From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 lack real liberties. This may be due to the absence of an adequate legal or effective framework of liberties to restrain the power of the elected government. Thus, although at least initially relatively free and fair elections may take place, the people are cut off from real power due to the lack of real liberties. It is this type of "illiberal democracy" that is discussed in the present article. The term illiberal democracy was coined by Fareed Zakaria in a 1997 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, and it tends to be used with a negative connotation, by those who oppose such a system of government and support liberal democracy.

Illiberal democracies are found primarily in newly democratizing countries that do not have a recent 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 rather authoritarian manner. This may involve corruption, persecutions of political opponents, restrictions on freedom of speech, and other restrictions of the rights and liberties of the general population. This may be allowed by the constitution of the country in question, but many illiberal democracies exist in countries with liberal democratic constitutions that are simply 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 the former Soviet Union, 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."^[1] Freedom House is considered to have bias in its rankings by several groups, such as RightWeb [1].

Conversely, liberal autocracies are regimes with no elections and that are ruled by autocratically but have at least some real liberties.

• Liberal democracy
• Representative democracy
• Political corruption
• Totalitarian democracy
• Dominant-party system

• The Rise of Illiberal Democracy, Fareed Zakaria, Foreign Affairs, November/ December 1997
• Liberalism and Democracy: Can't have one without the other, Marc Plattner, Foreign Affairs, March/ April 1998

Forms of Government and Methods of Rule: Autocratic and Authoritarian Autocratic: Despotism | Dictatorship | Tyranny | Absolute monarchy (Caliphate | Despotate | Emirate | Empire | Khanate | Sultanate | Other monarchical titles) | Enlightened absolutism Other Authoritarian: Military dictatorship (often a Junta) | Oligarchy | Single-party state (Communist state | Fascist(oid) state) | de facto: Illiberal democracy