A social causal mechanism of regime autocratisation: comparative test in Central and Eastern Europe

Existing research has predominantly explained democratic backsliding through elite strategies or institutional weaknesses. While these accounts have generated important insights, they often treat societal dynamics as secondary conditions. This study shifts the analytical focus by testing a mechanism-based explanation which links societal divisions to regime autocratisation in democratic and hybrid regimes, The mechanism, suggested by McCoy et al. (2018, 2020), Somer et al.(2018, 2021), and McCoy and Somer (2019, 2021), theorises how affective polarisation produces institutional autocratisation, positing that rising affective polarisation intensifies social conflict, and thereby increases societal tolerance for autocratic practices, which ultimately facilitates regime autocratisation. Empirically, the study focuses on Central and Eastern Europe during the period 2010–2024. The region constitutes a critical testing ground for the theory, having experienced some of the most pronounced episodes of institutional autocratisation in recent years while remaining comparatively underexamined from a socially grounded comparative perspective. Methodologically, we assess whether the proposed causal mechanism works by contrasting cases where regime autocratisation occurs with cases where it does not occur. Hence, we use a Most Similar Systems Design (MSDS) for case selection. Given the configurational and time-sensitive character of our theoretical claim, the research design complements Time-Differencing Qualitative Comparative Analysis (TD-QCA) by within-case process tracing. With regard to data analysis, the outcome is operationalised as the occurrence of an “episode of regime autocratisation” following Maerz et al. (2024), based on changes in the Electoral Democracy Index of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. The outcome is calibrated dichotomously for each time interval, indicating the presence or absence of a substantively meaningful autocratising turn. The explanatory conditions are likewise calibrated as dichotomous changes. Increases in affective polarisation are identified using the framework proposed by Somer et al. (2021), drawing on the V-Dem political polarisation indicator. In our model, increases in the intensity of conflict are operationalised using the Conflict Intensity indicator from the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI), capturing substantively meaningful escalations in conflict dynamics over time. Increases in societal tolerance for autocratic practices are measured through the Social Autocracy Index developed by Martínez Fuentes and Sánchez Robles (2026), constructed from World Values Survey data. For each interval, conditions are coded as present where a substantively relevant upward shift is observed in accordance with the respective measurement models. This study makes two main contributions to the study of autocratisation. First, it advocates the reconceptualisation of affective polarisation from a contextual correlate of democratic backsliding into a causal mechanism that actively facilitates institutional autocratisation. Second, by combining configurational comparison with theory-testing process tracing, it provides a mechanism-based account that bridges societal-level dynamics and regime-level institutional change. In doing so, the article advances a socially grounded explanation of regime autocratisation that complements predominantly elite-centred and institutionalist approaches.