The second decade of this century has ushered in an age of autocratization. All the major democracy indices show an aggregate picture of declining democracy worldwide: the quality of democracies is eroding, hybrid regimes that previously harboured potential for liberalisation became more authoritarian, and repression has hardened in many authoritarian countries (V-Dem 2023; Freedom House 2023). This panel contributes to academic and practitioner understandings of the global state of democratic erosion and, just as importantly, the potential for democracies to recover or even deepen in the face of such threats to civil liberties and political rights. Papers will analyze the processes by which democratic backsliding and breakdown is happening, as well as the factors and strategies that promote democratic resilience, and their degree of efficacy in democratic protection and recovery.
While current work in the field concentrates to explore this distinct path of regime transformation, research is confronted with a new puzzle not yet tackled: what happens after democratic erosion? Actually, we can observe some cases where illiberal incumbents are voted out - like it happened in Brazil with Bolsonaro or in Poland with the PiS party. However, the halting of democratic erosion alone is not sufficient to restore a functioning liberal democracy. Democratic reconstruction constitutes a complex and multidimensional endeavour: undoing a range of undermined institutions and principles, rebuilding democratic procedures, but also install guardrails for avoiding a new erosion episode. What post-erosion trajectories are possible? And: under what conditions can a successful return to democracy occur, or why would it fail?
This panel is the results of merging two accepted panels: "New Perspectives on Democratic Resilience" (chaired by Prof. Nicholas Cheeseman and Prof. Rachel Beatty Riedl) and "What happens after Democratic Erosion? Analyzing Post-Erosion Trajectories of Democratic Reconstruction" (chaired by Prof. Marianne Kneuer and Prof. Aurel Croissant).
