Autocratization, democratic backsliding and democratic resilience
Keywords:
AutocratizationAbstract
This article presents the special issue that Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas launches on the Crisis of Democracy. The article presents the main contributions and debates regarding the processes of autocratization, democratic erosion/backsliding, and democratic resilience experienced in many political systems during the first decades of the 21st century. These pages examine the causes, consequences, and reactions to these processes: modernization, globalization, and digitalization; the rise of populism, polarization, and fragmentation (with the emergence of new political actors); the expansion (aggrandizement) of executive powers at the expense of the separation of powers and rule of law; severe limitations of political rights and freedoms; and the weakening or neutralization (capture) of institutions of political oversight… These processes are implemented by actors who gain access to institutional positions through democratic means and are carried out gradually and (allegedly) through legal means and with the support of a significant portion of the citizenry. Strategies of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal (or social) democratic resilience can become effective tools to curb this autocratic trend and the erosion of the quality of democracies —reactions and outcomes that have allowed prominent analysts to question the alarmism of those who have been quick to declare the death of democracy.
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