Product Code Database
An illiberal democracy is a government that "hides its nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". While there is no universal consensus on its precise definition, the term broadly describes governments that present themselves as liberal democracies while subtly suppressing opposing views. It is sometimes described as a 21st-century form of fascism, maintaining electoral democracy while employing state power for largely nationalistic, anti-minority, and anti-freedom purposes, often under the leadership of dominant figures and their close associates.
The rulers of an illiberal democracy may disregard, circumvent, or undermine constitutional limits on their power. Whereas liberal democracies safeguard individual rights and freedoms, illiberal democracies may fail to do so, or such rights may be significantly restricted or gradually eroded. Elections in an illiberal democracy are often manipulated, rigged, or lopsided, whether overtly or subtly, legitimising and consolidating the incumbent rather than genuinely choosing the country's leaders and policies. Illiberalism rejects rational discourse, instead promoting intolerance, fear of difference, the cult of force, discipline, and moral authority. Illiberal constitutions are generally anti-pluralist and anti-institutionalist.
Some scholars have challenged the view that illiberal democracies are genuine democracies, contending that liberal principles and democracy are inseparable and that elections cannot be considered free and fair without freedom of the press and speech. Other theorists contend that classifying illiberal democracy as democratic is overly sympathetic to such regimes, and therefore prefer terms such as electoral authoritarianism, competitive authoritarianism, or soft authoritarianism. It is also seen as a type of a defective democracy.
The term illiberal democracy was then used and popularized by Fareed Zakaria in a regularly cited 1997 article in the journal Foreign Affairs. According to Zakaria, illiberal democracies were "democratically elected regimes often re-elected or reinforced by referendums that ignored the constitutional limits of their power and deprived their citizens of basic rights and liberties." Zakaria stated that in the Western world, electoral democracy and civil liberties (of speech, religion, etc.) go hand in hand but that around the world, the two concepts were coming apart. According to Zakaria, democracy without constitutional liberalism was producing centralized regimes, the erosion of liberty, ethnic competition, conflict, and war. Recent scholarship has addressed why elections, institutions commonly associated with liberalism and freedom, have led to such negative outcomes in illiberal democracies. Hybrid regimes are political systems in which the mechanism for determining access to state office combines both democratic and autocratic practices. In hybrid regimes, freedoms exist and the opposition is allowed to legally compete in elections, but the system of checks and balances becomes inoperative.
By the decade after the Cold War, a rise in right-wing nationalist and populist parties began openly declaring themselves against liberal democracy. Beginning in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe, political scientists Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes described the emergence of an "illiberal counter-revolution". Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, gave an oft-cited speech in 2014 where he proclaimed Hungary an illiberal democracy, stating that "a democracy does not necessarily have to be liberal" and that "the new state we are constructing in Hungary is an illiberal state, a non-liberal state." Modern advocates of illiberal democracy insist they are more democratic than others, and generally define themselves as being against liberal democracy, Western world, and the United States. Vladimir Putin of Russia is an outspoken critic of liberalism, with him and Orban described as re-defining it in ways that suit their agendas by equating it with multiculturalism, immigration and LGBTQ rights. The election of Donald Trump saw a large increase in scholarly research about illiberalism, what it means, and if America is on the road to fascism.
Contemporary usage of illberalism indicates an opposition to liberalism or liberal democracy. Fritz Stern, a historian of Germany, understood by illiberalism anti-democratic mentality and anti-democratic practices such as suffrage restrictions.Stern, Fritz. 1972. The Failure of Illiberalism: Essays on the Political Culture of Modern Germany. New York: Knopf. Marlène Laruelle defines illiberalism as a backlash against today's liberalism. According to her, illiberalism is "majoritarian, nation-centric or sovereigntist, favouring traditional hierarchies and cultural homogeneity", calling for "a shift from politics to culture and is post-post-modern in its claims of rootedness in an age of globalization".Laruelle, Marlene. "Illiberalism: A conceptual introduction." East European Politics 38.2 (2022): 303-327. Zsolt Egyed defines illiberalism as opposition to the main principles of liberal democracy: limited government, open society, and state neutrality. He distinguishes between authoritarian, populist, traditionalist, religious, paternalist, libertarian, nativist-nationalist, materialist, and left-wing varieties.Enyedi, Zsolt (2024). Concept and Varieties of Illiberalism. Politics and Governance
Regime type is important for illiberal democracies. This is because illiberal democracies can rise from both consolidated liberal democracies and authoritarian states. Zakaria initially wrote his paper using the term illiberal democracy interchangeably with pseudo-autocracies but today they are used to describe countries that are potentially democratically backsliding as well.
According to Marlène Laruelle, there are "significant differences between illiberalism and conservatism" as it has been "traditionally understood".
In order to discourage this problem and promote the development of liberal democracies with free and fair elections, Zakaria proposes that the international community and the United States must promote gradual liberalization of societies. Zakaria advances institutions like the World Trade Organization, the Federal Reserve System, and a check on power in the form of the judiciary to promote democracy and limit the power of people which can be destructive. Illiberal democratic governments may believe they have a mandate to act in any way they see fit as long as they hold regular . Lack of liberties such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly make opposition extremely difficult. The rulers may centralize powers between branches of the central government and local government (exhibiting no separation of powers). News media are often controlled by the state and strongly support the regime. Non-governmental organizations may face onerous regulations or simply be prohibited. The regime may use red tape, economic pressure, imprisonment or violence against its critics. Zakaria believes that constitutional liberalism can bring democracy, but not vice versa.
Authors Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser discuss the role of populism in deteriorating liberal democracies. Within the article, Mudde and Kaltwasser say that populism—although surrounded by negative connotations—is democratic in nature, as it gives a voice to the people and heavily follows the idea of majoritarian rule. The problem arises within liberal democracies, as the authors say that liberal values and democracy internally contradict each other. Democracy promises majoritarian rule while liberal values promise the protection of minorities.
Moreover, Sheri Berman supports that idea that democracy being unchecked by liberalism can lead to populist—and in some regards dangerous—rule, but further says that liberal values unchecked by democracy can be just as dangerous, as she says, through the use of historical examples, this can lead to oligarchic rule. Berman takes a different perspective on the role of populism and says that it is rather the weakening of democratic institutions that has led to the rise of populism and the deterioration of liberal democracies. When discussing this matter, Berman through the example of Western states—United States and Europe—has attributed the cause of populist backlash to national government disregarding the interests of average citizens for business elites. In sum, Berman is trying to demonstrate that populism has led to the rise of illiberal democracies, while the populism has gained traction as a result in democratic institutions being too elite-led.
While populism is closely associated with leading to illiberal democracy, religious fundamentalism, radical nationalism, and communitarianism are also common paths.
According to Wojciech Sadurski, "illiberal democracy is largely an oxymoron" in Poland under Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, because "by dismantling various checks and balances, and the many democratic institutions related to elections and judicial review, the ruling party greatly weakens the democratic character of the state". Sadurski prefers the term "plebiscitarian authoritarianism".
In 1998, author Marc Plattner said that democracy and liberalism have a turbulent relationship, where throughout history they constantly repel and attract one another. Plattner believes that the rise of illiberal democracies is merely part of a democratization cycle, where states democratizing will often shift from liberal to illiberal tendencies. From this, Plattner believes that through the careful assistance of consolidated democracies these 'illiberal democracies' can slowly push themselves out of this cycle.
According to a study by George Washington University political scientist Michael K. Miller, multiparty autocratic elections predict significantly better outcomes on health, education, gender equality, and basic freedoms relative to non-electoral autocracy. Effects on health and education are as strong as those of democracy and are significantly better than in non-electoral autocracy.
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Types
There is a spectrum of illiberal democracies: from those that are nearly liberal democracies to those that are almost openly . One proposed method of determining whether a regime is an illiberal democracy is to determine whether "it has regular, free, fair, and competitive elections to fill the principal positions of power in the country, but it does not qualify as Free in Freedom House's annual ratings of civil liberties and political rights." A 2008 article by Rocha Menocal, Fritz and Rakner describes the emergence of illiberal democracies and discusses some of their shared characteristics. Rocha Menocal, Fritz, and Rakner try to draw the similarity between illiberal democracies and hybrid regimes. The authors make the case that the "democratic optimism" in the 1990s—following the collapse of the Soviet Union—has led to the emergence of hybrid regimes holding illiberal values. Initially, the Western powers assumed that democratic consolidation would occur automatically and disregarded the alternatives. In reality, the non-consolidation of democracy has led to the rise of hybrid regimes that possess "illiberal values".
Author Jennifer Gandhi says that many autocrats allow elections in their governance to stabilize and reinforce their regimes. She first says that elections help leaders resolve threats from elites and from the masses by appeasing those capable of usurping power with money and securing the cooperation of the general public with political concessions.
(2025). 9780511510090, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511510090 Gandhi also claims that illiberal elections serve other useful purposes, such as providing [[autocrats|autocracy]] with information about their citizens and establishing legitimacy both domestically and in the international community, and that these varied functions must be elucidated in future research. One example of the regime durability provided by illiberal democracy is illustrated in [[Mubarak|Hosni Mubarak]]'s Egyptian regime. Lisa Blaydes shows that under Mubarak's lengthy rule, elections provided a mechanism through which elites bought votes to support the government (through distributing needed goods and resources to the public) to acquire regime-enforced parliamentary immunity. This enabled them to accumulate illicit wealth and draw from state resources without legal consequence. (2025). 9781139495318, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139495318 Such research suggests that, given the stability-providing function of illiberal elections, states governed under illiberal democracies may have low prospects for a transition to a democratic system protected by constitutional liberties.
Relationship with populism
With the different types and different examples of illustrations discussed, a key component in the rise of illiberal democracies today is populism. Current populist leaders—especially within Western states—have the tendency to promote illiberal values, a notable example being the exclusion of immigrants and openly xenophobic statements. This wave has been labeled as "xenophobic populism".
(2025). 9781139424233, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139424233 Furthermore, it is said that populism is a product of democracy, but in general populist leaders try to use the democratic aspect of liberal democracies to undermine liberalism. This is closely related to Zakaria's argument. The authors try to establish the idea that the rise of populism is undermining liberal values as populism at its core rejects plurality and minority protection—often the evident liberal values.
Cases of illiberalism
Hungary
In a 2014 speech, after winning re-election for the first time, Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary described his views about the future of Hungary as an "illiberal state". In his interpretation the "illiberal state" does not reject the values of the liberal democracy, rather modern social liberalism, calling it Corruption and unfair and states that the country should work as a community. Orbán listed Singapore, Russia, Turkey, and China as examples of economically "successful" nations, "none of which is liberal and some of which aren’t even democracies."
Slovakia
In 1995 Slovak journalists coined the term "Democracy of the Carpathian type" to describe the illiberal democracy of Vladimír Mečiar's government in the 1990s. Today, the term is often used in connection with the policies of Robert Fico's government, which has been criticised for censorship of criticism of government politicians in media, abolition of the special prosecutor's office, politically motivated abolition of the Radio and Television of Slovakia by Slovak Television and Radio, unjustified exchanges in various expert positions, the cover-up of the accident of government politician Andrej Danko, etc. The previous cabinet of Robert Fico was accused of organised corruption and some politicians were directly or indirectly linked to the kidnapping of Vietnamese businessman Trịnh Xuân Thanh and to the assassination of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée.
India
Indian-American journalist Fareed Zakaria claimed that India was the largest illiberal democracy in the world, in his book The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad.
Turkey
In a 2015 CNN reportage, Zakaria said that Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had become a textbook case of illiberal democracy. Erik Meyersson observed that using Freedom House’s measure of liberty, Turkey took the last place among electoral democracies in 2015, scoring worse on the liberty measure than some countries that are not even considered electoral democracies.
Philippines
Since 2016, the Philippines under presidents Rodrigo Duterte and Bongbong Marcos has been described as being in an illiberal democracy. It has been described as a worldwide capital and stronghold of illiberalism culturally and politically.
United States
In America, some academics have criticized American liberalism for not being liberal enough and living up to its professed values, with critics deriding this as "cancel culture" and a form of illiberalism. Other right-wing thinkers such as Patrick Deneen have openly criticized liberalism, instead arguing for replacing it with a new form of illiberal government. The Republican Party has in recent years faced criticism that it is becoming increasingly illiberal under the leadership of Donald Trump, who was elected president in 2016 and 2024. According to a 2020 study by the V-Dem Institute, the Republican Party has become more illiberal and populist in the last decade with a large increase under the leadership of Donald Trump. Trumpism has been considered by some to be a dangerous risk to the heart of liberal democracy, as well as indifference towards traditional democratic allies and praising other "strongman rulers" in the world like Vladimir Putin.
Criticism
Writers such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way reject the concept of an illiberal democracy, saying it only "muddies the waters" on the basis that if a country does not have opposition parties and an independent media, it is not democratic. (2025). 9780415950527, Routledge. ISBN 9780415950527 They say that terms like "illiberal democracy" are inappropriate for some of these states because the term implies that these regimes are at their heart democracies that have gone wrong. Levitsky and Way say that states such as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under Slobodan Milošević, Zimbabwe and post-Soviet Russia were never truly democratic and not developing toward democracy, but were rather tending toward authoritarian behavior despite having elections, which were sometimes sharply contested. Thus, Levitsky and Way coined a new term to remove the positive connotation of democracy from these states and distinguish them from flawed or developing democracies: competitive authoritarianism.
(2025). 9780198840503, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198840503
See also
Bibliography
Books
(2025). 9789064634147, Amnesty International Netherlands. ISBN 9789064634147
(2025). 9781000479454, Routledge. ISBN 9781000479454
Journal articles
News articles
Further reading
(2025). 9781108844635, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108844635
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