On the very first day of my “Democratic Erosion” seminar, I voiced my unease about the state of democracy in the Sahel—a region currently experiencing an unprecedented wave of political instability. Over the past five years, nine successful coups have swept through West and Central Africa, toppling lawfully elected leaders in Sudan, Mali, Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Gabon. Troublingly, this series of violent military takeovers has created the largest zone of junta rule in the world. As a student of international politics as well as Sub-Saharan Africa, I was certain that these events were inextricably linked to the concept of democratic erosion — a term frequently discussed in the context of the rise of illiberalism in Hungary or attempts at election interference in the United States, for example.
To my surprise, my professor declared that these coups were not emblematic of democratic erosion. He explained erosion manifested in a far more insidious manner, where gradual shifts in institutional integrity and democratic norms, rather than abrupt regime change, give rise to executive consolidation. Scholars like Nancy Bermeo, David Waldner, and Ellen Lust underscore this distinction. They clarify that the concept of democratic backsliding was created to differentiate more inconspicuous threats to democracy from outright military takeovers. In the words of Waldner and Lust, “The convergence of what we call WINDs, or weakly institutionalized new democracies, and the relative decline of the coup-induced military regime provides the grounds for the concept of democratic backsliding….Democratic backsliding connotes a process related to yet still distinct from reversion to autocracy.”
However, after studying erosion for nearly a semester, I am no longer satisfied with this framework.
This perspective, though validated by specific case studies, seems to ignore the varying implications of democratic decline across different contexts. In this essay, I will expand and diverge upon the existing theories that address the impacts of democratic erosion. Coups must be reconsidered as a symptom of democratic backsliding rather than an entirely separate phenomenon. Erosion can lead to more institutional backsliding, or in some instances stimulate democratic recovery, however, I add that in cases of extreme poverty and terrorist violence, erosion can lead to regime change as illustrated by the recent blaze of coups in the Sahel region of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Briefly, as commonly seen erosion can simply lead to more erosion. Vannessa Williamson from the Brooking Institution explains generally how this process manifests itself, writing “Elections still occur, but legislative and procedural changes make it harder to vote, harder for challengers to seriously contest incumbents, or harder to turn electoral victory into substantive policy impact. This process is often incremental and episodic.” For example, in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used constitutional changes to consolidate power. He gained control over judicial appointments and transferred oversight of political parties from the courts to the legislature. In 2014, legislation allowed the justice minister to appoint judges and control disciplinary boards, leading to the removal of over 3,000 judges within six months.
We also know that in some cases where declining democracies benefit from resilient institutions or strong opposition forces, erosion can result in recovery. As Bermeo explains, “One set of institutions or ideas can correct others. As long as some electoral competition takes place, power can be clawed back. When civil society is allowed some space, countermobilization can occur. Because backsliding reflects incentive structures, changed incentives can reverse negative trends.” As an example, in Honordous, despite pervasive corruption, packed courts, and changes to term limits, opposition forces successfully leveraged power-sharing, grassroots organizing, and active participation in local and national elections to decisively end the National Party’s 24-year rule and secure the presidency.
Less frequently studied, however, are the cases in which erosion doesn’t mount to either of these two outcomes. In “perfect storms” of terrorist violence and economic insecurity, erosion can trigger regime change as displayed by the “coup belt” in West and Central Africa.
Evidence suggests a long history of democratic backsliding in the Sahel region. For example, Guinea’s Alpha Conde meddled in elections and brutally repressed his dissent. In 2020, Condé won a third term after a contentious constitutional amendment and electoral process that sparked protests in which dozens of his opponents lost their lives. In Gabon, right before the 2023 coup, elections were set to extend the rule of the Bongo family, who had led the country for more than five decades. In Chad, Mahamat Idriss Débythe, son of the former president of Chad, rose to power in a highly-contented transition and amended the constitution to extend his executive tenure and thwart institutional checks and balances.
Coupled with jihadist violence and extreme poverty, this history of executive consolidation fanned the flames of regime change. To explain further, coups are now largely confined to the world’s poorest nations. Each country under junta rule in the Sahel is among those with the lowest Human Development Index, defined as “average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge, and a decent standard of living.” Data from the International Monetary Fund also shows that Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Sudan all have a GDP per capita of less than $1000, and Guinea and Chad have approximately that amount. For comparison, the United States has a GDP per capita of $86,600. Moreover, as Megan Duzor and Brian Williamson from Voice of America explain, nations grappling with persistent terrorism and insurgencies are markedly more susceptible to coups. The Sahel is currently the global epicenter of terrorist violence and is responsible for an alarming 43% of all terrorism-related deaths in 2022. In Burkina Faso, for example, the country has lost 40 percent of its territory to jihadist armed groups.
Importantly, it is the combination of economic insecurity and violence that differentiates nations that succumb to coups from those that do not. For example, while other West African countries like Togo, Mauritania, and Benin also face poverty, they have not experienced the same intensity of violence and have managed to maintain consolidated democratic governments. In this same vein, erosion never leads to regime change in developed regions like Europe or the Western Hemisphere, not because democratic backsliding cannot culminate in collapse, but because the preconditions for such upheaval—extreme poverty, endemic violence, and fragile institutions—simply do not exist in these contexts.
So what do we gain from this new theory? And what do we lose from its inclusion?
By adopting this theory, we gain the inclusion of Africa and other countries with unique post-colonial, developmental, or geographic contexts. Our analysis of democratic erosion can reach rightfully beyond the traditional focus on Europe and the Western hemisphere. Though some may argue that expanding the framework of democratic erosion to include regime change could dilute detections of subtle or incremental shifts in democratic decline, a comparative lens will offer greater insight. Instead of forcing comparisons between vastly different contexts—like Denmark and Burkina Faso for example—it may be more productive to analyze democratic decline within clusters of nations facing similar historical, political, or socio-economic conditions.
Works Cited
Aliriza, Bulent. “Erdogan Takes Total Control of ‘New Turkey.’” CSIS, 18 July 2018, www.csis.org/analysis/erdogan-takes-total-control-new-turkey.
Bermeo, Nancy. “On Democratic Backsliding.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 27 no. 1, 2016, p. 5-19. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jod.2016.0012.
“Chad: Political Transition Ends with Déby’s Election.” Human Rights Watch, 13 May 2024, www.hrw.org/news/2024/05/13/chad-political-transition-ends-debys-election.
Condé’s Removal Clears the Way for Army to Regain Control of Guinea | Crisis Group, 9 Sept. 2021, www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/guinea/alpha-conde-ouvert-la-voie-au-retour-de-larmee-la-tete-de-son-pays.
Demuynck, Méryl, and Mathis Böhm. “Unravelling the Niger Coup and Its Implications for Violent Extremism in the Sahel.” ICCT, 4 Aug. 2023, www.icct.nl/publication/unravelling-niger-coup-and-its-implications-violent-extremism-sahel.
Duzor, Megan, and Brian Williamson. “By the Numbers: Coups in Africa.” By The Numbers: Coups in Africa – VOA Special Report, 3 Oct. 2023, projects.voanews.com/african-coups/.
Freeman, Will, and Lucas Perelló. “The Long Game: The Opposition Wins in Honduras.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 33, no. 2, 2022, pp. 118-132. ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/long-game-opposition-wins-honduras/docview/2812064305/se-2, doi:https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2022.0022.
“GDP per Capita, Current Prices .” IMF, www.imf.org/external/datamapper. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.
Green, Mark A. “Coups in Africa, Even in ECOWAS.” Wilson Center, 26 Sept. 2023, www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/coups-africa-even-ecowas.
Human Development Index (HDI) by Country 2024, worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/hdi-by-country. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.
Lambert, Claude. “Africa’s Coup Calamity: What Happened to Deterrence?” War on the Rocks, 26 Feb. 2024, warontherocks.com/2024/02/africas-coup-calamity-what-happened-to-deterrence/.
Lawal, Shola. “West Africa’s ‘Coup Belt’: Did Mali’s 2020 Army Takeover Change the Region?” Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 27 Aug. 2024, www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/27/west-africas-coup-belt-did-malis-2020-army-takeover-change-the-region.
“Understanding the Crisis of Democracy in West Africa and the Sahel.” GCSP Publication, 19 Oct. 2023, www.gcsp.ch/publications/understanding-crisis-democracy-west-africa-and-sahel.
Waldner, David and Lust, Ellen, Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding (May 2018). Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 21, pp. 93-113, 2018, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3197099 or http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/2annurev-polisci-050517-114628
Williamson, Vanessa. “Four Things to Know about Democratic Erosion.” Brookings, 18 Oct. 2023, www.brookings.edu/articles/four-things-to-know-about-democratic-erosion/.
This is a very interesting rethinking of the way that we view coups in the study of democratic erosion. I agree that the renaissance of coups, especially in the Sahel in recent years, deserves to be discussed more in the field because coups can oftentimes be a continuation of backsliding trends in democracies. When we first started this course, I remember learning that democratic erosion hardly leads to coups, but it seems that the pipeline of erosion to coups, or at least attempts, has been increasing in recent years.
I think that you are correct in the fact that the factors of extreme poverty, endemic violence, and fragile institutions play major roles in coups, and this is a clear trend outside of the Sahel too, take Haiti and Venezuela for example. But I am wondering what the role of attempted coups is in your framework. These conditions have led to successful coups in the Sahel, but why have we also seen attempted coups in countries such as arguably Brazil and the United States, and recently in South Korea? These places don’t have extreme poverty, violence, and of course, the lack of fragile institutions allowed these democracies to survive, but if there is no great amount of preexisting turmoil, where do these attempts fit into your framework, and how do you explain their existence?
Overall though, I completely agree with the benefit of discussing the role that democratic erosion plays in coups so that we can identify warning signs in backsliding regimes, especially as coup attempts become more common in the new wave of illiberalism.
Hi Amani! I find your reworking of the definition of democratic erosion to be totally fascinating. This comes back to the same issues we identified when discussing whether to adopt democratic stagnation under the umbrella of democratic erosion. I think the way forward is to treat each of these theoretical frameworks as a lens that is best equipped to magnify some aspects of a case and hide others.
From my understanding, your proposed definition would treat coups as cases of democratic erosion occurring under the specific conditions of extreme poverty, endemic violence, and fragile institutions. I must admit, I can see pushback to this framework; namely, it may invalidate the very purpose of discussing democratic erosion. If the point of the original framework was to differentiate stealth authoritarianism from coups, does the inclusion of coups negate the usefulness of the framework entirely? But I can also see how a comparative focus could reveal new patterns – as opposed to focusing on the role of individual authoritarians and institutions, how do countries with similar cultural backgrounds and facing similar challenges handle threats to democratic integrity?
I really have to commend you for putting a critical eye to a definition that I took as gospel. I aspire to ask critical questions about these definitions and frameworks when I am applying them in my own work – as you put it, “what do we gain from this new theory? And what do we lose?”