Breaking BAD: Understanding Backlash Against Democrcay

Lise Rakner
Professor at Department of Comparative Politics
University of Bergen

Across the globe, democracy is challenged. Earlier optimism about a final wave of democratization and the global consolidation of democracy as humanity's penultimate political form (Huntington, 1991; Fukuyama, 1992) is now being called into question.

In the last decade, regimes in the developing world have been fiercely pushing back against, and rescinding, key democratic rights such as access to information, the ability to join political parties, and enjoyment of equal social rights for all people. Importantly, the current backlash differs from previous periods of retrenchment in its scale, scope, and degree, and its breadth suggests that acceptance of democracy as the world's dominant form of government and of an international system built on democratic ideals is under threat. We now understand that the fall of repressive authoritarian regimes does not necessarily procure lasting and consolidated democratic regimes, and that democratic backsliding and authoritarian backlashes are becoming increasingly common. 

In this talk, Professor Rakner will discuss the scope and trends of the democratic backlash, its causes and effects in terms of how restrictive measures impact citizens' abilities to participate in political decision-making and to contest political power.

The lecture is part of the Bergen Summer Research School and is open to the public.

Welcome!