Corruption, populism, and polarization: unraveling the causes of democratic backsliding in 68 countries

Abstract

This thesis examines the dynamics of democratic backsliding, focusing on the potential impacts of affective polarization, populism, and political corruption, with inflation as a control variable. Utilizing three primary datasets: the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, the V-Dem’s Party Dataset, and the World Bank’s Global Database of Inflation (GDI), the study conducts both univariate and multivariate regression analyses. The findings confirm that affective polarization significantly predicts changes in both electoral and deliberative democracy, supporting the hypothesis that increased polarization can lead to democratic backsliding. However, the relationships between populism and liberal democracy, and political corruption and egalitarian democracy, were not statistically significant at the conventional levels. Despite these limitations, this study contributes to the literature on democratic backsliding by highlighting the potential impact of political corruption, affective polarization, populism, and inflation on various forms of democracy. The findings underscore the complexity of democratic backsliding and the need for further research in this area. As democratic backsliding continues to be a pressing issue in many parts of the world, it is important to understand these dynamics. Future research could benefit from expanding the dataset to include more countries and a longer timeframe. This would increase the number of observations and potentially lead to more robust findings. Additionally, future studies could consider incorporating other variables that might influence democratic backsliding, such as institutional strength, and cultural factors.