The backsliders : why leaders undermine their own democracies / Susan C. Stokes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stokes, Susan Carol, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Democracy.

Democracy--Political aspects.

Comparative government.

Political leadership--Moral and ethical aspects.

Physical Description:

xviii, 239 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"Democracies around the world are getting swept up in a wave of democratic erosion. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, two dozen presidents and prime ministers have attacked their countries' democratic institutions, violating political norms, aggrandizing their own powers, and often trying to overstay their terms in office. The Backsliders offers the first general explanation for this wave. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Susan Stokes shows that increasing income inequality, a legacy of late twentieth-century globalization, left some countries especially at risk of backsliding toward autocracy. Left-behind voters were drawn to right-wing ethnonationalist leaders in countries like the United States, India, and Brazil, and to left-wing populist ones in countries like Venezuela, Mexico, and South Africa. Unlike military leaders who abruptly kill democracies in coups, elected leaders who erode them gradually must maintain some level of public support. They do so by encouraging polarization among citizens and also by trash-talking their democracies: claiming that the institutions they attack are corrupt and incompetent. They tell voters that these institutions should be torn down and replaced by ones under the executive's control. The Backsliders describes how journalists, judges, NGOs, and opposition leaders can put the brakes on democratic erosion, and how voters can do so through political engagement and the power of the ballot box." -- Book Jacket.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. What Is Democratic Erosion?

Part I. Economic and Political Contexts

2. What's behind the Wave of Democratic Erosion?

3. The Right-Wing Ethnonationalists

4. The Left-Wing Populists

Part II. Backsliders and Voters

5. Polarization and Trash Talk: Theory

6. Polarization and Trash Talk: Evidence

7. Psychological Bases of Support for Backsliders

Part III. Resistance and Repair

8. Strategies to Stop (and Reverse) Erosion

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780691271545

0691271542

OCLC:

1460928539

Publisher Number:

CIPO000271853