Joep van Lit

In response to global trends of democratic recession, scholarship has increased its attention to defenders of democracy and actors who resist autocratization. In many cases, democratic defence is initiated by political elites. However, as of yet, it remains unclear whether all elites can effectively alert citizens that democracy is in danger, and whether some elites are better positioned than others. In this article, we argue that elite democratic defenders’ effectiveness in alerting citizens about democratic recession depends on their independence from the political process (political impartiality) and knowledge about the democratic system and what actions are likely to undermine it (embedded knowledge). Using a within-subject factorial survey-experiment, fielded in the United Kingdom (n = 3.986), we test the effectiveness of different elite actors in alerting citizens to democratic recession. We find strong support for our hypotheses, showing that elite democratic defenders are effective if they are perceived to be politically impartial and perceived to have embedded knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of elite credibility and also show important avenues for elites to bolster and strengthen their effectiveness in countering autocratization.

When democracies are challenged by democratically elected leaders – would-be autocrats – it is up to democratic defenders to sustain democracy. This defence of democracy is, however, neither automatic nor guaranteed, as incumbent-led democratic recession is covert, incremental, and often justified by the would-be autocrat. In this thesis, I investigate under what circumstances the defence of democracy occurs: when do elite actors within the typical democratic institutions stand up against the would-be autocrat, and when are they able to persuade citizens to join the defence of democracy? Employing computational methods, case studies, elite interviews, and survey experiments, I show that the defence of democracy hinges on elites’ self-interest in preventing the autocratic action, repression by the would-be autocrat, the ambiguity surrounding the autocratic action, and elites’ credibility in the eyes of citizens. Even when the defence of democracy appears to be an uphill battle, and even though there are many challenges that democratic defenders face, the defence of democracy against incumbent-led democratic recession is both necessary and possible. When aiming to sustain democracies, this thesis shows we need to look beyond institutions and formal rules towards the people within and outside those institutions – elites and citizens alike – and what they do to make democracies resilient.

When democracies are challenged by democratically elected incumbents, citizens are faced with two competing claims: incumbent justifications for the autocratic proposal versus democratic defenders’ claims that they harm democracy. While citizen involvement in the defence of democracy is paramount, up until now it is unclear under which circumstances citizens give more credence to which claim. This article argues citizens judge the trade-off between incumbent and democratic defender based on the ambiguity surrounding the autocratic action and the credibility of the defenders. A factorial survey experiment in the Netherlands, France, and Germany (n = 9,159) provides strong evidence for this argument. Citizen evaluations of autocratic actions depend largely on the action’s ambiguity and the credibility of democratic defenders. The findings provide avenues for democratic defenders, but also warn of pitfalls and potential backlash against democratic defence.

Since the 1990s, incumbent-led autocratization in democracies is increasingly common. However, there is surprisingly little systematic and comparative research into the actions would-be autocrats actually take when they undermine democracy. We analyse the wealth of in-depth case studies of all cases of incumbent-led autocratization in democracies from 1990 until 2023 to develop such an overview of autocratic actions inductively. This empirically based would-be autocrats’ toolkit encompasses over 400 unique autocratic actions which we classify into seven overarching modes of autocratization: evasion, manipulation, infiltration, duplication, restriction, prohibition, and delegitimation. Would-be autocrats selectively use these different modes in varying arenas of democracy to gradually erode democracy. The toolkit provides a starting point to more systematically study autocratization within and across different cases, enabling the identification of sequencing and diffusion patterns, and helping generate better understanding of when autocratization is successful.

Many democracies around the world face the challenge of democratic recession and autocratization as democratically elected incumbents increasingly show autocratic tendencies. Existing research has mainly focused on the circumstances under which these autocratizing incumbents erode democracy and on the structural factors explaining the resilience of democratic institutions. Much less is known about the actors within those institutions and when they stand up against the autocratizing incumbent to defend democracy. In this article, we present a novel theoretical framework of democratic defence that focuses on the interaction between the incumbent, institutional elites, and citizens. Developing a two-level model of democratic defence, we show how the democratic defender’s personal interests, repression by the incumbent, the perceived ambiguity of the autocratic action, and the perceived credibility of the democratic defender interact to affect the occurrence of democratic defence. The resulting framework can guide future research on the role of specific actors in defending democracy. We demonstrate the utility of our framework with illustrative case studies of (attempted) democratic defence in Senegal (2011–2012) and Poland (2017–2018). An actor-based approach of democratic defence is crucial to understand what actions domestic and international actors can take to prevent (further) democratic recession.