mechanisms: gradual erosion mechanisms and sudden disruptive mechanisms. The first category included mechanisms that the thesis refers to as political polarization, overreliance on legalism, weak institutions, assuming voter rationality, the abuse of law and delegitimizing opposition. The second category included mechanisms like elite manipulation, populist rhetoric, crisis exploitation, executive aggrandizement, electoral manipulation, media control and suppressing civil society. Moreover, the research found that these mechanisms work sequentially and in parallel. Gradual erosion, like judicial weakening, sets the stage for sudden disruptions, while crises can accelerate both processes, reinforcing authoritarian control. Therefore, three stages were identified: societal fragmentation, weakening of democratic institutions and accountability and centralization of power. This research encourages future studies to create a unified conceptualization of democratic backsliding and more context-specific studies to develop tailored preventative measures and counterstrategies for each democratic backsliding case.}},
author = {{Sellgren, Kajsa}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{MECHANISMS OF DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING - A Systematic Literature Review}},
year = {{2025}},
}