Shifting words, shifting regimes: Elite discourse and democratic decline

Democratic decline often begins not with abrupt institutional breakdown, but with gradual shifts in the way political power is publicly justified. This paper examines how elite political discourse moves away from democratic norms and values towards more authoritarian justifications over time. Do such discoursive shifts precede measurable declines in democratic institutions? Using fine-tuned large language models to collect and analyse a cross-country corpus of speeches delivered by heads of government, cabinet members, party leaders, parliamentarians, and other political actors in several democracies, this paper investigates the relationship between elite discourse and democratic decline. By linking changes in elite discourse to changes in democratic quality, this study contributes to our understanding of the early phases of democratic decline and the role of language and elite communication in shaping political trajectories.