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Democratic backsliding in the United States

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V-Dem Electoral and Liberal Democracy indices for the United States, 1900–2021

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

James Madison addresses the difference between a constitutional republic and a direct democracy in Federalist No. 14. He describes 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". In a 1814 letter, Madison also stated that "Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide." 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 when a majority tries to terminate the rights of an unpopular minority.

Causes

Inequality after taxes and transfers

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

Countries autocratizing (red) or democratizing (blue) substantially and significantly (2010–2020), according to V-Dem Institute. Countries in grey are substantially unchanged.

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." Furthermore, the election of Donald Trump (a man who praised dictators and threatened to jail his rivals) as president of the United States raised many fears about how the USA may be heading back to authoritarianism as well as punctured many Americans' beliefs about their country's exceptionalism. After Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, supporters of Trump attempted to overturn the election, including attacking the United States Capitol, which can further depict democratic backsliding. However, challenges that the American democracy is facing emerged long before Trumps Administration. Since the 1980's, deepening polarisation and radicalisation of the Republican Party has weakened the institutional foundations that have safeguarded the American democratic system which made the Trump Presidency a dangerous threat to democracy.

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.".

A 2022 Quinnipiac University poll found that 69 percent of Democrats and Republicans and 66 percent of Independents think American democracy is close to collapsing.

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

References

  1. ^ Lührmann & Lindberg 2019, p. 1097.
  2. "Country Graph". www.v-dem.net.
  3. Holodny, Elena (January 25, 2017). "The US has been downgraded to a 'flawed democracy'". Business Insider.
  4. "From John Adams to John Taylor, 17 December 1814". Founders Online. Retrieved June 29, 2022 – via National Archives and Records Administration.
  5. Hofstadter, Richard (1948). The American Political Tradition. Vintage Books. p. 13. OCLC 654671066.
  6. Volk, Kyle G. (2009). "The Perils of "Pure Democracy": Minority Rights, Liquor Politics, and Popular Sovereignty in Antebellum America". Journal of the Early Republic. 29 (4): 641–679. doi:10.1353/jer.0.0113. ISSN 1553-0620. S2CID 153633376. Project MUSE 363942.
  7. Alikhani 2017, pp. 196–198.
  8. Brown 2006, p. 690.
  9. Greenberg 2021, pp. 6–7.
  10. ^ Huq 2022, p. 50.
  11. Ginsburg, Tom (2018). "Democratic Backsliding and the Rule of Law". Ohio Northern University Law Review. 44: 351–369.
  12. 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).
  13. ^ Jardina & Mickey 2022, first section.
  14. Rowland 2021, p. 158.
  15. "Robert C. Rowland CV". coms.ku.edu. Retrieved June 28, 2022.
  16. ^ Mickey, Robert & Levitsky, S. & Way, L.A.. (2017). Is America still safe for democracy? why the United States is in danger of backsliding. Foreign Affairs. 96. 20-29
  17. ^ Huq 2022, Enabling Durable Minority Entrenchment.
  18. ^ Kaufman & Haggard 2019, p. 417.
  19. Weyland 2020.
  20. López & Luna 2021, p. 421.
  21. ^ Jardina & Mickey 2022, Mass Support for Democracy and Racial Animus.
  22. Gidengel et al. 2021, p. 15.
  23. Jardina & Mickey 2022, abstract.
  24. "Opinion: A majority of Americans think US democracy is broken. Here are 12 ideas for repairing it". CNN. October 14, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2022.
  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

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.
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