Once upon a time there was a military coup. A handful of “big shots” with stars and weapons, a raid on the places of power, the removal of the leadership in office. In short, the whole kit you know. Today dictators prefer the path of false democracy, much more subtle and effective.
A team of researchers from the University of California has analyzed how authoritarian regimes are perfecting the art of democratic deception, creating a system that uses international institutions to legitimize their power. It is a transformation that is changing the rules of the global political game. And perhaps it has already triggered a dangerous "competition" that is making even "true" democracies "competitive" in a race to the bottom for society.
The New Faces of False Democracy
THEUC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) has produced three illuminating studies, published on the Review of International Organizations. The research, led by Emilie Hafner Burton e Christina Schneider, reveals how authoritarian regimes are becoming masters at manipulating the international system.
Lauren Prather, associate professor of the School of Global Policy and Strategy, highlights a crucial point: when citizens lose confidence in the electoral process, they begin to question the legitimacy of elected officials and institutions. This erosion of trust can have devastating consequences, as demonstrated (but this is just one example) from the January 6, 2021 insurrection in the United States.
False Democracy: The Rise of “Zombie” Observers
The first study reveals a disturbing phenomenon: that of the “Zombie” Election Observers, organizations that “oversee” and validate blatantly fraudulent elections. Their presence has increased dramatically: from 23% in the 2000 elections to 40% in 2020.
Christina Cottiero e Sarah Sunn Bush They analyzed 141 election monitoring organizations. The result is shocking: these fake observers often deliberately contradict the results of legitimate observers.
A prime example is the parliamentary election of theAzerbaijan in 2020: while theOSCE denounced the lack of real competition, observers of the Commonwealth of Independent States praised the process as “competitive and free”. Other examples of the drift are present in the second study. The third study, led by Hafner Burton, Schneider e Jon Pevehouse, analyzes 48 regional organizations with authoritarian majorities between 1945 and 2015. The finding is depressing: many adopt purely superficial “good governance” policies, but in practice they implement models of false democracy.
Organizations such as theAfrican Union, for example, adopt formal mandates to uphold human rights and fight corruption, but these remain symbolic or apply only to non-member states. Interestingly, these policies are often adopted under pressure from democratic partners such as the European Union, but have little practical effect on improving governance.
Western Democracies: A Wake-up Call
I am particularly concerned about how some signs of this democratic erosion are emerging even in consolidated Western democracies. We are not immune to the risk of “democratic falsification”. We observe with increasing frequency worrying phenomena: concentration of media ownership in a few hands, censorship on social networks disguised as “fact-checking”, manipulation of information through opaque algorithms.
Even in our democracies, freedom of expression is suffering subtle but constant pressures, often justified by the need to combat “disinformation”.
The future of democracy hangs in the balance
These studies of theFuture of Democracy Initiative paint a disturbing picture. Authoritarian regimes have developed a sophisticated operating manual that turns democratic institutions into tools for undermining it. Stephan Haggard, professor ofUniversity of California, highlights how these actions against the judiciary or the integrity of the electoral system are more difficult to detect and counter than traditional coups.
It seems clear to me that protecting democracy will require a fundamental rethinking of traditional approaches (some offers even the advent of a “super democracy”). The challenge of the future will be to develop new strategies to counter these subtle but powerful forms of democratic subversion.
