Democratic Backsliding in Turkey and Hungary

Although there is a huge literature on why democratic regimes collapse, we have a limited understanding of the process through which such an outcome occurs (Bermeo 2016). This question is especially noteworthy for cases that have experienced democratic backsliding over the past decade to get stuck eventually in a transitory state between democracy and authoritarianism. How and why do an increasing number of cases undergo democratic backsliding around the globe? This paper addresses this question through a structured comparison of Turkish and Hungarian political regimes that experienced a dramatic shift from democratic rule to competitive authoritarianism under the rule of right-wing populist parties. It argues that the rapid electoral rise of two right-wing populist parties - namely the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) - that captured near two-thirds majority of their parliament in 2002 and 2010, respectively served as the primary explanatory factor for the observed outcome. Having gained strong majorities in the parliament after a major economic crisis, the two parties went on to dominate the political system and subsequently used their political power to distribute resources in partisan way to their supporters. By creating a large group of winners among both voters and business community, the two parties put together a strong cross-class coalition. In turn, this coalition provided support to the two parties as they eroded institutional checks and rule of law, while also enabling them to solidify their electoral base through polarization. In combination, this partisan allocation of resources limited democratic accountability as the two parties' supporters gave increasing consent to their government. Despite the plethora of studies on these two cases, the literature has failed to develop a common explanation to account for democratic backsliding in Turkey and Hungary. Indeed, the Turkish and Hungarian cases display a very similar political trajectory, despite their highly dissimilar histories, structural factors, and cultural traditions. The presence of a right-wing populist party that seized control of the state apparatus and the political system during its first term to distribute resources in a partisan way serves as the independent variable that accounts for this common outcome. Using a most-different systems analysis, the paper employs case study and process-tracing methods to test its hypothesis.