Philosophy
Democratic Backsliding and the Erosion of Institutional Trust
Quick fact
Many episodes of democratic backsliding occur while elections continue to take place; leaders dismantle democracy from within using legal tools and by weakening watchdogs like the press and the courts, often with the support of a populace that has lost faith in those institutions.
Why this is interesting
What if democracy doesn't die with a bang, but with a thousand small cuts—and we don't notice until it's too late?
Read the full explanation
Understanding Democratic Backsliding and the Erosion of Institutional Trust
Democratic backsliding is the process by which the quality of democracy declines—usually gradually. It is not a sudden collapse into dictatorship, but a slow erosion of the institutions and norms that support a healthy democracy. Think of a democracy as a forest. The trees are institutions: courts, legislatures, free press, independent election commissions. The soil is public trust. When trust erodes, the soil becomes acidic, and the trees—even if they remain standing—become sickly. Their roots weaken, and they can't withstand storms. In practice, backsliding often begins with an elected leader who, claiming a mandate, chips away at checks and balances. They might appoint loyalists to the judiciary, which is like replacing strong trees with weak clones. They might pressure the media, which is like cutting off sunlight. Citizens might initially support these moves if they feel the existing institutions have failed them—if they are corrupt or inefficient. But this trust is the very thing that makes institutions work. Without trust, people stop using courts to resolve disputes, stop accepting election results, stop believing the news. And once that trust is gone, it's very hard to rebuild.
A deeper explanation
The mechanism behind backsliding and institutional trust erosion is a vicious cycle. Institutions derive their authority from legitimacy—the public's belief that they have the right to rule and make decisions. This legitimacy is built on procedural fairness and predictability: the rule of law, impartial judges, free and fair elections. When leaders chip away at these procedures, they reduce the perceived fairness of institutions. For example, if a president fires independent prosecutors or changes electoral rules to favor themselves, citizens see that the rules are not consistent. This triggers a decline in institutional trust. Declining trust then gives leaders more cover to further erode institutions: if people don't trust courts, they may accept the leader's claim that courts are 'corrupt' and need to be purged. This is executive aggrandizement—the most common mode of contemporary backsliding. It works because it exploits the gap between formal rules and actual practice. A leader can keep the form of democracy—elections, parliaments—but undermine its function. The key is that institutions require a baseline of trust to function. When trust falls below a tipping point, the institutions become hollow shells: they exist but no longer constrain power. That's why backsliding is so dangerous: it's a slow, self-reinforcing process that often goes unnoticed until it's too late.