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Democratic backsliding has been ongoing in the United States since the late 2010s. The V-Dem Institute's electoral democracy index score for the United States peaked in 2015 and declined sharply after 2016, for which year it was also downgraded to "flawed democracy" by the Economist Intelligence Unit in its annual Democracy Index report. Both V-Dem and Freedom House downgraded the United States in 2018.

Background

Democracy is a form of government where majority of citizens vote to rule. Free and fair elections, universal suffrage, protection of civil rights is based on the vote of the majority, and the rule of law which the majority decides the law. Robert Mickey, an associate professor who studies American political history, believes that the United States only became a proper democracy after the federal government ended the one-party, authoritarian enclaves of the Southern states, which had been characterized by majority rule "state-mandated segregation, the disenfranchisement of Blacks and many whites, and restrictions on multiparty competition with state-sanctioned violence". Although, Mickey believes that there were obstacles to fair, multiparty electoral competition in some states and localities until the 1980s. The Constitution has delegated States with fixed representation regardless of population in the Senate. The House of Representatives was established as a bicameral legislative body with the Senate. The United States Supreme Court role is to check the powers of the legislative and executive branch of government.

However an issue arises with the fact that America was founded as a Republic and not a Democracy. So to consider America a "backsliding Democracy" would be inaccurate with the history of the nations founding. Founding Father James Madison addresses the differentiation between a republic and a democracy in the Federalist No. 14. James Madison delineates a democracy as a government that is exercised by the meeting of all of the people, while a republic is administered via "representatives and agents." Also in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville warned about the "tyranny of the majority" in a Democracy, and suggested the courts should try to reverse the efforts of the majority of terminating the rights of an unpopular minority.

Causes

Iranian–German sociologist Behrouz Alikhani cites the government following the interests of global corporations rather than citizens and loosening of campaign finance laws, especially the Citizens United decision, to enable the wealthy greater influence in politics. Political scientist Wendy Brown argued in 2006 that the United States was de-democratizing because of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. In a 2021 book, historian Karen J. Greenberg argued that policies adopted during the war on terror enabled later democratic backsliding under the Trump administration. According to constitutional law scholar Aziz Z. Huq, the primary causes of democratic backsliding are: "(1) the incomplete democratization of national institutions created in 1787; (2) a half century of rising inequalities in wealth, market power, and political influence; and (3) a resurgence of intolerant, authoritarian, white-ethnic identity politics associated with the Republican Party". Huq argues that the Supreme Court can be a vector of democratic backsliding by enabling these trends to connect and helping entrench political power in a permanent minority insulated from democratic competition. A number of other authors have made similar arguments based on singular cases or a broader sweep of decisions..

History and forecast

Robert Mickley and Ashley Jardina wrote in their article White Racial Solidarity and Opposition to American Democracy that during the twenty-first century voting rights eroded away and partisan gerrymandering by state legislatures increased. These scholars, alongside a doctor of philosophy named Robert Rowland wrote that during the presidency of Donald Trump the undermining of democratic norms would be accelerated.. A paper published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science said, "Trump undermined faith in elections, encouraged political violence, vilified the mainstream media, positioned himself as a law-and-order strongman challenging immigrants and suppressing protests, and refused to denounce support from far-right groups." After Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, Trump supporters attempted to overturn the election, including during the 2021 United States Capitol attack.

The Roberts Court has never struck down an election law for infringing suffrage or Equal Protection rights. On the other hand, it struck down the Voting Rights Act preclearance regime in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which existed to prevent disenfranchisement by states. It has also not acted on partisan gerrymandering. As a whole, according to Huq, these changes shift the institutional equilibrium to "enable the replication of the system of one-party dominance akin to one that characterized the American South for much of the twentieth century".

In 2019, political scientists Robert R. Kaufman and Stephan Haggard saw "striking parallels in terms of democratic dysfunction, polarization, the nature of autocratic appeals, and the processes through which autocratic incumbents sought to exploit elected office" in the United States under Trump compared to other backsliding countries (Venezuela, Turkey, and Hungary). They argue that a change to competitive authoritarianism is possible but unlikely. In 2020, Kurt Weyland presented a qualitative model for assessing democratic continuity and reversal using historical data from the experience of other countries. His study concluded that the United States is immune to democratic reversal. In 2021, political scientists Matias López and Juan Pablo Luna criticized his methodology and selection of parameters and argued that both democratic continuity and reversal are possible. With regard to the state of scholarly research on the subject, they wrote that "the probability of observing democratic backsliding in the United States remains an open and important question".

Public opinion

One survey between 2017 and 2019 found that a third of Americans want a "strong leader who doesn't have to bother with Congress or elections", and one-quarter had a favorable view of military rule. A research study administered in 2019 found an association between support for Trump and support for executive aggrandizement. Republicans are more likely to support a candidate who suspends Congress or ignores court verdicts. Multiple studies have found that support for democracy among white Americans is negatively correlated with their level of racial prejudice or racial resentment, and that "support for antidemocratic authoritarian governance is associated with some whites' psychological attachment to their racial group and a desire to maintain their group's power and status in the face of multiracial democracy.". Black voters however are not a monolithic voter group, but hold independent scholarly views.

Effects

A 2022 study found that certain Americans are less willing to take a hypothetical job in a state characterized as experiencing backsliding, which could potentially impose economic costs. According to Jamie Gillies, Canada may reevaluate historically close Canada–United States relations in response to democratic backsliding in the United States.

See also

• Freedom in the World
• Democracy Index
• Corruption Perceptions Index

References

1. ^ Lührmann & Lindberg 2019, p. 1097.
2. United States country graph
3. Holodny, Elena (January 25, 2017). "The US has been downgraded to a 'flawed democracy'". Business Insider.
4. "Robert Mickey | U-M LSA Political Science". lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved June 28, 2022.
5. ^ Jardina & Mickey 2022, Whites’ Support for Democracy in Historical Perspective.
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/Federalist_No._14#Republic_vs._Democracy
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/Alexis_de_Tocqueville
8. Template:Https://muse.jhu.edu/article/363942/
9. Alikhani 2017, pp. 196–198.
10. Brown 2006, p. 690.
11. Greenberg 2021, pp. 6–7.
12. ^ Huq 2022, p. 50.
13. Ginsburg, Tom (2018). "Democratic Backsliding and the Rule of Law". Ohio Northern University Law Review. 44: 351–369.
14. Baldwin, Bridgette (April 24, 2015). "Backsliding: The United States Supreme Court, Shelby County v. Holder and the Dismantling of Voting Rights Act of 1965". Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity. 7 (1).
15. ^ Jardina & Mickey 2022, first section.
16. Rowland 2021, p. 158.
17. "Robert C. Rowland CV". coms.ku.edu. Retrieved June 28, 2022.
18. ^ Huq 2022, Enabling Durable Minority Entrenchment.
19. ^ Kaufman & Haggard 2019, p. 417.
20. Weyland 2020.
21. López & Luna 2021, p. 421.
22. ^ Jardina & Mickey 2022, Mass Support for Democracy and Racial Animus.
23. Gidengel et al. 2021, p. 15.
24. Jardina & Mickey 2022, abstract.
25. Nelson & Witko 2022, p. 1233.
26. Gillies 2022.
27. Tunney, Catharine (May 19, 2022). "Canada should rethink relationship with U.S. as democratic 'backsliding' worsens: security experts". CBC News. Retrieved May 29, 2022.

Sources

• Alikhani, Behrouz (2017). "Post-Democracy or Processes of De-Democratization? United States Case Study". Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung. 42 (4 (162)): 189–206. ISSN 0172-6404.
• Brown, Wendy (2006). "American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization". Political Theory. 34 (6): 690–714. doi:10.1177/0090591706293016. S2CID 145467672.
• Gidengil, Elisabeth; Stolle, Dietlind; Bergeron‐Boutin, Olivier (2021). "The partisan nature of support for democratic backsliding: A comparative perspective". European Journal of Political Research. doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12502. S2CID 245159417.
• Gillies, Jamie (2022). "The Authoritarian Elephant Next Door?: A Canadian and Comparative Perspective Amidst American Democratic Backsliding & Uncertainty". American Behavioral Scientist. doi:10.1177/00027642221103182. S2CID 248979975.
• Greenberg, Karen J. (2021). Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-21656-0.
• Huq, Aziz Z. (2022). "The Supreme Court and the Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 699 (1): 50–65. doi:10.1177/00027162211061124. S2CID 247499952.
• Jardina, Ashley; Mickey, Robert (2022). "White Racial Solidarity and Opposition to American Democracy". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 699 (1): 79–89. doi:10.1177/00027162211069730. S2CID 247499954.
• Kaufman, Robert R.; Haggard, Stephan (2019). "Democratic Decline in the United States: What Can We Learn from Middle-Income Backsliding?". Perspectives on Politics. 17 (2): 417–432. doi:10.1017/S1537592718003377. S2CID 149457724.
• López, Matias; Luna, Juan Pablo (2021). "Assessing the Risk of Democratic Reversal in the United States: A Reply to Kurt Weyland". PS: Political Science & Politics. 54 (3): 421–426. doi:10.1017/S1049096521000329. ISSN 1049-0965. S2CID 235612952.
• Lührmann, Anna; Lindberg, Staffan I. (2019). "A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it?". Democratization. 26 (7): 1095–1113. doi:10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029. S2CID 150992660.
• Nelson, Michael J.; Witko, Christopher (2022). "The Economic Costs of Democratic Backsliding? Backsliding and State Location Preferences of US Job Seekers". The Journal of Politics. 84 (2): 1233–1238. doi:10.1086/715601. S2CID 236219408.
• Rowland, Robert C. (2021). The Rhetoric of Donald Trump: Nationalist Populism and American Democracy. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-3196-4.
• Weyland, Kurt (2020). "Populism's Threat to Democracy: Comparative Lessons for the United States". Perspectives on Politics. 18 (2): 389–406.

Further reading

• Grumbach, Jacob (2022). Laboratories Against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-21845-8. (preview)
• Haggard, Stephan; Kaufman, Robert (2021). Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-95840-0.
• Kreml, William P. (2016) . Losing Balance: De-Democratization of America. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-48819-6.

• 2010s in the United States
• Democratic backsliding
• Politics of the United States