The Rise of Illiberal Democracy
1997/01/01 by Fareed Zakaria · 44 citations
Social Sciences · #Political Philosophy and Ethics #American Constitutional Law and Politics
paper · doi:10.2307/20048274
Abstract
The American diplomat Richard Holbrooke pondered a problem on the eve of the September 1996 elections in Bosnia, which were meant to restore civic life to that ravaged country. Suppose the election was declared free and fair, he said, and those elected are racists, fascists, separatists, who are publicly opposed to [peace and r?int?gration]. That is the dilemma. Indeed it is, not just in the former Yugoslavia, but increasingly around the world. Democratically elected regimes, often ones that have been reelected or reaffirmed through referenda, are routinely ignoring constitutional limits on their power and depriving their citizens of basic rights and freedoms. From Peru to the Palestinian Authority, from Sierra Leone to Slovakia, from Pakistan to the Philip pines, we see the rise of a disturbing phenomenon in international life? illiberal democracy. It has been difficult to recognize this problem because for almost a century in the West, democracy has meant liberal democracy?a political system marked not only by free and fair elections, but also by the rule of law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property. In fact, this latter bundle of freedoms?what might be termed constitu tional liberalism?is theoretically different and historically distinct
Cited by
- Walking the Talk: How to Identify Anti-Pluralist Parties
- What is anti-pluralism?
- Fairer Sex or Fairer System? Gender and Corruption Revisited
- Beyond Authoritarianism: The Conceptualization of Hybrid Regimes
- Portents of Pluralism: How Hybrid Regimes Affect Democratic Transitions
- The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions
- Gender as “Ebola from Brussels”: The Anticolonial Frame and the Rise of Illiberal Populism
- Building and legitimizing an illiberal transnational field: illiberal think tanks’ struggle for cultural hegemony in Poland and Hungary
- The east is just like the west, only more so: Islamophobia and populism in Eastern Germany and the East of the European Union
- Failing through success? How stable liberal orders become self-destabilising
- Individual Empowerment, Institutional Confidence, and Vaccination Rates in Cross-National Perspective, 1995 to 2018
- The Nested Game of Democratization by Elections
- Hybrid what? Partial consensus and persistent divergences in the analysis of hybrid regimes
- Democratic regression in comparative perspective: scope, methods, and causes
- Decentralized propaganda in the era of digital media: The massive presence of the Chinese state on Douyin
- Liberty, Security, and Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies
- Theories of Dictatorships: Sub-Types and Explanations
- Sometimes You Just Have to Leave: Domestic Threats and Forced Migration, 1964-1989
- Benefit Seekers or Principle Holders? Experimental Evidence on Americans’ Democratic Trade-Offs
- Two Decades ofReformasiin Indonesia: Its Illiberal Turn
- BRICS in Southeast Asia: A Realist Perspective
- From champion of decentralization to illiberal recentralization in Hungarian local government
- The Political Economy of Liberal Democracy
- (Mis)Trust in Representative Institutions and the Role and Limits of Protest Politics: Three Protest Movements in Contemporary India
- Illiberal Discourse in Romania: A “Golden” New Beginning?
- Authoritarian Attitudinal Legacies, Corruption, and Democratic Satisfaction
- Vom „rule of law revival“ zum „rule of law backsliding“: Ein Erklärungsversuch
- Studying recentralisation in countries experiencing an illiberal turn – from a new framework to comparative lessons drawing
- Understanding ‘ethnocratic’ regimes: the politics of seizing contested territories
- Recentralisation shift in Poland between 2015 and 2023: severe, though fragmented
- Epistocracy and populism: second-order ideologies challenging democracy
- Proportional representation and party fragmentation in electoral autocracies
- Explaining the unexpected: electoral reform and democratic governance in Burkina Faso
- Economists’ politics of transition in Russia, 1990–1998
- ¿Tecnototalitarismo? Desafíos de las nuevas tecnologías para la democracia
- Rewarding the introduction of multiparty elections
- Kornai on the affinity of systems: Is China today an illiberal capitalist system or a communist dictatorship? [europepmc]
- [Crisis-tested Europe - Towards a Patchwork Union?] [europepmc]
- The principal components of electoral regimes: separating autocracies from pseudo-democracies. [europepmc]
- Countering Authoritarian Behavior in Democracies. [europepmc]
- Public health and democratic governance: COVID-19's impact on South Africa's democracy. [europepmc]
- Campaigns and regimes: party characteristics, political transformations and the outcomes of populist governments [europepmc]
- Media capture strategies in new authoritarian states: the case of Turkey [europepmc]
- Backlash Against Globalisation and the Shadow of Phobos [europepmc]
Related