Abstract
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There is a view now widely shared by social scientists that we are currently experiencing a “third wave” of autocratization. As Luhrmann and Lindberg (2019) extensively show, this new wave significantly differs from the previous ones in that while prior to 1993 shifts towards more autocratic regimes were always the product of military coups, self-coups, or foreign invasions, about 70% of shifts since then cannot be captured under either of these headings. Instead, they have come to be termed as instances of democratic backsliding. Democratic backsliding is generally defined as “a deterioration of qualities associated with democratic governance, within any regime” (Waldner and Lust: 2018, p. 95), which is usually undertaken in a gradual fashion and is performed by incumbents who rise to power via a regular electoral process. In counterpart to the extant literature democratic backsliding, a newer strand of scholarly work has recently emerged focusing on the problem of democratic resilience, which can be broadly defined as “the ability of a political regime to prevent or react to challenges without losing its democratic character” (Merkel and Luhrmann: 2021, p. 872). Most contributions in this strand of literature have thus far been empirical, concerning either targeted cases studies or quantitative analyses of historical and regional trends.
By contrast, in this paper I will address the topic of democratic resilience from a normative standpoint and in relation to a distinct view put forward in political theory, termed limitarianism, which “advocates that it is not morally permissible to have more resources than are needed to fully flourish in life” (Robeyns: 2017, p. 1). The paper starts from a discussion of one specific argument for this view, called the democratic argument, according to which wealth deconcentration is justified because of the damaging effects that excessive wealth has on democracy. I show that the standard democratic argument is undermined by its reliance on a faulty central premise, namely that excessive wealth threatens democracy because of its detrimental impact on political equality. I subsequently relocate the fundamental democratic worry in regard to excessive wealth in the process of backsliding, and more specifically in the relation between excessive wealth and political polarization. Thus, the wealth deconcentration aim of limitarianism can be democratically justified on the basis of its positive contribution to democratic resilience, rather than political equality. Finally, however, I argue that this argument is not unambigously successful, due to the incentivisation of economic elites to amplify polarization once wealth deconcentration becomes a serious topic on the political agenda.
References:
Luhrmann, A. and S. Lindberg (2021), “A third wave of autocratization is here: what is new about it?”, Democratization, 26 (7), pp. 1095-1113.
Merkel, W. and A. Luhrmann (2021), “Resilience of democracies: responses to illiberal and authoritarian challenges”, Democratization, 28 (5), pp. 869-884.
Robeyns, I. (2017), “Having too much”, in J. Knight and M. Schwartzberg (eds.), NOMOS LVI: Wealth. Yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, New York: New York University Press, pp. 1-44.
Waldner, D. and E. Lust (2018), “Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding”, Annual Review of Political Science, 21, pp. 93-113.
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