Time period: The case study is restricted to the years 2000-2019, so please focus your discussion of events on these years; though more historical events or phenomena may be briefly discussed to motivate or explain what happens later.Democratic roots (1-2 pages):How long has the country been a democracy? In the years before the country began backsliding, how would you describe the state of the democracy? You can use standard indices, e.g. Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Polity, to establish relative measures of democracy, but also include descriptive evidence of the status of democracy in the country including the quality of elections, the extent of political freedoms, and civic openness and participation.Timeline and international context (1-2 pages):When did the country start to backslide (provide separate descriptions if there are multiple instances of backsliding)? Were there international factors during this time that contributed to the downturn? For how many years was democracy on the decline?Precursors of erosion (2 page min):Are there specific, time-limited events or precursors to democratic erosion?Are there more static features of society that contributed to democratic erosion, e.g. ethnic heterogeneity, partisan polarization, economic inequality? Are there features of local institutions that facilitated the decline, e.g. an especially strong executive branch, weak judicial legitimacy or a non-credible press? We encourage you to use the Theory Matrix in
the Lust and Waldner reading (p. 48-64) as a tool to explore the factors leading to backsliding.NB: When you identify determinants of democratic erosion, pay attention to how these factors changed in advance of the democratic backsliding. In other words, if the country has always faced these problems, it is unlikely that these were the cause of sudden changes in democratic institutions.NB: Please do not simply list all the problems facing the country. Be sure here to connect the country’s problems you cite to the erosion of democracy.Symptoms of erosion (2 page min):What does backsliding look like in your country, e.g. how does democratic erosion manifest? If there are multiple periods of erosion in your country’s history, describe all of them and comment on their similarities and differences. Week 4 on the uses and abuses of democratic institutions may be particularly useful here. If you do not think your country qualifies as having experienced democratic erosion, please state that in this section and defend your reasons.Resistance to erosion or the aftermath of the decline (1 page min):Is there resistance to backsliding? If so, where does it come from in society and how successful has it been?If the country is no longer backsliding, did the democracy recover or transition to a non-democratic regime? When did this happen? Describe the recovery or transition.If the democracy is still backsliding, do you predict it will continue to get worse or will start to improve? Why?