What is democratic resilience? Why is it important?

    Democratization is a dynamic process, and different stages can present various challenges. Therefore, in conducting research related to democratization, it is essential to first understand the changes at different stages in order to gain a relatively clear picture of the entire pattern. For example, Haggard and Kaufmann (2021) found that democratic regimes are widely threatened globally, including the third wave of authoritarianism, coups, and democratic erosion. Their study revealed that between 2006 and 2018, 16% to 54% of countries experienced varying degrees of democratic decline.

    Additionally, some scholars have found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, certain governments formed through democratic elections have used public health as a pretext to increase the power of executive branches, reduce parliamentary participation through emergency orders, decrease parliamentary oversight and accountability, and restrict individual freedoms of movement. Consequently, this affects the checks and balances of democracy, leading to its decline. These instances highlight a worrying trend where democratic backsliding appears to be prevalent.

    In this context, how can we prevent a country's democratic level from declining? Or can a country return to its previous level of democracy after it has been impacted? Therefore, democratic resilience has gradually become an important issue. But what exactly is "democratic resilience"?

    The concept of democratic resilience can be traced back to 1999 when the academic journal Democratization published a special issue on democratic resilience. The main concern at that time was whether a democratic system could continue to operate under adverse conditions. Scholars such as Volacu and Aligica (2023:622) raised this question. Burnell and Calvert (1999) proposed the "Attachment Account," suggesting that the more widespread and stronger citizens' attitudes towards democracy are in a society, the stronger the society's democratic resilience. Subsequently, different scholars have had varying perspectives on democratic resilience. For example, Boese et al. (2021) consider democratic resilience as the sustainability of democratic institutions and practices. Until today, scholars have not reached a unified consensus on democratic resilience. However, recent research has seen attempts to propose operational definitions. Generally, democratic resilience is viewed as the society's efforts to maintain democratic institutions and their functioning when facing specific threats or broader crises. For instance, Merkel and Lührmann (2021:872-4) define democratic resilience as the ability of a political system to prevent or respond to challenges without losing its democratic characteristics. This includes maintaining stability in the face of external or internal challenges, adjusting internally to address challenges, and eventually recovering from them.

    From the definition provided, it is evident that democratic resilience involves maintaining the existing democratic system and preventing democratic regress when it is threatened. This aligns with the concept of "onset resilience" advocated by Boese et al. (2021), which emphasizes the importance of maintaining the democratic system. Additionally, democratic resilience also encompasses the ability to restore democracy, as suggested by Boese et al. (2021) with the concept of "breakdown resilience." This refers to the ability of society or the political system to avoid democratic collapse even when there are trends towards authoritarianism in the country.

    According to Holloway and Manwaring (2023), democratic restoration refers to the resurgence of democracy after a crisis. Therefore, some scholars argue that it is necessary to propose strategies to strengthen democratic resilience from various aspects such as institutions, political parties, civil society, and political communities in order to prevent potential threats to democracy and maintain or safeguard the democratic system (Merkel and Lührmann, 2021).

Author: 徐俊明 國立臺灣大學政治學系博士候選人

Reference:
Boese. V. A, et al. (2021) How democracies prevail: democratic resilience as a two-stage process, Democratization, 28:5, 885-907.

Burnell, P., & Calvert, P. (1999). The resilience of democracy: An introduction. Democratization, 6(1),1–32.

Haggard, S., & Kaufmann, R. (2021). Backsliding. Democratic regress in the contemporary world. Cambridge University Press.

Holloway, Josh & Rob Manwaring (2023) How well does ‘resilience’ apply to. democracy? A systematic review, Contemporary Politics, 29:1, 68-92

Merkel. W & A. Lührmann (2021) Resilience of democracies: responses to illiberal and authoritarian challenges, Democratization, 28:5, 869-884.

Volacu. A & Paul Dragos Aligica (2023) Conceptualising democratic resilience: a minimalist account, Contemporary Politics, 29:5, 621-639