Layers of Liberal Constraints: Institutional Decay and Democratic Breakdown

The liberal aspects of democracy have come under threat recently. In Hungary, President Victor Orbán explicitly aims to transform the polity into an “illiberal democracy.” The tension between the rule of the people and liberal ideas such as minority rights is as old as modern democracy. In order to prevent a “tyranny of the majority,” democratic theorists from Rousseau and Madison to Dahl emphasized the need for checks and balances such as horizontal oversight bodies, the rule of law, civil and political rights on elected representatives. The conventional wisdom is that these liberal constraints not only protect minorities but also help prevent democratic breakdowns (Keane). Despite the vast literature on this topic, we lack systematic empirical evidence focused on determining if the latter really works. Are liberal democracies more immune to breakdown? Does the risk of democratic breakdown increase as liberal institutions erode? If so, which aspects of liberalism are most important for democratic stability? What do these findings imply for assessing contemporary risks of democratic breakdown? To explore these questions, we first provide an empirical overview of the current state of liberal democracy throughout the world. Drawing on the V-Dem data set, which captures more than 300 indicators on specific aspects of democracy globally from 1900 to 2017, we then evaluate the role of illiberalism in democratic breakdowns using a large-N regression design. Building on these findings, we assess the contemporary risks for democratic breakdown. This approach allows us to provide important insights for the current debate on the drivers and processes of democratic breakdowns.