IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ays/ispwps/paper2618.html

Democratic Backsliding and Recovery

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Chong

    (Georgia State University and Universidad del Pacifico)

  • Mark Gradstein

    (Ben Gurion University, CEPR, CESifo, and IZA)

Abstract

Why does democratic backsliding often reverse rather than culminate in durable autocracy? Using V-Dem data for 202 countries over 1900-2024, this paper shows that the apparent durability advantage of autocracy largely disappears once historical composition is taken into account. It further shows that political polarization disproportionately destabilizes democracies relative to autocracies. Event-study evidence indicates that polarization rises before democratic collapse and declines following democratization. A simple political-economy framework rationalizes these patterns through endogenous demand for centralized authority under democratic instability and subsequent backlash against concentrated power.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Chong & Mark Gradstein, 2026. "Democratic Backsliding and Recovery," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper2618, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper2618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ayspsrd.gsu.edu/ays/ispwps/paper2618.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper2618. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Paul Benson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ispgsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.