DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING AND CONSTITUTIONAL CAPTURE – A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

In recent years the democratization process, which was characterized by the expansion of principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in many countries in the world, and by a significant shift of power to constitutional courts, has been replaced with the worldwide rise of populism and democratic backsliding. Democratic backsliding is an incremental process where the governing powers in a state use legal, political, and public opinion tools to create a gradual change in its constitutional system, by undermining the liberal democratic characteristics of the system and replacing them with authoritarian ones, with the ultimate goal of achieving a deep and lasting change in the constitutional system of the state. At its peak such a process might lead to the complete capture of the stateā€˜s system by authoritarian and anti-democratic elements. This panel will discuss instances of democratic backsliding across the globe and identify common denominators and coping strategies.



Time:  MONDAY 25 June 2018 16:45-18:15
Chair(s):   Moshe Cohen Eliya
Panel:  Panel 11