Illiberal democracy

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Technically speaking, an illiberal democracy could be any democracy that is not a liberal democracy. However, the term is almost always used to denote a particularly authoritarian kind of representative democracy, in which the leaders and lawmakers are elected by the people, but do not respect rights and liberties. This has the effect of cutting off the people from real power. The term was created by Fareed Zakaria in a 1997 article in the journal Foreign Affairs.

Illiberal democracies are found primarily outside of the West, in newly democratizing countries that do not have a history of pluralism. Without such a tradition of different ideas co-existing peacefully, the ruling party or leader after winning multi-party elections that are mostly free and fair behaves in a manner that is very restrictive of individual liberty. This may be because the constitution simply does not specify protections for individual rights and liberties. Alternatively, such protections may exist in the constitution but are ignored.

There is a spectrum of illiberal democracies: from those who are nearly liberal democracies to those that are almost dictatorships. Examples can be found across Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. The mid-to-late 1990s was a period marked by a growing emergence of illiberal democracies.

An illiberal democracy is marked by the tension between how a government is selected and how that government behaves. Illiberal democratic governments believe they have a mandate to act in any way they see fit, disregarding laws or the constitution if they desire, as long as they hold regular elections. They often centralize powers both between branches of the national government (having no separation of powers) and between different levels of government and private associations. The former is more noticeable, the latter more common.

Another characteristic is that the lack of rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly make opposition to the rulers extremely difficult. Television and radio is often controlled by the state and strongly support the regime. Non-governmental organisations may face onerous regulations or simply be prohibited. The regime may use red tape, economic pressure, or even violence against critics.

Some suggest a method of determining whether a regime is an illiberal democracy is by noting that "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."<ref>Diamond, Larry & Morlino Leonardo. Assessing the Quality of Democracy, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, p. xli</ref> However, Freedom House is by some considered to have bias in its rankings[[1]].