Hungary under Viktor Orbán has seen court-packing, rewriting of electoral rules, and state pressure on independent media — all carried out through legal procedures by an elected government. This pattern is best described as:
AA military coup that seized power from a democratic government
BA negotiated transition away from democracy toward authoritarianism
CDemocratic backsliding — incremental erosion of democratic institutions through legal means by elected leaders
DA revolutionary regime change driven by mass popular mobilization
Democratic backsliding, as theorized by Levitsky, Ziblatt, and others, is the defining pattern of contemporary democratic erosion: elected leaders use legal mechanisms — constitutional amendments, court appointments, electoral rule changes — to dismantle the checks that constrain them. Because each step is individually defensible under existing law, backsliding is hard to identify in real time and difficult to resist. It is categorically different from a coup (which involves extralegal seizure of power) or a negotiated transition (which moves toward democracy).
Question 2 Multiple Choice
Qatar and Singapore have maintained stable authoritarian governance while achieving GDP per capita among the highest in the world. This most directly challenges which theory of democratization?
ATransitology's claim that negotiated pacts produce more stable democratic transitions
BModernization theory's prediction that rising economic development produces middle-class demand for political rights and eventual democratization
CHuntington's concept of reverse waves following democratic transitions
DThe theory that foreign intervention is a reliable driver of democratization
Modernization theory, associated with Seymour Martin Lipset, predicted that economic development creates an educated middle class that demands political rights, making democratization near-inevitable at high income levels. Wealthy authoritarian states like Singapore and the Gulf monarchies directly falsify this prediction: they have sustained authoritarian rule at high income levels by distributing resource wealth and suppressing civil society, showing that development does not automatically produce democracy. This pushes political scientists toward actor-centered explanations — elite choices, international pressure, civil society strength — independent of economic level.
Question 3 True / False
Democratic backsliding is typically easy to identify and resist because it involves a sudden, dramatic seizure of power that clearly violates democratic rules.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This is the crucial misconception about contemporary democratic erosion. Unlike Cold War-era coups, backsliding happens gradually through legal mechanisms — each individual step is defensible under existing law, making it hard to identify as backsliding in real time rather than legitimate policy-making. There is no single moment where the democratic threshold is crossed; instead, norms erode, institutions weaken, and constraints on executive power quietly disappear. This gradual quality makes it far harder to resist than a coup, which immediately activates democratic opposition.
Question 4 True / False
Negotiated transitions to democracy, in which elites from the old regime retain guaranteed interests in the new system, tend to produce more stable democratic outcomes than revolutionary transitions that completely sweep away the old order.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
Transitology research, exemplified by studies of Spain's transition from Franco, suggests that pacted transitions produce stability because elites on both sides have credible commitments in the new system — they will not defect to undermine it if their interests are protected. Revolutionary transitions that destroy the old elite entirely can produce democracy, but they can equally produce new authoritarian systems, since the constraints on whoever fills the vacuum have also been swept away. Sequencing and elite buy-in matter enormously for democratic quality.
Question 5 Short Answer
Why are formal democratic rules — elections, constitutional procedures, term limits — insufficient on their own to prevent democratic backsliding? What role do informal norms play?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Formal rules require interpretation and enforcement, and the actors responsible for enforcement (courts, electoral commissions, legislatures) can themselves be captured or pressured by backsliding leaders. When a leader packs the courts, rewrites electoral rules, or uses state resources against opponents, they are technically operating within formal legal structures even as they hollow out the democratic system. Informal norms — what Levitsky and Ziblatt call 'guardrails' — are the unwritten understandings about what is acceptable political conduct even when not legally prohibited. These norms, such as not weaponizing law enforcement against political opponents or refusing to delegitimize election results, constrain leaders from exploiting loopholes that the formal rules leave open. Without shared informal commitments to democratic restraint, formal institutions alone are insufficient.
The key insight is that democracy is not just a set of procedures but a set of shared expectations about how those procedures will be used. Countries with strong informal democratic norms (like established Western democracies) have survived authoritarian-leaning leaders better than countries where those norms had not been consolidated.