How Democracies Die: The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism

On June   15, 2015, real estate mogul and reality-TV star Donald Trump announced that he was running for president. Like Henry Ford, another business tycoon and an outsider in politics a century earlier, Trump held some extremist views. 

Even after the polls showed his rising popularity, few people from the media and politics took his candidacy seriously.

Yet, he was eventually elected president, using white nationalist appeal.

When Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote their best selling book titled 'How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future,' in 2018, Trump was still in the White House. 

Terming him an extremist demagogue, the authors identified him as dangerous for America's democracy and doubted that the great Constitution of the country would be able to survive Trump.

Three years later, Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and clashed with police on 6 January, 2021, after his defeat in the presidential elections, almost materialising the fear of the authors.

The central premise of the book challenges the conventional narrative surrounding the demise of democracies. Rather than succumbing to coups and military interventions during the Cold War, the authors argue that democracies are increasingly vulnerable to elected leaders who exploit the democratic process itself. 

Drawing on a rich tapestry of historical examples, including the cases of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Adolf Hitler in Germany, Levitsky and Ziblatt demonstrate how democratic erosion can occur right through the democratic process, often escaping the notice of citizens until it is too late.

"It is less dramatic but equally destructive," wrote the authors. Democracies may die at the hands of elected leaders who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in 1933 in Germany, others do it slowly, in barely visible steps.

The authors emphasise the importance of recognising the warning signs of democratic decay, which can be subtle and easily dismissed. They stress that the erosion of democratic norms is not always accompanied by overt actions such as the suspension of constitutions or violent upheavals. Democracies can wither away through legal and seemingly benign means, as leaders manipulate the system to consolidate power while maintaining the facade of democratic legitimacy.

The authors point out that most countries hold regular elections and blatant dictatorship— in the form of fascism, communism, or military rule— has disappeared from much of the world. 

Yet, democracies die, but by different means - a dangerously deceptive electoral one.

In such an arrangement, newspapers are still published but the journalists are bought off or bullied to such a scale that they resort to self-censorship. Citizens do criticise the government, but often face trouble afterwards. Of course, in some countries they are incarcerated, or even made to disappear.

"Many government efforts to subvert democracy are 'legal,' in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy— making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process," wrote the authors.

They observe that institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats. Such autocrats weaponise the courts and other agencies, and redefine the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against the opposition. Democracy's assassins use the very institutions of democracy— in order to kill it.

The authors note that extremist demagogues emerge from time to time in all societies, even in healthy democracies. The United States witnessed such political aspirants too, even before Trump, that include Henry Ford, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, and George Wallace.

But how to prevent such electoral but autocratic take over? 

The book then deals with the role of political parties as gatekeepers in preserving democratic norms. Drawing on examples from the US, the authors refer to controversial figures like Henry Ford and his failed attempt to become US President, thanks to strong gatekeeping that prevailed in his time.

The founders of the USA, according to the authors, did not fully trust the people's ability to judge candidates' fitness for office, and came up with a device called the Electoral College, which evolved over time. The authors observe, "For most of American history, political parties prioritised gatekeeping over openness."

The evolution, of course, eventually allowed the election of Donald Trump and continues to keep an opening for populist leaders who might exploit popular mandate to subvert democracy.

The authors introduce a set of behavioural warning signs that can help identify potential authoritarians before they come to power. These signs include a rejection of democratic rules, denial of the legitimacy of opponents, tolerance or encouragement of violence, and a willingness to curtail civil liberties. 

The book presents a chart that shows how to assess politicians in terms of these four factors. The authors stress that constitutions must be defended— by political parties and organised citizens, but also by democratic norms.

The book illustrates examples of Belgium, Britain, Costa Rica, and Finland who have faced the threats of demagogues but managed to keep them out of power by effective gatekeeping at party level. Drawing lessons from other democracies in crisis, this book also suggests strategies that citizens should, and should not, follow to defend democracy.

"How Democracies Die" is a book mostly about US politics, but it draws extensively on the examples of Venezuela, Georgia, Hungary, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Ukraine, where democratic backsliding began at the ballot box.