Original
Democratic Backsliding and Governance Outcomes: Measuring Administrative and Political Channels of Decline
Abstract
ABSTRACT Democratic backsliding has emerged as a defining political challenge of the contemporary era, yet systematic cross‐national evidence linking it to governance outcomes remains scarce. This article argues that backsliding affects governance through two analytically distinct channels: a political accountability channel, whereby weakened contestation and oversight reduce the external costs of poor performance; and an administrative channel, through which executive politicization erodes meritocratic recruitment and bureaucratic impartiality. Using a country‐year panel of 86 countries from 1996 to 2024 and generalized structural equation models, we decompose the direct, indirect, and total effects of backsliding on government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and control of corruption across stages of democratic decline. The findings show that governance deterioration is stage‐specific, channel‐specific, and outcome‐specific, following a nonlinear, U‐shaped pattern in which complete erosion—rather than autocratic reversion—produces the largest governance losses.
中文
民主倒退与治理结果：衡量行政与政治衰败渠道
摘要
民主倒退已成为当代界定性的政治挑战，然而将其与治理结果相联系的系统性跨国证据仍然稀缺。本文认为，民主倒退通过两条在分析上不同的渠道影响治理：其一是政治问责渠道，即竞争与监督的弱化降低了绩效不佳的外部成本；其二是行政渠道，即行政首长的政治化侵蚀了择优录用与官僚制公正性。本文使用1996年至2024年间86个国家的国家—年度面板数据以及广义结构方程模型，分解了民主倒退在民主衰退各阶段对政府效能、监管质量和腐败控制产生的直接、间接与总效应。研究发现，治理恶化具有阶段特定性、渠道特定性和结果特定性，并遵循一种非线性的U型模式：完全侵蚀——而非转向威权——造成最大的治理损失。
关键词
民主倒退、治理结果、政治问责、行政政治化、官僚公正性、政府效能、监管质量、腐败控制