Democratic Erosion and Reactions

Abstract

Democratic institutions around the world are facing growing pressures from within. Debates over judicial authority, executive power, political representation, civil resistance, and public trust increasingly raise fundamental questions about what makes democratic rule legitimate and how should democracies respond when that legitimacy is challenged. This panel examines the dynamics of democratic erosion and the diverse reactions it provokes. The four papers approach these questions from complementary perspectives. The first explores tensions between majoritarian rule and constitutional constraints, highlighting how liberal democracies seek to protect themselves through courts, rights, and norms, while simultaneously generating new disputes about the location of political authority. The second investigates the processes through which democratic decline may evolve into more systematic forms of authoritarian transformation, asking how we can recognize and resist such developments before they become entrenched. The third examines the normative foundations of political resistance, considering when civil disobedience and other forms of contestation can be justified in flawed democracies, electoral autocracies, and authoritarian regimes. Finally, the last addresses the relationship between democratic legitimacy and public acceptance, arguing that democratic procedures alone may be insufficient when citizens no longer perceive political institutions as genuinely representative. Together, these contributions illuminate the fragile and contested character of democratic legitimacy. The panel seeks to deepen our understanding of democratic erosion, authoritarian drift, political resistance, and the conditions under which democratic systems can maintain the trust and authority upon which they ultimately depend.

Title	Details
Liberalism, Majoritarianism, Jurisprudence, and the Risks of Democratic Slide: Observations on Popper, Rawls, and Aharon Barak	View Paper Details
Regime Change and the Authoritarian Drift	View Paper Details
Disobedience in the Real World: Justified Resistance in Flawed Democracies and Electoral Autocracies	View Paper Details
Democratic legitimacy and social discontent	View Paper Details