The "backsliding" myth: Populism invigorates democracy by rejecting technocrat elites

These days, whenever an election goes badly for members of the political establishment, they are quick to complain about ‘democratic backsliding’.

So, last weekend, when voters in Italy rejected the mainstream parties and voted for a coalition of right-wing parties instead, the response of the establishment was to raise the spectre of democratic backsliding. As Spencer Bokat-Lindell argued in the New York Times, ‘countries around the world, including the United States, are confronting what experts say is a worldwide wave of democratic backsliding’. The term democratic backsliding – sometimes also called ‘autocratisation’ – refers to the supposed decline in the democratic characteristics of a political system. It is said to be the opposite of ‘democratisation’.

In reality, accusations of democratic backsliding or autocratisation have little to do with the health or otherwise of democracy. They are intended to delegitimise the election of individuals and parties that go against the outlook of the technocratic and cultural elites.