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A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it?
Open accessAbstract
Less than 30 years after Fukuyama and others declared liberal democracy’s eternal dominance, a third wave of autocratization is manifest. Gradual declines of democratic regime attributes characterize contemporary autocratization. Yet, we lack the appropriate conceptual and empirical tools to diagnose and compare such elusive processes. Addressing that gap, this article provides the first comprehensive empirical overview of all autocratization episodes from 1900 to today based on data from the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem). We demonstrate that a third wave of autocratization is indeed unfolding. It mainly affects democracies with gradual setbacks under a legal façade. While this is a cause for concern, the historical perspective presented in this article shows that panic is not warranted: the current declines are relatively mild and the global share of democratic countries remains close to its all-time high. As it was premature to announce the “end of history” in 1992, it is premature to proclaim the “end of democracy” now.
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“The world is now in a ' third wave of autocratization, ' disproportionally affecting a large number of established democracies (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019).”
From Parties, Civil Society, and the Deterrence of Democratic Defection (2020) · cites this paper as Lührmann and Lindberg 2019
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“However, democracy promotion expanded significantly after the end of the Cold War, and the third wave of autocratization began around 1993 (Luhrmann & Lindberg, 2019).”
BackgroundInfluentialDemocracy’s backsliding in the international environment
Hyde, S. D. (2020) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.abb2434 · Cited by 108
Measuring Democratic Backsliding
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“Similarly, Lührmann and Lindberg (2019) contend that any country can “ autocratize, ” regardless of regime type.”
BackgroundAuthoritarian consolidation dynamics in Turkey
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Parties, Civil Society, and the Deterrence of Democratic Defection
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Self-citationWhat do we know about civil society and regime change thirty years after 1989?
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Total Mobilization from Below: Hong Kong's Freedom Summer
Cheng, E. W., Lee, F. L. F., Yuen, S., & Tang, G. (2022) · The China Quarterly · doi:10.1017/s0305741022000236 · Cited by 62
“30 Lührmann and Lindberg 2019; Caraway 2021.”
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“This same time period has also been characterized by concerns about changing relationships between citizens and the state, including the phenomena of democratic backsliding and decreased democratic legitimacy (Kriesi, 2013, 2020; Lührmann & Lindberg, 2019; Waldner & Lust, 2018).”
BackgroundLaebens, M. G., & Öztürk, A. (2020) · Comparative Political Studies · doi:10.1177/0010414020926199 · Cited by 101
“…were “electoral autocracies” (p. 9).2 Hybrid regimes that emerge gradually from democracy through a process of autocratization driven by incumbents (Lührmann & Lindberg, 2019) should be particularly relevant for the study of partisanship, because they carry the legacy of democratic electoral…”
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Conceptual and Measurement Issues in Assessing Democratic Backsliding
Knutsen, C. H., Marquardt, K. L., Seim, B., Coppedge, M., Edgell, A. B., Medzihorsky, J., Pemstein, D., Teorell, J., Gerring, J., & Lindberg, S. I. (2023) · PS Political Science & Politics · doi:10.1017/s104909652300077x · Cited by 89
“…point 1, many scholars agree that recent backslid-ing has occurred predominantly through processes driven by elected incumbents who gradually concentrate power in their own hands — also known as “ executive aggrandizement ” (Bermeo 2016; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018; Lührmann and Lindberg 2019).”
BackgroundInfluentialSelf-citationWunsch, N., Jacob, M. S., & Derksen, L. (2025) · British Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1017/s0007123424000711 · Cited by 81
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Self-citationDynamic dictators: improving the research agenda on autocratization and authoritarian resilience
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Toepler, S., Zimmer, A., Levy, K., & Fröhlich, C. (2022) · Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly · doi:10.1177/08997640221112890 · Cited by 48
Competition in a Populist Authoritarian Regime: The June 2018 Dual Elections in Turkey
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“…incumbents and suffocating the opposition.1 As delineated below, Turkey’s recent and continuous authoritarian slide2 or its protracted ‘autocratisation’ (Lührmann & Lindberg 2019) occurred through ‘executive aggrandisement’ (Bermeo 2016) by a populist party which claimed that increasing the…”
BackgroundMethodMeyer‐Sahling, J., & Tóth, F. (2020) · NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy · doi:10.2478/nispa-2020-0016 · Cited by 47
“Much of the debate so far has focused on the concept (Bermeo 2016, Waldner and Lust 2018), measurement and scope (Mechkova et al. 2017, Lührmann and Lindberg 2019), the drivers (Herman 2016, Mickey et al. 2017) and safeguards (Ginsburg and Huq 2018, Keleman and Blauberger 2016) against democratic…”
BackgroundAcademic freedom growth and decline episodes
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“An episode ends when there is a temporary stagnation on the AFI with no further increase/decline of 0.01 points in 4 years or when the AFI increases by 0.03 points, from one year to the next (compare Lührmann & Lindberg, 2019, for a discussion on thresholds).”
InfluentialCommunication and democratic erosion: The rise of illiberal public spheres
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“While backsliding has emerged as an umbrella term, it has been criticized because it insinuates a rather accidental, involuntary, and uncon-scious reversal (Bogaards, 2018; Lührmann and Lindberg, 2019).”
BackgroundFiddling while Democracy Burns: Partisan Reactions to Weak Democracy in Latin America
Singer, M. (2021) · Perspectives on Politics · doi:10.1017/s1537592721002899 · Cited by 48
“In the majority of these cases, the threat to democracy is not from outsiders looking to overthrow it via a coup but instead comes from elected insiders who weaken democracy from within by restricting electoral competition and curtailing the rights of their opponents (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019).”
BackgroundBlühdorn, I., & Butzlaff, F. (2020) · Democratization · doi:10.1080/13510347.2019.1707808 · Cited by 46
Conceptualizing and Measuring Autocratization Episodes
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“In sum, we suggest an autocratization measure that builds on the existing operationalization by Lührmann and Lindberg (2019) but adds confidence intervals to account for measurement choice.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialCOVID-19 and erosion of democracy
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Support for insider parties: The role of political trust in a longitudinal-comparative perspective
Petrarca, C. S., Giebler, H., & Weßels, B. (2020) · Party Politics · doi:10.1177/1354068820976920 · Cited by 44
Bryan, J. D. (2023) · Comparative Political Studies · doi:10.1177/00104140231152784 · Cited by 44
“The phenomenon of elected leaders claiming to support democracy while simultaneously attacking the very democratic institutions that brought them to power has characterized the global “third wave of autocratization” (Lührmann & Lindberg, 2019).”
Administrative responses to democratic backsliding: When is bureaucratic resistance justified?
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Background(2019) · doi:10.1080/13510347.2019.1613980 · Cited by 66
Self-citationHow Great is the Current Danger to Democracy? Assessing the Risk With Historical Data
Treisman, D. (2023) · Comparative Political Studies · doi:10.1177/00104140231168363 · Cited by 63
“In a widely cited paper, Lührmann and Lindberg (2019) study the frequency of a certain type of “autocratization episode” in all states—democratic and authoritarian—and note that, although deterioration is clear, “panic is not warranted.””
BackgroundMethodSubnational competitive authoritarianism and power-sharing in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kapidžić, D. (2019) · Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies · doi:10.1080/14683857.2020.1700880 · Cited by 43
“In this paper, I use the term autocratization when referring to BiH for reasons elaborated by Lührmann and Lindberg (2019).”
BackgroundMethodThe Forum: Global Challenges to Democracy? Perspectives on Democratic Backsliding
Bartels, L. M., Daxecker, U., Hyde, S., Lindberg, S. I., & Nooruddin, I. (2023) · International Studies Review · doi:10.1093/isr/viad019 · Cited by 58
Self-citationPernia, R. A. (2021) · Asian Journal of Comparative Politics · doi:10.1177/2057891121992118 · Cited by 46
Courts and the judicial erosion of democracy in Latin America
Aguiar-Aguilar, A. A. (2023) · Politics & Policy · doi:10.1111/polp.12516 · Cited by 41
Coup with Adjectives: Conceptual Stretching or Innovation in Comparative Research?
Marsteintredet, L., & Malamud, A. (2019) · Political Studies · doi:10.1177/0032321719888857 · Cited by 49
“…consensus that there is a global democratic recession and that liberal democratic values are threatened (Diamond, 2015a; Inglehart and Norris, 2016; Lührmann and Lindberg, 2019; Mechokva et al., 2017), there are fewer classical coups than ever, whether globally or in Latin America (Belkin and…”
BackgroundAhmed, A. (2023) · Perspectives on Politics · doi:10.1017/s1537592722001062 · Cited by 65
“In fact, most studies of backsliding have measured it at either the national level or globally, with some further specifying “ episodes ” rather than discrete observations as the appropriate level of measurement (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019; Pelke and Croissant 2021).”
BackgroundLiberty, Security, and Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies
Gratton, G., & Lee, B. E. (2023) · The Review of Economic Studies · doi:10.1093/restud/rdad030 · Cited by 43
Domestic Interests, Democracy, and Foreign Policy Change
Leeds, B. A., & Mattes, M. (2022) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781009037938 · Cited by 39
Metadata
- Authors
- Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. I.
- Affiliations
- University of Gothenburg (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Lührmann, Anna
- Venue
- Democratization
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2019-03-01
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1095-1113
- ISSN
- 1351-0347 (ISSN-L)
- 1743-890X
- OpenAlex
- W2919826889
- Cited by
- 1,528
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 273 · 2025: 290 · 2024: 229 · 2023: 206 · 2022: 179 · 2021: 187 · 2020: 133 · 2019: 31
- FWCI
- 266.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Democratization (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- European Research Council (72419)
- Vetenskapsrådet (2018-016114)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Keywords
- autocratization, democratic backsliding, liberal democracy, end of history, end of democracy
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