The Age of Declining Democracy: The Approaches to Researching Democratic Backsliding

Chi-En Lee

《Taiwan Journal of Democracy》 18卷2期 (2022/12) Pp. 177-198

摘要

A sense of unease and anxiety over the sustainable future of the democratic paradigm has become increasingly prevalent across the board. In particular, the academic world spearheaded this concern of weakened democracy. By examining critical works within this growing scholarly literature, this article outlines the focuses of the debates and approaches to researching democratic backsliding. First, this review offers an overview of the development and contentions over the conceptualization of democratic backsliding. Then building on top of that discussion of definitions, the article proposes a structured categorization for the approaches utilized by scholars when tackling the puzzle of backsliding. This mapping of democratic backsliding literature involves operationalizing three major schools of defining democracy: accountable democracy, pluralist democracy, and equity democracy. Linking with these definitions, the article then explores the central questions of ＂how and why democratic backsliding is occurring?＂ Finally, the article concludes with discussions on the troubles and difficulties of measuring democratic qualities, as well as future prospects for researching democratic backsliding.

關鍵字

Conceptualization ； definitions of democracy ； democratic backsliding ； forms of democracy ； measuring democracy

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