Framing Democratic Backsliding

Autocratization is considered to be on the rise, with its “democratic backsliding” component having received significant scholarly but also non-academic attention in recent years. As a consequence of this, researchers and parts of the public alike are rightfully bewildered by some citizens’ support of authoritarian-turning politics and leaders. Attempts to explain the aforementioned support range from governments’ supposed inability to efficiently provide socio-economic security to more affective aspects such as populist rhetorics or individuals feeling at loss compared to other segments of the population. A thus far under researched aspect of this however is the question of how backsliding agents, in this case the executive heads of countries, frame processes of backsliding such as hollowing out the judicial system, infringing upon media freedom or evading term limits to different parts of the society. Especially interesting in this case are favorable audiences, meaning here those who have voted the “Backsliders” into office or members of their political parties. The question stems from the underlying notion that legitimacy and legitimation are a context and pillar that is not only relevant in democracies and autocracies but also in the grey zone between the two of them. Populism in its analytical vagueness and tendency to be applied in a monocausalistic way is considered not adequate to fully grasp the complexity of legitimation in such settings. It is furthermore assumed that especially crucial audiences in those cases are people that once voted for the backsliders or party elites since both were part of a democratic process or institution that eventually led to the dismantling of that very system. Democratic Backsliding, which is more subtle and occurs through democratic veneers, is therefore a process that can –at least in its onsets- hardly be achieved without some forms of public support. Due to it occurring mostly in polarized societies it is here assumed that especially vital for this support are people who have already supported the backslider in its way to power and hence pose an important legitimacy audience. Building on theory on both democratic and authoritarian legitimacy, my paper will therefore analyze legitimation claims made by chief executives in times of acute backsliding with favorable audiences in mind. To do so, the paper will employ framing theory in distilling the most dominant frames across a range of current cases through a Qualitative Content Analysis. In addition to those frames giving us an idea on how politics of autocratization are justified and support is garnered for them they might also aid in getting a more accurate picture of who audiences of those justifications are. Cases considered will include preliminary include the United States during Donald Trump’s second term in office and Tunisia under Kais Saied in a most different systems design. As a result, the paper contributes to the literature of legitimation in the grey zone and the top-down perspective of social factors of mass support of authoritarianism.