Steven Taylor’s post “Has the Constitution Failed?” takes on Dan Nexon’s argument that the United States has fallen into a state of competitive authoritarianism. Since neither Steven nor Dan define the term, which is well known in the comparative politics literature, some readers were confused.
The concept was first described by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Wray in an April 2002 article in the Journal of Democracy titled “Elections Without Democracy: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism.”
In competitive authoritarian regimes, formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining and exercising political authority. Incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent, however, that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy. Examples include Croatia under Franjo Tudjman, Serbia under Slobodan Miloševiæ, Russia under Vladimir Putin, Ukraine under Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma, Peru under Alberto Fujimori, and post-1995 Haiti, as well as Albania, Armenia, Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, and Zambia through much of the 1990s. Although scholars have characterized many of these regimes as partial or “diminished” forms of democracy, we agree with Juan Linz that they may be better described as a (diminished) form of authoritarianism.
Competitive authoritarianism must be distinguished from democracy on the one hand and full-scale authoritarianism on the other. Modern democratic regimes all meet four minimum criteria: 1) Executives and legislatures are chosen through elections that are open, free, and fair; 2) virtually all adults possess the right to vote; 3) political rights and civil liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom to criticize the government without reprisal, are broadly protected; and 4) elected authorities possess real authority to govern, in that they are not subject to the tutelary control of military or clerical leaders. Although even fully democratic regimes may at times violate one or more of these criteria, such violations are not broad or systematic enough to seriously impede democratic challenges to incumbent governments. In other words, they do not fundamentally alter the playing field between government and opposition.
In competitive authoritarian regimes, by contrast, violations of these criteria are both frequent enough and serious enough to create an uneven playing field between government and opposition. Although elections are regularly held and are generally free of massive fraud, incumbents routinely abuse state resources, deny the opposition adequate media coverage, harass opposition candidates and their supporters, and in some cases manipulate electoral results. Journalists, opposition politicians, and other government critics may be spied on, threatened, harassed, or arrested. Members of the opposition may be jailed, exiled, or—less frequently—even assaulted or murdered. Regimes characterized by such abuses cannot be called democratic. [footnote references omitted for ease of readability]
There has, obviously, been a whole lot written about the subject since then, including a 2020 follow-up by Levitsky and Way titled “The New Competitive Authoritarianism.” I’m sticking with the original, though, because it predates the debate over whether the United States falls into this category.
The range of examples somewhat muddies the water, in that casual readers will rightly note that we’re not Putin’s Russia. But it’s worth noting that neither was Putin’s Russia in 2002. The gradual erosion of rights and consolidation of power over time can make regimes worse and, indeed, it’s likely that today’s Russia is fully authoritarian.
Looking at Levitsky and Wray’s four criteria for being fully democratic, however, and it’s rather clear that the United States does not quite measure up and, indeed, hasn’t in some time.
1) Executives and legislatures are chosen through elections that are open, free, and fair
One can debate the fairness of the Electoral College system, which has produced two minority vote winners in the last quarter-century, but I would argue that our presidential elections have been most open and free. Ditto the wildly unrepresentative nature of the Senate; we’ve at least had largely open and fair elections for those seats.
Even aside from the systemic unrepresentativeness of those institutions, which we (particularly Steven) have written a lot about over the years, there is also the human element. Partisan gerrymandering has made the House of Representatives wildly problematic. Add to that various voter suppression schemes, and it’s hard to argue that we live up to this standard.
2) virtually all adults possess the right to vote
If we take for granted that only citizens should vote, we’ve largely met this criterion, at least since the Civil Rights Act of 1965. We expanded it further in 1972, lowering the age of adulthood from 21 to 18. One can debate whether the incarcerated, which are disproportionately Black and Hispanic, should be deprived of the franchise. And we incarcerate citizens at a much higher rate than other democracies. And then there’s the fact that felons who have served their time are often still deprived of their vote. Oh, and there’s the aforementioned voter suppression effort.
3) political rights and civil liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom to criticize the government without reprisal, are broadly protected
I would have said we fully meet this standard a few months ago. Now, not so much.
4) elected authorities possess real authority to govern, in that they are not subject to the tutelary control of military or clerical leaders.
As written (and I’ll defer to Steven’s expertise as a comparativist), I would say we still meet this qualification. The military remains subordinate to civil authorities and, while church leaders are influential in our politics, they have never exercised direct governing power. One could, however, make the strong argument that, since the President is currently riding roughshod over Congressional authority without consequence, the legislature lacks a real authority to govern.
