illiberal democracy

Technically speaking, an illiberal democracy could be any democracy that is not a liberal democracy. However, the term is almost always used to denote a particularly authoritarian kind of representative democracy, in which the leaders and lawmakers are elected by the people but the people lack real liberties. This may be due to the fact that a constitution exists but its liberties are ignored, or to the simple absence of an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties to restrain the power of the elected government. Thus, although at least initially relatively free and fair elections may take place, the people are cut off from real power due to the lack of real liberties. It is this type of "illiberal democracy" that is discussed in the present article. The term illiberal democracy was used by Fareed Zakaria in an often cited 1997 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, [1] and it tends to be used with a negative connotation, by those who oppose such a system of government and support liberal democracy.

Illiberal democracies are found primarily in newly democratizing countries that do not have a recent history of pluralism. Without such a tradition of different ideas co-existing peacefully, the ruling party or leader — after winning multi-party elections that are mostly free and fair — behaves in a rather authoritarian manner. This may involve corruption, persecutions of political opponents, restrictions on freedom of speech, and other restrictions of the rights and liberties of the general population. This may be allowed by the constitution of the country in question, but many illiberal democracies exist in countries with liberal democratic constitutions that are simply ignored.

There is a spectrum of illiberal democracies: from those who are nearly liberal democracies to those that are almost dictatorships. Examples can be found across the former Soviet Union, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. The mid-to-late 1990s was a period marked by a growing emergence of illiberal democracies.

More recently, scholars such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way argued that terms like "illiberal democracy" were inappropriate for some of these states, because the term implies that these regimes are, at their heart, democracies that have gone wrong. Levitsky and Way argued that some of these states, such as Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic, Zimbabwe, and post-Soviet Russia, were never truly democratic and not developing toward democracy, but were rather tending further toward authoritarian behaviour, despite having elections (which were sometimes sharply contested). Thus, Levitsky and Way coined a new term to remove the positive connotation of democracy from these states and distinguish them from flawed or developing democracies: competitive authoritarianism.^[1]

An illiberal democracy is marked by the tension between how a government is selected and how that government behaves. Illiberal democratic governments believe they have a mandate to act in any way they see fit, disregarding laws or the constitution if they desire, as long as they hold regular elections. They often centralize powers both between branches of the national government (having no separation of powers) and between different levels of government and private associations. The former is more noticeable, the latter more common.

Another characteristic is that the lack of rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly make opposition to the rulers extremely difficult. Television and radio is often controlled by the state and strongly support the regime. Non-governmental organisations may face onerous regulations or simply be prohibited. The regime may use red tape, economic pressure, or even violence against critics.

Some suggest a method of determining whether a regime is an illiberal democracy is by noting that "it has regular, free, fair, and competitive elections to fill the principal positions of power in the country, but it does not qualify as Free in Freedom House's annual ratings of civil liberties and political rights."^[2]

Conversely, liberal autocracies are regimes with no elections and that are ruled by autocratically but have at least some real liberties.

See also

• Liberal democracy
• Representative democracy
• Political corruption
• Totalitarian democracy
• Dominant-party system

Cited references

References

• The Rise of Illiberal Democracy, Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, November/ December 1997
• Liberalism and Democracy: Can't have one without the other, Marc Plattner, Foreign Affairs, March/ April 1998

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