Democratic Backsliding and Endogenous Polarization

• In Event: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Rule and Regime Transitions

Abstract

Social polarization has pernicious consequences for democratic governance, civil peace, and the civic trust that sustains long-term economic prosperity. This project examines the origins of polarization, identifying how incumbent governments deepen polarization by undermining democracy. While leading accounts of contemporary democratic decline posit that polarization causes democratic backsliding, we theorize that incumbent actions that degrade democracy themselves give rise to polarization, in turn deepening backsliding's progression. We unpack the pathways that constitute affective polarization and theorize a micro-level link between democratic backsliding events, elite opinion formation, and voter polarization to argue that partisan leader attacks on democracy boost polarization by increasing negative out-party affect. Using survey experiments, survey data from electoral democracies, and expert-coded global macro-data, we find that political polarization is endogenous to democratic backsliding.

Authors

• Erica Frantz, Michigan State University

• Joseph Wright, Pennsylvania State University