Subjective and objective

measures of democratic
backsliding
Little and Meng, 2023
Introduction

- Tese de democratic backsliding reforçada em 2022 (V-Dem e Freedom House)

- As evidências são sustentadas em indicadores subjetivos

-Se existe um backsliding, ele precisaria ser observado em indicadores mais objetivos como:
1-Ruling party turnover;
2-Executive constraints;
3-Media freedom;
Existing Data and Subjective Measurement

O que caracteriza um backsliding?

- ““a process in which democratically elected leaders weaken democratic institutions” (Haggard and
Kaufman, 2021)
- “the state-led debilitation or elimination of any of the political institutions that sustain an existing
democracy” (Bermeo, 2016)
- “a deterioration of qualities associated with democratic governance, within any regime. In
democratic regimes, it is a decline in the quality of democracy; in autocracies, it is a decline in
democratic qualities of governance” (Waldner and Lust, 2018)
Expert coded measures

Mesmo os estudos que discordam das narrativas de democratic backsliding, raramente criticam a
precisão dos indicadores de democracia;

- “For instance, after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Polity lowered the US’s Polity2 score
from 10 to 8, which is a lower score than the US during the Jim Crow era or prior to women’s
suffrage (Polity2 scores the US as a 9 during those periods). “
- “The widely used polyarchy index from V-Dem has five sub-indices: (1) freedom of expression, (2)
freedom of association, (3) suffrage, (4) clean elections, and (5) elected officials. Three of these (the
freedom of expression, freedom of association, and clean elections indices) are entirely comprised
of subjective expert-coded variables.”
The search for more objective measures

“First, we look at de facto election outcomes, asking if incumbent leaders and their parties are

dominating elections. Next we look at indicators of whether the electoral process allows for competition

in practice, e.g., by allowing multiple parties. Moving beyond elections, we look at trends

in executive constraints, and attacks on the press.”

Are incumbents losing?
Are incumbents dominating elections?
Can the opposition organize and compete?
Are elections competitive?
Executive constraints
Attacks on the press
Taking Stock
“Nonetheless, if staying in power is the ultimate goal, the fact that election trends are
not really changing, implies that these attempts are largely ineffective.”
Making sense of the data - Coder Model e Leader
Model

- Coder Model: Modelo que trabalha a ideia de que diferenças entre mensurações
objetivas e subjetivas é causada por um viés do coder.

- Leader Model: Modelo alternativo que pressupõe que trabalha a hipótese de que os
autores estão de certa forma errados e líderes políticos tomam ações antidemocráticas
sutis “por trás dos panos”, que seriam difíceis de serem observadas com mensurações
objetivas.
Summary and evidence

1
3

2
4
Conclusão

“Further, the bulk of the indicators which exhibit more backsliding are on relatively subjective measures
with substantial disagreement among expert coders. On relatively objective measures, we see little of

any clear trends of backsliding.”