SCIENCE@home

Eroding Democracy from the Outside In

Anna M. Meyerrose

Published 2025 in Unknown venue

ABSTRACT

After the Cold War, Western politicians and policymakers turned to international organizations (IOs) to promote and protect liberal democracy. States joined these organizations at unprecedented rates. Yet just three decades later, democracy is under threat. A growing number of countries—including many that are deeply integrated into or even major architects of, the very IOs long-associated with democratic success—are now succumbing democratic backsliding. What explains this erosion of democracy in an era of unparalleled international support for it? As part of the post-Cold War liberal consensus, IOs not only proliferated, but a certain subset gained extraordinary power and influence over highly salient domestic economic and political policy areas that had previously been the sole purview of national governments. Eroding Democracy from the Outside In argues that this surge in policy delegation to IOs has had an unintended consequence: the concentration of power in executive hands and the weakening of core domestic representative institutions. These weakened institutions, in turn, are incapable of effectively representing wide-ranging public interests or checking the growing power of national leaders. As such, they have paved the way for would-be autocrats to consolidate their hold on the state. The result all too often has been democratic backsliding.

PUBLICATION RECORD

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-100 of 346 references · Page 1 of 4

1234
Next

CITED BY

  • No citing papers are available for this paper.

Showing 0-0 of 0 citing papers · Page 1 of 1