Undermining democracy by democratic means: how can we stop it?

Democracy in Question?

As the results of the 2020 US election are trickling in, we are taking a look at how laws - and notably electoral laws - can be used to undermine constitutional systems from within. Our guest Professor Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University) helps us understand how a new kind of elected leader is using their democratic mandates to take the whole system apart, how they are getting away with it and what we can do to stop it.

Democracy in Question? is brought to you by:

• The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: IWM

• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: AHCD

• The Excellence Chair and Soft Authoritarianism Research Group in Bremen: WOC

• The Podcast Production Company Earshot Strategies

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Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna: @IWM_Vienna

Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in Geneva: @AHDCentre

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Kim Lane Scheppele. (2018). Autocratic Legalism. The University of Chicago Law Review, 85(2): 545-583.

• Kriszta Kovács and Kim Lane Scheppele. (2018). The Fragility of an Independent Judiciary: Lessons from Hungary and Poland – and the European Union. Journal of Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 51: 189-200.

• Laurent Pech and Kim Lane Scheppele. (2017). Illiberalism Within: Rule of Law Backsliding in the European Union. Cambridge Yearbook of European Law.

GLOSSARY

What is autocratic legalism?

(00:00:00 or p. 1 in the transcript)

Kim Lane Scheppele describes autocratic legalism as a process where charismatic new leaders are elected by democratic publics and then use their electoral mandates to dismantle by law the constitutional systems they inherited. These leaders aim to consolidate power and to remain in office indefinitely, eventually eliminating the ability of democratic publics to exercise their basic democratic rights, to hold leaders accountable, and to change their leaders peacefully. Learn more.

What is soft authoritarianism?

(00:01:30 or p. 2 in the transcript)

The term soft authoritarianism is used to describe countries which have multiple parties and elections, but where the regime keeps the media and influential institutions on a short leash, exercising its power behind the ostensive freedom of choice.Source.

What is autocracy?

(00:02:30 or p. 2 in the transcript)

Autocracy is a system of government in which supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one person, the autocrat, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control.

Who is Viktor Orbán?

(00:02:30 or p. 2 in the transcript)

Viktor Orbán has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010. He also is President of Fidesz, a national conservative political party. Learn more.