The DOI matches its Crossref record; 100 of the 100 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 4 of the 59 sources its claims cite were checked for support.
Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding
Open accessAbstract
Scholars have paid increasing attention to democratic backsliding, yet efforts to explain this phenomenon remain inchoate. This article seeks to place the study of democratic backsliding on sturdier conceptual, operational, and theoretical foundations. Conceptually, the challenge of backsliding is to define changes that take place within a political regime. Methodologically, the challenge involves measurement of intraregime changes, as alternative coding schemes change the population of units that have experienced democratic backsliding. Theoretical challenges are dual: First, despite a rich and diverse literature, we lack readily available theories to explain backsliding, and second, the theoretical debates that do exist—centered on the causes of democratic transitions, democratic breakdowns, authoritarian resilience, and democratic consolidation—remain unresolved. We consider how these theories might be called into service to explain backsliding. By doing so, the article aims to set the terms of the debate to create a common focal point around which research can coalesce.
Overview
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Written from the paper’s full text.
TL;DR
This review argues that democratic backsliding is conceptually, operationally, and theoretically underdeveloped, and it proposes a definition centered on incremental within-regime deterioration. It surveys six theory families and recommends a coalitional, balance-of-power synthesis for future research.
Key findings
- Backsliding is defined as a decline in democratic qualities within a regime; in democracies it means lower-quality democracy, and coding it requires degradation in at least two of three dimensions: competition, participation, and accountability.
- Measurement is inconsistent: only 5 of 13 regime-type datasets permit measuring backsliding; the five backsliding indicators have an average pairwise correlation of 0.33, compared with 0.85–0.86 for regime-type measures. Reported backsliding rates range from under 3% in Skaaning et al. (2015) to over 11% in Wahman et al. (2013).
- Robustness checks found findings held under alternative measures in only 25% of cases for Burke & Leigh (2010) and less than 75% for Gibler & Randazzo (2011) and Goldstone et al. (2010), using a low threshold of expected sign and p < 0.10.
- Existing theories—agency, political culture, institutions, political economy, social structure/coalitions, and international factors—offer limited directly testable explanations for backsliding; the authors favor a synthetic coalitional approach emphasizing shifting balances of power.
Methods
- Design: a conceptual, operational, and theoretical review, not an original empirical study. It surveys six broad theory families developed for democratic transitions, breakdowns, consolidation, and authoritarian resilience, then assesses their usefulness for backsliding.
- Data or sample: secondary literature and existing datasets, especially Lueders & Lust’s (2018) review of 13 regime-type datasets and Table 1’s five backsliding indicators; the article also uses a brief illustrative discussion of the Trump administration.
- Main analysis: qualitative synthesis and critique of definitions, measurement schemes, and theoretical mechanisms, followed by four suggestions for future synthesis, including attention to contrast spaces, shared analytic frameworks, balance-of-power reasoning, and coalitional analysis.
Limitations
- The authors state that they do not definitively solve the conceptual, measurement, or theoretical problems, and that no crystallized literature evaluates rival backsliding hypotheses across a fixed set of cases.
- They note that many existing hypotheses lack testable form, suffer from endogeneity, and show spatial and temporal causal heterogeneity; they also state that international factors are difficult to generalize because mechanisms and susceptibility vary by country.
- Evident from the text: the article is a review rather than a new empirical test, and its Trump discussion is explicitly illustrative and speculative about whether observed actions amount to backsliding.
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116 Own interpretation · 22 Sources not found · 18 No full text of the sources · 7 No basis given · 6 Not checked yet · 4 Supported · 1 Own method
Every source the paper cites for this claim was checked and supports it.
In the paper
“These laws have emerged over the past 15 years and are most common where Republicans have recently won state legislative majorities”
What the sources say
- Supportedcites Highton 2017 source
The Adoption of Voter Identification Laws Across the United States section (page not provided) concludes that recent adoption of strict voter ID laws was driven by Republican control, especially in competitive states with a recent Republican takeover. Its table dates the laws’ adoption from 2005 to 2015 and shows Republican majorities in at least one legislative chamber at passage. (LLM, conf=0.90)
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Concerns about antidemocratic restrictions on participation stem from the wave of state laws aimed to make it more difficult for likely supporters of Democratic candidates to register and cast their ballots.”
What the sources say
- Supportedcites Highton 2017 source
In “Adoption of Voter Identification Laws Across the United States” (page unavailable), the review describes a recent wave of restrictive laws and quotes research identifying Democratic-leaning voters as targets. It also discusses restrictive registration and voting laws, supporting the claim about barriers to both registering and casting ballots. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Rests on an assumption: Democratic backsliding requires reversion along at least two of three dimensions of democracy.
- Supported
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“There are 9,765,625 (30,517,578,125) logically possible combinations of the subcategory questions that can result in a plausible score on Freedom House's Political Rights (Civil Liberties) scale, and 2,873 (63,869) different logically plausible combinations underlying the Political Rights (Civil Liberties) indices.”
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In the paper
“Yet they find that measures of backsliding are not interchangeable.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Lueders & Lust (2018) source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Not every tussle over district boundaries, voter registration procedures, or executive privilege constitutes backsliding.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The choice of indicators has an enormous impact on empirical findings.”
boosteddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“The robustness checks highlight the importance of indicator choice on scholarly findings.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Extant measures are not only employed in a manner that fails to discern the underlying nature of backsliding, but they also often are used interchangeably. This practice is based on the erroneous assumption that different indicators measure the same phenomena.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“however, as currently reported and employed, they fail to provide sufficient information by which we can distinguish different arenas of change”
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In the paper
“Because a sufficiently fine-grained, continuous measure is likely to overdetect backsliding, we offer a qualitative rule instead.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Probably not a substantial claim. 86
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Every source the paper cites for this claim was checked and supports it.
In the paper
“Wright (2009) finds that the relationship between aid and democratization is conditional on the size of the dictator's coalition.”
What the sources say
- Supportedcites Wright (2009) source
The Results section reports that the interaction between aid and coalition size is positive and statistically different from zero: aid’s effect on democratization becomes more positive as the dictator’s coalition grows. It also reports that aid decreases the likelihood of democratization in small-coalition regimes but increases it in large-coalition regimes. (LLM, conf=0.95)
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- Supported
Every source the paper cites for this claim was checked and supports it.
In the paper
“While Knack (2004) finds no statistically significant relationship between aid and democracy scores”
What the sources say
- Supportedcites Knack (2004) source
The Results section reports that aid coefficients in regressions using democracy indexes were small and never approached statistical significance. It also describes an insignificant correlation between aid and the change in the Freedom House index from 1975 to 2000. (LLM, conf=0.94)
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“For instance, Skaaning et al. (2015) code backsliding in < 3%ofthecases recorded, while Wahman et al. (2013) find backsliding in > 11% of their cases.”
What the sources say
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Although measures of regime type are indeed highly correlated, indicators of regime change are not.”
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In the paper
“yet efforts to explain this phenomenon remain inchoate”
- Also stated in: § Figure 1 · p. 3 · plain
“Efforts to explain backsliding remain inchoate.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Also stated in: § Figure 1 · p. 3 · plain
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In the paper
“the theoretical debates that do exist-centered on the causes of democratic transitions, democratic breakdowns, authoritarian resilience, and democratic consolidation-remain unresolved”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“they have not used the term consistently; moreover, they have not measured the phenomenon accurately”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“alternative coding schemes change the population of units that have experienced democratic backsliding”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Viewing backsliding as composed of clearly intended efforts to change some combination of competitiveness, participation, and accountability not only provides some defense against false positives but also comports well with the empirical record.”
plainconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
- Rests on an assumption: Competition, participation, and accountability are the three relevant dimensions of democratic governance for coding backsliding.
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In the paper
“These accounts suffer from well-known handicaps. Claims about the absence of structural constraints are too often unexamined presuppositions and not the conclusion of empirical analysis. These accounts also lack a rigorous theory of agency, settling instead for relatively ad hoc analyses of decision making relying on inductive judgments that defy falsification.”
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In the paper
“Agentic theories place the explanatory burden on contingent decisions made by political actors under relatively unconstrained conditions.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“One promising approach claims that power-seeking presidents unconstrained by powerful institutions or competing centers of political power are left free to initiate backsliding (Fish 2001, Van de Walle 2003).”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Fish 2001
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Van de Walle 2003 source
plaindirect- Asserted: fails — The authors may not put it forward as true.
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A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Backsliding, as distinct from transitions across regime types, involves relatively fine-grained degrees of change.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“They have given a great deal of attention to measuring regime type but have paid little explicit attention to measuring regime change.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“we lack readily available theories to explain backsliding”
- Also stated in: § Figure 1 · p. 3 · plain
“we lack theories to explain backsliding”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“findings were considered robust if the coefficient of interest had the expected sign and was significant at the p < 0.10 level”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Lueders & Lust 2018 source
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Academic interest in incremental forms of backsliding, however, is quite new, and no crystallized, coherent literature evaluates rival hypotheses about a relatively fixed set of cases.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“They argue that democratic survival in Latin America rests on the moderate policy preferences and normative commitment to democracy of the current generation of political leaders, both variables amenable to systematic measurement.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Mainwaring & P´ erez-Li˜ n´ an (2014)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“As summarized in Table 1 , these are based on different concepts of democratic characteristics and, disconcertingly, yield very different answers to basic empirical questions regarding backsliding.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Extant indicators provide a basis for operationalizing backsliding as outlined above, but thus far scholars have not considered carefully the indicators of backsliding.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Coding a case of backsliding requires degradation in at least two of these three dimensions of democratic governance: competition, participation, and accountability.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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Probably not a substantial claim.
- Rests on an assumption: Competition, participation, and accountability are the three relevant dimensions of democratic governance for coding backsliding.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we understand backsliding as potentially occurring through a discontinuous series of incremental actions, not a one-time coup de grˆ ace .”
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In the paper
“the instruments of change are efforts to catalyze cultural, institutional, or economic change, as well as diplomatic efforts to persuade local political leaders to alter their behavior.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“More recently, Reynolds (2011) contends that relative to majoritarian political institutions, power-sharing systems based on proportional representation create incentives to accommodate others and thus deter democratic breakdown.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Reynolds (2011)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
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In the paper
“For Inglehart & Welzel (2005), democracy requires the transition from traditional and survivaloriented values to secular and self-expressive values.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Inglehart & Welzel (2005)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“We cannot yet say whether dysfunctional properties of party systems are causes of backsliding or symptoms of the vulnerability to backsliding.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“What distinguishes hypotheses in this theory family is that the primary agent of the causal intervention is an actor in the international system, not a domestic actor.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“a key weakness of these case studies is the inability to generalize findings beyond the small number of cases included in a study.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“That is, agency-based accounts entail simultaneous engagement with cultural and institutional theories.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“the relationship between oil revenues and democracy is not decisively antidemocratic.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“Theories of political culture explain political outcomes by way of attitudes, beliefs, norms, practices, and rituals that are widely shared, have deep emotional resonance, and divide appropriate and socially sanctioned from inappropriate behavior.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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In the paper
“theories centered on international influence are not necessarily distinct from the theory families already reviewed; they simply imply an external actor as the agent of change.”
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In the paper
“In the late twentieth century, in contrast, it was the dismal economic performance of most dictatorships that led to democratic transitions”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Haggard & Kaufman 1995
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Not matched
In the paper
“The price of admission to the club of democracies, denominated in gross domestic product, fell steadily over the course of the twentieth century.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Bermeo & Yashar (2016) source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“As income inequality rises, democracy's costs for the wealthy increase, lowering the probability of democratic transitions.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Boix (2003) source
- Not matchedcites Acemoglu & Robinson (2006)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“access to oil rents favors incumbents and exacerbates problems of vertical and horizontal accountability.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Wecanthink of democratic political institutions as having three broad types of effect.”
plainconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
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- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“A recent study of new democracies finds that high rates of growth are associated with lower risks of authoritarian reversion, while high rates of inflation substantially increase the risks of democratic breakdown”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Kapstein & Converse 2008 source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Perhaps as a result, there is a fair amount of debate about findings, which can be highly sensitive to case selection and model specification.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“most work continues to emphasize how oil hinders transitions and we knowmuchlessabouthowitmightcatalyzethedeteriorationofanexistingdemocracy”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
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It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Furthermore, one-third of the stable parliamentary democracies in these samples had populations under one million, heightening suspicions that parliamentary systems were being established in contexts that were more propitious for democratic survival.”
hedgedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: unclear — It is unclear why the paper says it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Fish finds that Muslim-majority countries score, on average, about 1.5 points lower on a Freedom House democracy score, or about one-fifth of the total variation on the dependent variable.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Fish (2002) source
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“their revised study also demonstrates temporally heterogeneous effects of endogenous modernization, which appear to be very strong for the nineteenth century, moderate for the interwar period, and barely distinguishable from zero for the postwar period.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Boix & Stokes (2002)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
boostedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Not matched
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the American military occupation of Japan after World War II, effective through April 1952, involved changes to the Japanese constitution, short-term economic policies to encourage stabilization and growth, policies aimed at restructuring the Japanese economy (e.g., dismantling economic conglomerates, land reform) and even education reforms”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Mazzuca finds that in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela, rising oil rents helped generate a leftist rentier populism in which informal economic sectors were induced to support new plebiscitary mechanisms that diminished horizontal accountability.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Mazzuca (2013) source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Scholarship on the relationship between income levels and democratization finds evidence for both endogenous and exogenous modernization theories.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“Lijphart (1977) offers the best-known theory of democratic stability and electoral systems, arguing that in plural societies, consociational institutions-most importantly, grand coalitions that guarantee government office to parties representing all major sociocultural groups-induce elite moderation that facilitates cooperation and democratic survival.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Lijphart (1977)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: fails — The authors may not put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The authors may not put it forward as true.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“An equally large body of scholarship contests Huntington's theoretical framework.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“They do not satisfy contemporary standards of theorydevelopment,thederivationofhypotheses,caseselection,orevenqualitative causal analysis.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“nation building has included efforts to alter the cultural, institutional, and political-economic landscape.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A claim is checked only against the cited paper’s full text, never its abstract, and none is available for its sources.
In the paper
“subsequent research suggests that any effect of inequality on democratic transitions and breakdowns was more powerful in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries than in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries”
What the sources say
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“According to Linz (1990), the inherent flaw of presidential systems is that they establish two governmental organs with autonomous legitimacy, creating almost inevitable clashes and stalemates.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Linz (1990) source
plaindirect- Asserted: fails — The authors may not put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The authors may not put it forward as true. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“His analysis of Latin American cases finds that democracies established after military dictatorships have a much higher likelihood of being presidential systems, while democracies that follow civilian dictatorships are far more likely to be parliamentary systems.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Cheibub (2007)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
boostedcorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we believe that scholars have not fully mined the insights these theories promise, a theme we return to in the concluding section, where we further explore the potential relevance of coalitional theories, especially their emphasis on the balance of power between social groups and classes.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
None of the sources cited for this claim have been checked yet.
In the paper
“Multiple studies report that more recent democratic transitions have occurred at relatively high levels of inequality.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
The paper states this without a source or data behind it here, so there is nothing to check it against. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“First, cultures are properties of large groups of people, either entire societies or substantial subgroups in society.”
- Also stated in: § Theories of Political Culture · p. 6 · plain
“Second, cultures are inherited from the past”
- Also stated in: § Theories of Political Culture · p. 6 · plain
“cultural change tends to be relatively slow”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Also stated in: § Theories of Political Culture · p. 6 · plain
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“it is plausible that democracies and autocracies produce different levels of development.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Most of the classic theories of social structure, political coalitions, and democracy rest heavily on informal theory and undisciplined case-study narratives.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“We believe that low levels of development or high levels of inequality, or both, are associated with weakly instituted democracies that are vulnerable to backsliding”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Third Wave democracies do not appear to have been systematically preceded by rising levels of income or decreasing levels of income inequality”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“our review of the broader literature on regime change reveals that although it provides more grand, theoretical frameworks, it falls short in important ways.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Insofar as we can better distinguish causes of background vulnerabilities from causes of particular backsliding episodes, we may find that former theoretical rivals can in fact cooperate.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the effects of economic growth on democratic transitions appear to have been relatively strong in Europe and parts of the Western Hemisphere in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, much less pronounced in the interwar period, and quite modest in the postwar period; indeed, that effect might even be negligible in the Third Wave of democratization.”
hedgeddirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: unclear — It is unclear why the paper says it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Notably, any of these actions taken individually is subtle enough to be plausibly denied or can be plausibly justified within a democratic normative framework; it is only when considered in concert that they constitute a threat to democracy.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“much of which describes particular pathways of backsliding, we see a great deal of theoretical modesty”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Moore's corollary that without a large prodemocratic coalition, efficaciously organized and with access to political institutions, democracy remains imperiledwith backsliding as one possible and even likely outcome-informs a great deal of the work we have surveyed.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Moore's (1966)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Membership in international organizations may also help to consolidate democratic reforms”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“a problem we see as particularly troubling in many studies of political institutions.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“membership in the European Union, for example, generates Western leverage and linkage.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we can conceive of rising income inequality as raising the costs of toleration”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Even continuous measures of democracy may carry unnecessary conceptual baggage and may thus present measurement challenges”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“theories of political culture often lack the combination of a demand side and a supply side that would be needed to logically predict the outcome in question.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“a successful prodemocratic movement in one country may persuade citizens of neighboring countries that their prodemocratic movement could be successful as well.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“On the one hand, it is not always simple to identify whether backsliding has taken place and to what extent.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“A candidate framework that we favor is Dahl's (1971) axiomatic approach to polyarchy, in which the probability of a democratic transition is positively related to the costs of suppression and inversely related to the costs of toleration.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Dahl (1971)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“A political actor in a polity that is vulnerable to backsliding may initiate a low-level assault on democratic accountability in response to a particular global event that does not trigger backsliding in other, less vulnerable democracies.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“approaches to political agency seldom present concrete, testable hypotheses”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the susceptibility to international influences may differ from country to country.”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Whether these and other actions constitute democratic backsliding will depend, in part, on how durable these actions are in the face of public opposition and institutional responses, such as judicial rulings on the constitutionality of extreme partisan gerrymandering.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
- Rests on an assumption: Democratic backsliding requires reversion along at least two of three dimensions of democracy.
In the paper
“Kelley (2012) expands on these threats to credible election monitoring, observing that the growth of a shadow market of more lenient monitoring organizations allows countries to choose their monitors strategically.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Kelley (2012) source
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“Djankov et al. (2008) find that foreign aid is analogous to oil rents: It stimulates rent-seeking behavior and curtails the capacity of citizens to hold rulers accountable.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Djankov et al. (2008)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we find ongoing inter- and intratheoretical debates, methodological controversies, and significant reasons to question both the internal and external validity of many or most of the hypotheses we have covered.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“There is no readily available set of theories that we as a community can uncontroversially adopt, adapt, and apply to the problem of backsliding.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This assumption of functional form probably reflects a tacit acceptance of modernization theory”
hedged- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“It is quite clear that many of the factors identified by existing theories-individual personalities, political cultures and institutions, economic conditions, and even international factorsare plausibly relevant to explaining backsliding.”
boostedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we can conceive of social capital as facilitating collective action and hence raising the costs of suppression.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“On the other hand, despite the existence of six well-populated theory families, we do not have an obvious theoretical framework for explaining backsliding.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
In the paper
“When leverage and linkage are high, there is strong and consistent pressure for democratization; when both are low, there is weak external pressure; and when they are mixed (high/low or low/high), there is weaker and more intermittent pressure.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Levitsky & Way (2006, 2010)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“many studies still suffer from the persistence of unexamined endogeneity”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“It appears likely to us that under some coalitional dynamics, major political actors are no longer satisfied playing strictly by the rules, losing gracefully, and competing again in the next round.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Whether they can be constrained or whether they can continue unimpeded until democracy exists in name only depends on balances of power.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
In the paper
“High levels of foreign aid are thus associated with measures of backsliding”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Djankov et al. (2008)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
- Not matched
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“across the theory families we see evidence of causal heterogeneity, both spatial and longitudinal.”
plainconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
In the paper
“Dahl conceived of the two cost functions as monotonic and inversely related to one another, such that increases in the cost of toleration were exactly matched by decreases in the cost of suppression.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Dahl (1971)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Not matched
In the paper
“A study by Hyde (2007) is the strongest demonstration that international monitoring of elections can deter electoral fraud, thus influencing democratization.”
What the sources say
- Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Hyde (2007) source
boosteddirectSingle case- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: unclear — It is unclear whether the paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“The increased incidence of democratic backsliding has been met with a similar increase in scholarly interest”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“the mechanisms by which international factors exercise influence may differ from country to country.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: fails — The paper may give no reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper may give no reason why it holds.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Subsequent research expands on the idea that incumbents and international monitors are engaged in a complex strategic game with uncertain results.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“There is mixed support for this hypothesis, with findings very sensitive to how the statistical model is constructed.”
plaincorrelational- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it. It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“we see space for some shared analytic frameworks that can better orient research projects, allowing communication across theoretical boundaries.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“much is to be done to develop a coherent theoretical understanding of this phenomenon.”
plain- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: fails — It may be too vague to check against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. It may be too vague to check against evidence.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“This helped polarize Congress and also furthered the radicalization of the modernRepublican Party.”
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
It may state two separate claims as one.
A conclusion the paper draws from its own results — it cites no other source for it, so there is none to check. The quote shows it is in the paper.
In the paper
“Diffuse channels of international influence may thus affect the likelihood of democratic transitions and durability.”
hedgedconditional- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: fails — The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim. The paper’s conclusions may not depend on it.
In the paper
“Large-scale aid reduces a ten-point democracy index by as much as one point.”
What the sources say
- Not matchedcites Djankov et al. (2008)
Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.
plaindirect- Asserted: passes — The authors put it forward as true.
- Checkable: passes — It can be checked against evidence.
- Load-bearing: passes — The paper’s conclusions depend on it.
- Based: passes — The paper gives a reason why it holds.
Probably not a substantial claim.
- Not matched
The paper relies on this without support.
The link between economic prosperity and democracy has sharply attenuated over the past several decades.
“First, the link between economic prosperity and democracy has been sharply attenuated over the past several decades.”
The paper relies on this without support.
The value of admission to the democracy club has declined.
“A second trend is that not only the price but also the value of admissiontothedemocracyclubhasdeclined.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Competition, participation, and accountability are the three relevant dimensions of democratic governance for coding backsliding.
“Coding a case of backsliding requires degradation in at least two of these three dimensions of democratic governance: competition, participation, and accountability.”
The paper relies on this without support.
Military coups are no longer desirable in the relevant environment.
“in an environment in which military coups are no longer desirable”
The paper relies on this without support.
Democratic backsliding requires reversion along at least two of three dimensions of democracy.
“Consistent with a conceptual approach that requires reversion along at least two of three dimensions of democracy”
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“In essence, incompetence leads to poor performance that can undermine legitimacy and open the door to erosion (Waldner & Lust, 2018), especially because voters do not necessarily perceive the violation of democratic principles as an indication of incompetence (i.e., voters view competence and antidemocratic behaviors as distinct dimensions) (Frederiksen, 2022a).”
From How to study democratic backsliding (2024) · cites this paper as Waldner & Lust, 2018
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe cited source says what the claim attributes to it.
In the citing paper
“it also often occurs without clear visibility, which makes it difficult to diagnose (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018;Waldner & Lust, 2018).”
From How to study democratic backsliding (2024) · cites this paper as Waldner & Lust, 2018
Citations
Cites
Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy
Stern, F., & Putnam, R. D. (1993) · Foreign Affairs · doi:10.2307/20045657 · Cited by 11,292
Political Order in Changing Societies.
Zolberg, A. R., & Huntington, S. P. (1969) · Midwest Journal of Political Science · doi:10.2307/2110237 · Cited by 5,836
Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R. Y. (1994) · Princeton University Press eBooks · doi:10.2307/j.ctt7s8r7 · Cited by 5,597
Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2005) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511510809 · Cited by 4,810
The Logic of Political Survival
Bueno de Mesquita, B., Smith, A., Siverson, R. M., & Morrow, J. D. (2003) · doi:10.7551/mitpress/4292.001.0001 · Cited by 4,217
Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2010) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511781353 · Cited by 3,459
Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics
Sartori, G. (1970) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.2307/1958356 · Cited by 3,318
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies
O'Donnell, G. A., & Schmitter, P. C. (2013) · Cited by 2,961
Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2001) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511790881 · Cited by 2,737
Bermeo, N. (2016) · Journal of Democracy · doi:10.1353/jod.2016.0012 · Cited by 2,331
Research works printed but not linked: 6
- Ahmed A, 2014, APSA Comp. Democratiz. Newsl., 12, 2, 12
- Boix C, 2002, World Politics, 55, 515
- Dahl R, 1971, Polyarchy: Regime and Opposition
- Lust E, 2015, Rep., May 13, Inst. Int.
- Mickey R, 2017, Foreign Aff, 96, 20
- Superville D, Swanson E. 2017. Poll shows most doubt Trump's respect for institutions. Associated Press , June 14. http://www.apnorc.org/news-media/Pages/Poll-shows-most-doubt-Trump%E2%80%99s-respect-for-institutions.aspx
Cited by
Sorted by citations
A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it?
Lührmann, A., & Lindberg, S. I. (2019) · Democratization · doi:10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029 · Cited by 1,528
GRAHAM, M. H., & SVOLIK, M. W. (2020) · American Political Science Review · doi:10.1017/s0003055420000052 · Cited by 1,044
Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World
Haggard, S., & Kaufman, R. (2021) · doi:10.1017/9781108957809 · Cited by 464
Democratic Backsliding, Populism, and Public Administration
Bauer, M. W., & Becker, S. (2020) · Perspectives on Public Management and Governance · doi:10.1093/ppmgov/gvz026 · Cited by 307
Integrating the Civil–Military Relations Subfield
Brooks, R. A. (2019) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-060518-025407 · Cited by 192
Metadata
- Authors
- Waldner, D., & Lust, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Virginia (US)
- University of Gothenburg (SE)
- Venue
- Annual Review of Political Science
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2018-05-11
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 93-113
- ISSN
- 1094-2939 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-1577
- OpenAlex
- W2784191913
- Cited by
- 889
- References
- 88
- Citations by year
- 2026: 153 · 2025: 156 · 2024: 159 · 2023: 138 · 2022: 96 · 2021: 84 · 2020: 53 · 2019: 40 · 2018: 10
- FWCI
- 16.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Annual Review of Political Science (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- United States Agency for International Development
- Yale University
- Northwestern University
- Göteborgs Universitet
- 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 › Political Science Research and Education
- Keywords
- democratic backsliding, democratic transition, democratic consolidation, democratic breakdown, authoritarian resilience, coding scheme
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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