Ali Riaz’s research while affiliated with Illinois State University and other places

In recent decades, the relationships between religion and politics, particularly between religion and the state, have been widely discussed, yet relationships between authoritarian rulers and religion have not received their due attention. This fourth article in the 2024 World Affairs special issue addresses this lacuna and argues against the conventional wisdom that these two entities are always hostile to each other. The study contends that authoritarian rulers have used three strategies vis‐à‐vis religion as an ideology and religious actors as a political force. Autocrats have adopted repression and cooptation strategies to deal with religious actors and utilized religion as a tool of legitimation. The article offers a case study of Bangladesh which has witnessed the growing salience of religion in politics since 1976, although its 1972 constitution pledged secularism as a state principle. The article examines the strategies used during three phases of military and civilian authoritarianism—1976–1981, 1982–1990, and since 2011—and discusses the relationship between the authoritarian rulers and religion.

Democracy is one of the most widely used and highly contested terms in political science and politics. On the one hand, everyone agrees that there is no universal definition of democracy, while on the other hand, almost all rulers, particularly those whose system of governance resemble autocracy, claim that their democracy is the ideal one. This chapter discusses various elements of democracy highlighted by political philosophers and political scientists over the centuries. It argues that democracy is not only a system of governance but also a set of normative principles. The chapter analyzes four normative principles and three attributes of democracy.

Even before the reversal of existing democracies became a global phenomenon and easily discernable in a significant number of countries, political scientists began to ponder how to describe the emerging trend of moving away from democracy. This chapter defines the term “democratic backsliding” and critically examines various approaches to understand the phenomenon. It shows that the existing literature can be divided into four approaches—structural, strategic, institutional, and regime-specific. It argues that all of these approaches have several weaknesses as they fail to offer a clear sequence of steps and/or events of democratic backsliding.

Since Hungary made an orderly transition to democracy in 1990, free elections were held at regular intervals and political power was dominated by two major political parties, FIDESZ and MSZP through 2010. Since Orban-led FIDESZ came to power in 2010, Hungary’s democracy began backsliding and has gradually been moving toward authoritarian direction. Orban’s massive constitutional changes, strategically designed electoral system, preemptive repressive mechanisms, and populist policies and narratives, have not only kept Orban in power for four consecutive terms, but also put Hungary’s democracy in grave danger. This chapter discusses the political developments in Hungary under Viktor Orban (2010-present) and explains how Hungary’s democracy has backslid during this period.

In the past decade and a half, Bangladesh has witnessed serious erosion of democracy and transformation to what the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) described as “moderate autocracy”. Consecutive engineered elections, since 2014, demonstrate that the country’s democratic endeavor has lost its way, and the country is heading towards a closed autocracy. This chapter explores the sequence of the process of democratic backsliding and argues that the incumbent Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) has employed an institutional strategy of changing the rules of the game, capturing the referees of the state, and silencing the opposition. These were combined with ideational strategies to justify its various anti-democratic measures. This chapter discusses both the institutional and ideological strategies of the incumbent.

Democracy is facing a global crisis. Those who study democracy and democratization, and the organizations which track the state of global democracy have been sounding the alarm for more than a decade that the situation is getting worse. As more and more countries have regressed from democracy in quick succession, it has now become an era of autocrats. This chapter discusses the global state of democracy and explains the features of the current reversal of democracy vis-a-vis the previous two reverse waves—1922–1942 and 1958–1975.

Since multiparty democracy began in 1946, Turkish politics experienced several progresses toward democratization through the late 1990s, despite economic crises and military coups. When Erdogan became prime minister in 2003, democracy experienced some improvements in his first term, but it began backsliding since 2008. During the 2008-present period, Erdogan has transformed Turkey’s parliamentary democracy into a presidentialism, and converted its electoral democracy into a hegemonic electoral autocracy, currently heading toward a closed autocracy. The chapter discusses the political developments in Turkey during the Erdogan regime (2008-present) and explains how Turkish democracy has backslid following specific steps and how ideological narratives contributed to the backsliding process.

Between 1985 and 2005, civilian rule was stabilized in Bolivia and politics was mainly dominated by neoliberal right-wing political parties. Since leftist Evo Morales took office in 2006, Bolivia’s democracy began backsliding. The Morales regime-led constitutional reforms, nationalization of resources, and increased political polarization, paved the way for de-democratization. This chapter discusses the political developments regarding institutional changes and ideological narratives during the Morales era (2006–2019), turning Bolivia into a competitive authoritarian regime.

This chapter highlights theoretical contributions of this book and offers suggestions to preserve democracy and prevent the rise of autocrats. The key contribution includes the identification of a specific pattern and sequence of democratic backsliding. Other contributions include the emphasis on an integrated approach and the insistence on non-institutional factors such as agent, audience, and ideology, that work in tandem with institutional manipulation to shape backsliding process. Finally, the authors call attention to consider early signs of backsliding and take preventive measures. An effective preventive mechanism includes citizens’ active participation along with international community’s support to prevent autocrats’ rise.

Understanding the sequence of democratic backsliding leading to the rise of autocrats is closely linked to understanding the nature and types of democratic breakdowns. The trends in democratic backsliding suggest that the nature of the backsliding process is incremental and open-ended. This chapter offers a new theoretical framework with two aspects—institutional and ideological—to understand the process, especially the sequence which leads to the rise of an autocrat. The new approach is described as an “institutional-ideological approach”.