1. Introduction
Since the 3rd wave of democratization in the late 20th century, there has been a number of democratic regimes which have experienced at least some degree of authoritarian backsliding (the decline of democracy). While research has focused on economic and institutional factors contributing to authoritarian backsliding, little research has focused on the social factors such as ethnic diversity. Ethnic diversity can be measured by the percent of citizens in a country that are not a member of the majority ethnic group. This paper will address the relationship between ethnic diversity and a countries predisposition to authoritarian backsliding in developing countries. This paper hypothesizes that increased ethnic diversity leads …show more content…
There is limited work that provides am academic and broad definition to authoritarian backsliding. Dresden and Howard define backsliding as “a decrease in the competitiveness of the electoral playing field.” This definition provides a fairly broad, but useful understanding of authoritarian backsliding as it implies that backsliding is measured in a given country through comparisons between electoral competitiveness in past and in the present. Shirah defines authoritarian backsliding as the decline in freedoms of citizens of a country. Shirah breaks down backsliding into two theoretically distinct categories – the erosion of electoral systems and the erosion of civil rights and liberties. It is important to note that authoritarian backsliding occurs after a democratic regime has been established – failure to establish a democratic regime is not considered authoritarian backsliding. This separation is significant as Aleman and Yang conclude that the conditions necessary for the sustenance of democracy are different than those necessary for the initial change to …show more content…
The hypothesis is based on the traditional theory that ethnic fragmentation causes instability. Quantifying the relationship between ethnic diversity and authoritarian backsliding provides an empirical basis to understand the link between ethnic politics and party competition (as authoritarian backsliding is directly related to a reduction in party competition). In addition, testing the hypothesis should overcome problems regarding authoritarian reversal and lesser backsliding (which Shirah suggests is problematic for previous research) because only continuous variables are
Since the 3rd wave of democratization in the late 20th century, there has been a number of democratic regimes which have experienced at least some degree of authoritarian backsliding (the decline of democracy). While research has focused on economic and institutional factors contributing to authoritarian backsliding, little research has focused on the social factors such as ethnic diversity. Ethnic diversity can be measured by the percent of citizens in a country that are not a member of the majority ethnic group. This paper will address the relationship between ethnic diversity and a countries predisposition to authoritarian backsliding in developing countries. This paper hypothesizes that increased ethnic diversity leads …show more content…
There is limited work that provides am academic and broad definition to authoritarian backsliding. Dresden and Howard define backsliding as “a decrease in the competitiveness of the electoral playing field.” This definition provides a fairly broad, but useful understanding of authoritarian backsliding as it implies that backsliding is measured in a given country through comparisons between electoral competitiveness in past and in the present. Shirah defines authoritarian backsliding as the decline in freedoms of citizens of a country. Shirah breaks down backsliding into two theoretically distinct categories – the erosion of electoral systems and the erosion of civil rights and liberties. It is important to note that authoritarian backsliding occurs after a democratic regime has been established – failure to establish a democratic regime is not considered authoritarian backsliding. This separation is significant as Aleman and Yang conclude that the conditions necessary for the sustenance of democracy are different than those necessary for the initial change to …show more content…
The hypothesis is based on the traditional theory that ethnic fragmentation causes instability. Quantifying the relationship between ethnic diversity and authoritarian backsliding provides an empirical basis to understand the link between ethnic politics and party competition (as authoritarian backsliding is directly related to a reduction in party competition). In addition, testing the hypothesis should overcome problems regarding authoritarian reversal and lesser backsliding (which Shirah suggests is problematic for previous research) because only continuous variables are