Illiberal democracy

An illiberal democracy describes a governing system that hides its "nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". There is a lack of consensus among experts about the exact definition of illiberal democracy or whether it even exists. The rulers of an illiberal democracy may ignore or bypass constitutional limits on their power. While liberal democracies protect individual rights and freedoms, illiberal democracies do not. Elections in an illiberal democracy are often manipulated or rigged, being used to legitimize and consolidate the incumbent rather than to choose the country's leaders and policies. According to jurist András Sajó, illiberal democracy should be counted as a type of democracy because it is "democratic in a plebiscitarian sense", while political scientist Ulrich Wagrandl argues that "illiberal democracy is actually more true to democracy’s roots". Other theorists say that classifying illiberal democracy as democratic is overly sympathetic to the illiberal regimes and therefore prefer terms such as electoral authoritarianism, competitive authoritarianism, or soft authoritarianism. The term and concept of illiberal democracy derive from the 1995-book Towards Illiberal Democracy in Pacific Asia by Daniel A. Bell, David Brown, Kanishka Jayasuriya, and David Martin Jones. Challenging Francis Fukuyamaʼs end-of-history thesis that political history was culminating in the global rule of capitalist liberal democracy, the book countered that Pacific Asia was not converging on liberal democracy but had instead taken an illiberal turn. Political philosopher Daniel A. Bell contributed a chapter on Confucianism as offering an alternative, illiberal approach to democracy. The term illiberal democracy was then used and popularized by Fareed Zakaria in a regularly cited 1997 article in the journal Foreign Affairs. According to Zakaria, illiberal democracies are increasing around the world and are increasingly limiting the freedoms of the people they represent.

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Related concepts (23)

Illiberal democracy

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.

Hybrid regime

A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections. Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states.