Democratic resilience

Onset resilience and breakdown resilience to autocratization

Democratic resilience is the capacity of a country to withstand or recover from democratic backsliding. Political scientists distinguish "onset resilience", characterising democratic countries that do not autocratize, from "breakdown resilience", in countries that start autocratizing but reverse it before reaching autocracy status.^[1] "Bounce-back resilience" characterises democracies that become autocracies and return in a U-turn to democracy,^[2] typically on a time scale of about eight years,^[3] and is disputed by some researchers, who find that post-1993 U-turns mostly lead to democracy for lasting no more than five years.^[4]

Onset resilience versus breakdown resilience

In 2021, Vanessa A. Boese and colleagues proposed to distinguish "onset resilience", in democracies that have no significant autocratization (giving Switzerland and Canada as examples), from "breakdown resilience", in democracies that start autocratizing but return to democracy before autocratizing. They studied the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset derived from V-Dem Democracy Indices through to 2019 (version 10).^[1]

Onset resilience was found to be positively correlated with judicial constraints on executive power, the length of the country's democratic experience ("democratic stock"), and economic development. Breakdown resilience was found to be positively correlated with judicial constraints on executive power, democratic stock and the levels of democracy in neighbouring countries. Boese et al argued that empirical evidence could be gathered for the two proposed stages of democratic resilience, while democratic consolidation is mainly defined as a prediction, attempting to extrapolate from the past to the future, making it less empirically useful than democratic resilience.^[1]

U-turns

Factors of resilience

In an analysis of the V-Dem Democracy Indices through to 2022 (version 13), Felix Wiebrecht and colleagues proposed a third form of resilience ("bounceback resilience"^[4]), when democratic breakdown occurs, but democracy is restored "within a short time". They found that during the preceding ten years, eight countries that had earlier "substantial[ly]" autocratised reversed their autocratization, with "substantial" democratization: Bolivia, Ecuador, the Maldives, Moldova, North Macedonia, Slovenia, South Korea, and Zambia. All eight countries lacked onset resilience; four (Ecuador, Moldova, Slovenia, and South Korea) showed breakdown resilience in their U-turns; the other four were seen as showing the third form of democratic resilience in their return to democracy.^[2]

Five factors that appeared to be significant in the return to democracy of these eight countries were: "executive constraints, mass mobilization, alternation in power, unified opposition coalescing with civil society, and international democracy support".^[2]

Executive constraints were actions by legislative or judicial powers, such as a constitutional court. Pro-democracy mass mobilization occurred in response to corruption scandals in some cases (Moldova, South Korea), and to anti-democratic policy reforms in some others (Maldives, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Bolivia).^[2]

Alternation in power was the transition of power to pro-democratic parties via elections in five cases, including three cases where, although "democracy had already broken down", elections in conditions favouring the incumbents nevertheless removed them from power. In the other cases, alternation of power happened via impeachment or term limits. The unity of opposition political parties and civil society was seen as a significant factor in seven of the eight cases. The factor of international democracy support refers to legal and political support from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and institutions of the European Union.^[2]

U-turn statistics

In 2025, Marina Nord and colleagues defined a democratic U-turn as a "period of substantive two-directional regime transformation along a democracy–autocracy continuum, in which autocratization is closely followed by and linked to subsequent democratization", in which both movements are "substantial and sustained", the two movements happen over a short (few-year) time interval, and the autocratization and democratization must be "endogenously interlinked", i.e. interpreted as linked by qualitative historical evidence.^[3]

Nord et al used the V-Dem Democracy Indices from 1900 through to 2023, and added their analysis to the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset. They found 102 U-turns in 69 countries. Over the full period, 52% of autocratization cases became U-turns; 44% became U-turns during 1900 to 1993, and 73% became U-turns during 1994 to 2003. Most U-turns (90%) ended with restored or improved levels of democracy. The overall time scale from the onset of autocratization to restored democracy was found to be typically about eight years.^[3]

Nord et al classified the processes of the U-turns as either "authoritarian manipulation", "democratic reaction", or international intervention. Authoritarian manipulation refers to cases of either civilian or military authoritarian actors being responsible both for the autocratization and then taking actions, such as a coup and a promise to hold elections, which they hope will let them retain power, but in practice (in some cases) leads to democratization. Democratic reactions are cases in which either grassroots citizens' groups, elites, or grassroots–elite alliances obtain the U-turn by elections, street protests, or legislative or judicial bodies. International interventions include military invasion (such as the invasion of Italy and France by the Allied Powers during World War II), or mediation by regional leaders that led to the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the United Nations Mission in Liberia and the 2005 Liberian general election.^[3]

Matías Bianchi and colleagues disputed the long-term significance of the post-1993 U-turns, finding that 90% of the cases dropped to a lower democracy level within five years or less. They interpreted this to imply that bounce-back resilience indicated overall regime instability rather than resilience that tends to lead to a stable return to democracy. Bianchi et al cited constitutional changes in Germany and Norway in the mid-2020s as "common sense measures that could help to future-proof democracy".^[4]

See also

• Democratic backsliding
• Democratic consolidation

References

1. Vanessa A. Boese; Amanda B. Edgell; Sebastian Hellmeier; Seraphine F. Maerz; Staffan I. Lindberg (27 April 2021). "How democracies prevail: democratic resilience as a two-stage process". Democratization. 28: 885–907. doi:10.1080/13510347.2021.1891413. ISSN 1351-0347. Wikidata Q139719252. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021.
2. Felix Wiebrecht; Yuko Sato; Marina Nord; Martin Lundstedt; Fabio Angiolillo; Staffan I. Lindberg (26 April 2023). "State of the world 2022: defiance in the face of autocratization". Democratization. 30: 769–793. doi:10.1080/13510347.2023.2199452. ISSN 1351-0347. Wikidata Q139719232. Archived from the original on 20 September 2023.
3. Marina Nord; Fabio Angiolillo; Martin Lundstedt; Felix Wiebrecht; Staffan I. Lindberg (26 January 2025). "When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900". Democratization. 32: 1136–1159. doi:10.1080/13510347.2024.2448742. ISSN 1351-0347. Wikidata Q139719288. Archived from the original on 30 January 2025.
4. Matías Bianchi; Nicholas Cheeseman; Jennifer Cyr (July 2025), The Myth of Democratic Resilience, doi:10.1353/jod.2025.a964563, Wikidata Q139719319

External links

• European Democracy Shield