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Journal ArticleDOI

The Signs of Deconsolidation

Roberto Foa, +1 more
- 01 Jan 2017 - 
- Vol. 28, Iss: 1, pp 5-15
TLDR
The authors show that the success of anti-establishment parties and candidates is not a temporal or geographic aberration, but rather a reflection of growing popular disaffection with liberal-democratic norms and institutions, and of increasing support for authoritarian interpretations of democracy.
Abstract
In recent years, parties and candidates challenging key democratic norms have won unprecedented popular support in liberal democracies across the globe. Drawing on public opinion data from the World Values Survey and various national polls, we show that the success of anti-establishment parties and candidates is not a temporal or geographic aberration, but rather a reflection of growing popular disaffection with liberal-democratic norms and institutions, and of increasing support for authoritarian interpretations of democracy. The record number of anti-system politicians in office raises uncertainty about the strength of supposedly “consolidated” liberal democracies and highlights the need for further analysis of the signs of democratic de consolidation.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Studying Populism in Comparative Perspective: Reflections on the Contemporary and Future Research Agenda:

TL;DR: The authors used the concept of populism to make sense of current events such as the Brexit referendum and the Trump presidency, which is a welcome development, but two issues with this approach are highlighted.
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Rethinking “democratic backsliding” in Central and Eastern Europe – looking beyond Hungary and Poland

TL;DR: This article introduced contributions to a special issue of East European Politics on "Rethinking democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe" which seeks to expand the study of democratic back-sliding.
Journal ArticleDOI

Does Public Support Help Democracy Survive

TL;DR: This paper used a Bayesian latent variable model to estimate a smooth country-year panel of democratic support for 135 countries and up to 29 years and demonstrated a positive effect of support on subsequent democratic change, while adjusting for the possible confounding effects of prior levels of democracy and unobservable time-invariant factors.
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Is Western Democracy Backsliding? Diagnosing the Risks

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors draw on Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan's Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, which theorizes that consolidation occurs when three conditions are met: Culturally, the overwhelming majority of people believe that democracy is the best form of government and any further reforms reflect these values and principles.
References
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Book

What Is Populism

TL;DR: Muller argues that at populism's core is a rejection of pluralism and proposes a number of concrete strategies for how liberal democrats should best deal with populists as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI

Toward Consolidated Democracy

TL;DR: In a modern polity, free and authoritative elections cannot be held, winners cannot exercise the monopoly of legitimate force, and citizens cannot effectively have their rights protected by a rule of law unless a state exists.
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The Democratic Disconnect

Roberto Foa, +1 more
- 01 Jan 2016 - 
TL;DR: This paper found that the citizens of wealthy, established democracies are less satisfied with their governments than they have been at any time since opinion polling began, and that a serious democratic disconnect has emerged, which may begin to challenge the stability of seemingly consolidated democracies.

Rebellious civil society: Popular protest and democratic consolidation in Poland, 1989-1993

TL;DR: Ekiert and Kubik as discussed by the authors studied the politics of protest in post-communist Central Europe and found that organized protests not only continued under the new regime but also had a powerful impact on Poland's democratic consolidation.
Journal ArticleDOI

The Danger of Deconsolidation: How Much Should We Worry?

TL;DR: Foa and Mounk as mentioned in this paper argue that the public faith in democracy has eroded during the past two decades while support for non-democratic alternatives has risen, and evidence from some key indicators suggests that the mass basis of support for democracy is growing stronger.
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