Introduction: Reflections on Democratic Backsliding in Asia
AROUND the WORLD, democracy is facing hard times. the empirical scores of prominent global democracy barometers such as the Freedom house index, the economist intelligence unit’s Democracy index, the Bertelsmann transformation index, and the Varieties of Democracy (V-dem) Project find that the decline of democracy has emerged as a conspicuous global challenge.1 the quality of democracy is declining in a growing number of both advanced and new democracies, and the pace of democratic failures is accelerating. At the same time, democratic openings are being aborted in political systems that had previously experienced some form of political liberalization, and autocracies are hardening again.
Democratic recessions are not a new phenomenon. Compared to previous waves of democracy reversal, the current losses in democratic quality are still mild and the global levels of democracy remain relatively high by historical standards.2 still, the deterioration of democratic rule has become a major concern for policy-makers, activists, academics and citizens across the world.
scholars use different terms to refer to the degradation of democratic rule.3 No shared conceptualization has emerged yet, but studies stress some key features of the current backlash. One is that in contrast to previous cycles of democratic reversal, the recent one tends to unfold gradually and doesn’t necessarily lead to full-fledged autocracy.4 in fact, the shift from sudden democratic breakdown to slow erosive processes of democratic backsliding, in which democracy is undermined in incremental steps, is the hallmark of democratic recession in the 21st century.5 Another find
current levels of democracy are about the same or slightly lower than their historic highs (see Figure 1), there is a negative trend.12
On the other hand, the third wave also resulted in great variation in terms of democratic outcomes across the region.13 south Korea and taiwan are often celebrated as success stories of third-wave democratization, but most neodemocracies in south and southeast Asia (such as the Philippines, sri Lanka and thailand) continue to face harsh challenges or have been careening back and forth between democracy and authoritarianism. Moreover, most Asian democracies have experienced some degree of democratic erosion. A current study identifies 14 episodes of democratic backsliding in 10 democracies since the early 2000s.14 As the essays in this issue of Global Asia show, examples include not only new democracies but older democracies such as sri Lanka and — most alarmingly, given its importance as the world’s largest democracy — india. Modes, gravity and outcomes of democratic backsliding vary across countries. the decline in democratic quality was relatively soft and temporary in taiwan but has been more severe in india, indonesia, south Korea and Mongolia, and especially in Bangladesh, thailand, sri Lanka and the Philippines (which have become or are about to become autocracies).
some countries such as the Philippines, thailand and Bangladesh went through more than one democratic recession. in seven of the 14 episodes, democratic forces managed to contain the process before democracy broke down. Among these “near misses,” five temporarily recovered at the level of democratic quality similar to that in the year before democratic erosion started; two (india and the Philippines) are ongoing and