Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies against the Erosion of Democracy

by Laura Gamboa

In the past two decades, democratically elected executives across the world have used their popularity to push for legislation that, over time, destroys systems of checks and balances, hinders free and fair elections, and undermines political rights and civil liberties. Using and abusing institutions and institutional reform, some executives have transformed their countries' democracies into competitive authoritarian regimes. Others, however, have failed to erode democracy. What explains these different outcomes? Resisting Backsliding answers this question. With a focus on the cases of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Alvaro Uribe in Colombia, the book shows that the strategies and goals of the opposition are key to understanding why some executives successfully erode democracy and others do not. By highlighting the role of the opposition, this book emphasizes the importance of agency for understanding democratic backsliding and shows that even weak oppositions can defeat strong potential autocrats.

Genres: Political Science

320 pages, Hardcover

Published November 3, 2022

Reviews

[Omar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of the mainstream discourse on democratic backsliding is fixated on elected leaders with autocratic aspirations, so the fact that the author - Laura Gamboa - shifts the focus onto the opposition is refreshing. This is because the erosion of democracy is a process. It does not happen overnight. Plus the opposition is not a sitting duck. They have resources at their disposal to prevent or unintentionally contribute to institutional breakdown.

Colombia and Venezuela are the two main comparative case studies in the book. She asks the following question: why was Colombia successful in preventing the erosion of democracy while Venezuela failed to do so despite both countries electing two leaders, Hugo Chávez and Álvaro Uribe, who both had hegemonic aspirations and were nationally very popular? Her answer: the choice of opposition strategy .

Gamboa spends a little over a third of her book developing a theory of strategies that the opposition can deploy against potential autocrats. This is easily the best part of the book. She argues that there are institutional and extrainstitutional strategies with either moderate or radical goals that can be deployed. Each one has their pros and cons. Gamboa basically argues for moderate institutional and moderate extrainstitutional strategies (legislative/legal battles + nonviolent protests) because the costs of repression are high, and working within an institutional framework limits and obstructs an authoritative president's desire to remove checks on his power. To repress an opposition working within the legal rules will not allow an autocratic leader to maintain a democratic façade to both his or her domestic and international audiences. But if the opposition opts for a radical strategy, they give the autocrat in power the justification to go on a witch hunt and further erode any checks and balances.

So, the Colombian opposition deployed a moderate (both institutional and extrainstitutional) strategy, thus saved their democracy. The Venezuelan opposition deployed a radical (both institutional and extrainstitutional) strategy, therefore giving Chávez the incentive to repress with low costs to his legitimacy, thereby the Venezuelan opposition were not able to prevent democratic erosion.

I think liberals and believers of liberal democracy will find the analysis of the book entirely convincing, but I find it only partially.

For one, I am not entirely sure I would characterize Colombia as a democracy. It has been procedurally "democratic" ever since 1958, but this was entirely based on a power-sharing agreement between two parties and excluded the participation of anyone else (Venezuela also had the same arrangement). Once leftist third parties became a viable electoral option and achieved some success in the 1980s, they were politically cleansed with the complicity of state actors and "democratic" institutions. I would argue that opposition to Uribe prevented the domination of an already hybrid system by one individual and began the process of opening up the system to more political actors, thereby peeling off its authoritative aspects and deepening its democratic ones.

I am also not so sure I would characterize the Venezuelan opposition to Hugo Chávez as a democratic force either. I find it very curious that she does not explicitly call the 2002 coup anti-democratic. She instead calls it a radical extrainstitutional strategy. I mean, it is indeed a radical extrainstitutional strategy, but are all radical extrainstitutional strategies necessarily anti-democratic? I am not so sure, but if they are, call it anti-democratic! There was a three year period (2002-2004) where the primary aim of the opposition was to get Chávez removed from power, so what we really have here then are two competing authoritarianisms struggling for hegemony.

The book ends with four additional case studies - Bolivia, Turkey, Poland, and Hungary - and they're detailed in brief. I am vaguely familiar with the politics of the first two, but not enough to provide an informed comment. But her observation is that three of the four additional case studies confirm her thesis while one, Hungary, is an exception to the rule. The Hungarian opposition opted for a moderate strategy against Viktor Orbán, but Orbán had no desire to maintain a democratic façade, so his attacks on democratic institutions were swift and brutal and democratic erosion was completed in just a couple of years.

Despite my obvious gripes, this is a book still worth reading, though the writing can begin to sound mechanical.