Linkage Politics and Democratic Regressions

While scholars have tended to view international factors as generally supportive of democracy, recently it has been more widely recognised that international actors frequently have the effect of undermining democratic governance and encouraging authoritarian transitions. This paper examines the role that international linkages have on the politics of democratic regression, with a particular focus on the breakdown of democratic regimes (rather than the partial decline of political openness in advanced democracies). In particular, the paper addresses the ways in which two forms of linkage (linkage to the West, and non-Western linkage) can contribute to democratic collapse. The former can reinforce authoritarian momentum if would-be autocrats have strong linkages to Western powers that prioritise strategic interests over normative outcomes (a trait long seen in US foreign policy), while the latter involves the influence of linkages between states in regions where democratic norms are often weak or, at the very least, highly contested (such as in North Africa and the Middle East). The paper uses Levitsky and Way’s more optimistic treatment of international linkages as a point of departure, and identifies a range of diverse mechanisms through which linkage politics can contribute to democratic rollback rather than democratic advancement. These mechanisms include the ways in which international linkages can a) lower the expected costs associated with the violation of democratic norms, b) create domestic constituencies for authoritarian forms of government, and c) shift the balance of power in favour of authoritarian rather than democratic political elites and social forces. The paper addresses a number of episodes of democratic regression in the post-Cold War world to illustrate the mechanisms in practice, including the military coup and mass killings in Egypt in 2013, the divided international reaction to the coup in Honduras in 2009, and Russian support for democratic rollback in Ukraine.