Why do autocrats not always succeed in weakening democracy? A comparative assessment of democratic resilience in Latin America

Widely used indexes of democracy report an apparent reverse wave of democratic backsliding at the global level. Yet many democracies withstand unscathed autocratic threats by elected leaders and experiences of democratic erosion or reversion are often short-lived. Why do some elected autocrats succeed while others fail in asphyxiating democracy? We argue that while structural socio-economic variables and common external conditions may affect general trends, the explanation of cross-country variation in democratic resilience hinges on specific institutional and political conditions, such as legacies of judicial autonomy and independence, plural inter-party competition, divisions within the incumbent party, and the strength of civil society. We illustrate this argument with a comparative analysis of the cases of Álvaro Uribe in Colombia, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Carlos Menem in Argentina, and Lucio Gutiérrez in Ecuador. We also show how our argument can shed light on the possible outcome of ongoing cases of democratic decline in Mexico and El Salvador.