Democratic erosion is the incremental and multifaceted deterioration in the freedoms, guarantees and processes vital to the functioning of democracy. This interactive tool sets out a framework showing how different drivers of democratic erosion interact, reinforce one another, and create feedback loops that accelerate decline. It proposes that democratic decline is best understood as a systems problem. The tool allows users to unpack the complex dynamics of democratic erosion and identify interventions that can help safeguard democracy.

Key findings

• Democracies do not usually collapse abruptly; they erode due to the gradual weakening of democratic norms, guardrails and institutions. Democratic erosion can lead to autocracy, but more often it results in lower democratic quality short of complete breakdown.
• All instances of democratic erosion are characterised by the following interplay: conditions that provide an opportunity; actors who exploit these conditions for their anti-democratic agenda; and causal pathways that enable these conditions and actors to hollow out democracy.
• Five reinforcing loops of democratic erosion are identified: 1) anti-democratic actors gain and consolidate power; 2) weakening of balancing institutions, guardrails and norms; 3) entrenched division; 4) loss of faith in democracy; and 5) support for and use of political violence.