As Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) point out, nowadays democracies do not deteriorate due to coups d'état or foreign attacks. In most cases, they erode following the arrival of leaders who, once they have legitimately attained power, attack democratic institutions from within the system. Taking advantage of the erosion of traditional parties or critical junctures, these leaders employ discursive strategies that appeal to feelings of discontent and dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy and initiate a process of deinstitutionalization with the aim of centralizing power in their hands.
Based on this problem, this paper aims to analyze the semantic changes in the discourses of political leaders with autocratic behaviors and their relationship with the deterioration of the components of quality democracy, operationalized through the variables proposed by V-Dem, over time. The purpose is to evaluate discursive changes in terms of semantics, communicative strategies and emphasis on different axes of democracy before and after the arrival of leaders with authoritarian behaviors and to identify possible correlations with the deterioration of democracy quality indexes.
The study will employ a mixed approach, combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Longitudinal analyses of discourse and democracy quality indexes will be conducted to observe relationships between political discourses and the deterioration of democracy quality components in different states. To measure the impact of the arrival of leaders with authoritarian behaviors, the Crucial Event Analysis (CEA) framework will be applied. This approach will allow us to identify significant changes in discourses and levels of democracy before and after the arrival of leaders; and to contextualize these changes in terms of variables such as economic crises, political reforms and social movements.
This research hopes to identify recurrent discursive patterns in authoritarian leaders and their connection to democratic dimensions. This will provide a better understanding of how authoritarian leaders construct political narratives and how they influence the quality of democracy.
