Tag Archives: Venezuela

Combatting backsliding: what works?

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The Constitution Unit held an event in May, at which three expert panellists discussed the rise of democratic backsliding internationally and considered key domestic and international interventions which might help to combat this trend. In the first of a two-part series, Sophie Andrews-McCarroll summarises the discussion from the main portion of the event. A separate blog, covering the Q&A section of the event, will be published on 16 June.

Discussions about the health of democracy internationally are occurring more and more frequently, amid worrying reports of a global decline in democratic standards. These concerns relate to the problem of increasingly prolific democratic backsliding – a process by which a legitimately elected leader challenges democratic norms and institutions, and deliberately begins to dismantle checks and balances on the executive.

To discuss these challenges, and to examine possible solutions, the Constitution Unit convened a panel discussion on combatting democratic backsliding, held on 23 May 2023. This event was chaired by Meg Russell, who was joined by experts Dr Seema Shah (Head of the Democracy Assessment Unit at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance); Ken Godfrey (Executive Director of the European Partnership for Democracy); and Professor Kim Lane Scheppele, (Laurance S Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Princeton University).

The below is a summary of the speakers’ opening remarks. There will subsequently be another blog detailing the subsequent panel discussion and audience questions.

Seema Shah

Dr Shah opened the session by addressing the concept of democratic backsliding. A number of problems have arisen in defining the term. ‘Backsliding’ has been used, and is still widely used by practitioners today, to discuss a variety of general declines in democratic health – but these definitions can present challenges for those collecting data to measure the concept. International IDEA has defined backsliding as significant declines over a five-year period in checks on government; in credible elections; and in civil liberties. Academics and practitioners do not necessarily use these same categories. What has been most useful is the consensus that backsliding commonly refers to the purposeful dismantling of democratic building blocks from within by democratically elected leaders.

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The anatomy of democratic backsliding: could it happen here?

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The term ‘backsliding’ has been coined to describe the phenomenon by which leaders who come to office within a democratic framework, only to attack some of democracy’s core features when in office. Stephan Haggard and Robert R Kaufman outline some of the key features of ‘backsliding’, discuss how and why it can take hold, and whether there are warning signs that such a process could happen in the UK. 

During the presidency of Donald Trump, American democracy suffered the most serious challenge it has faced since the country’s Civil War. Trump and his administration inflamed divisions that jeopardise the rights of women and minorities; attacked the press; defied oversight; sought to stack the judiciary and law enforcement agencies with partisan loyalists; challenged the integrity of the electoral system, and ultimately stoked a violent challenge to the democratic transfer of power. These threats were different from conventional forms of democratic reversion, such as the coup d’etat. Instead, they reflected a more insidious process that has come to be known as ‘backsliding,’ in which illiberal leaders rise to power within a democratic framework and attack core features of democracy from within.

Because the United States occupies a unique position at the heart of the international system, backsliding there commanded worldwide attention. But the United States was hardly alone. In a new study, we identified at least 15 other countries in which duly-elected democratic governments recently moved along similar paths. Not all of these paths lead all the way to autocracy; in the United States, democracy survived the Trump era badly damaged but intact. But depending on the metric used, more than half of these cases slid into ‘competitive authoritarian rule’: systems in which elections persisted but were manifestly rigged. Notably, although many of the failed democracies we examined were weakly institutionalised at the outset (for example, Bolivia, Ukraine, and Zambia), others such as Hungary, Poland, and Venezuela were once considered relatively robust democratic regimes.

These cases raise the question of whether similar adverse developments could occur in other seemingly stable democracies. Could they perhaps even happen in the UK? 

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Student protests in Venezuela: how is the government manipulating the Constitution for political ends?

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The Venezuelan Constitution is ranked fifth in the world in terms of the number of rights it guarantees. Yet the use of the constitution as a political crutch only underlines the government’s failure to uphold and respect these rights, writes Annabelle Huet.

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Image Credit: MARQUINAM

In February 2014 student protests against the democratic legitimacy of the Venezuelan government and high crime rates erupted in Caracas. Two months on over 40 people have died, more than 70 have reported being abused and the opposition leader has been jailed. The Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, accused the international community of conspiring to overthrow his government in an op-ed in the New York Times and qualified the actions of those inciting violence in Venezuela as “unconstitutional”. Yet it is interesting to note how the government has consistently referred to the constitution not only when denouncing the actions of the opposition but also when seeking to justify its own actions. Examining the constitution might therefore help us gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the conflict.

1. Comparative perspective

According to data collected by the Comparative Constitutions Project (CCP), the Venezuelan Constitution is ranked fifth in the world in terms of the number of rights it guarantees. In total, it protects 81 of the 116 rights coded by the CCP, which is consistent with the Latin American tradition of constitutionalising rights. It also contains some features which are unusual even for a Latin American constitution, such as gender inclusive pronouns and nouns for job titles and the recognition of the right to social security for homeworkers. However, in order for rights to be fully protected, the country needs a strong and independent judiciary willing to enforce them. Unfortunately, Venezuela scores very poorly on the CCP scale for judicial independence (1 out of 6), especially when compared to other Latin American countries such as Peru (6 out of 6), Bolivia and Chile (4 out of 6).

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