New Research Article: "Democratic Backsliding and Governance Outcomes: Measuring Administrative and Political Channels of Decline"

Democratic Backsliding and Governance Outcomes: Measuring Administrative and Political Channels of Decline
David Ibáñez and Ricardo A. Bello-Gomez
Public Administration Review
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/puar.70185

Using cross-national panel data from 86 countries over more than two decades, the authors examine how democratic backsliding translates into weaker governance through differentiated political and administrative channels.

Two key takeaways:
1) The relationship is nonlinear: the largest governance losses emerge during complete democratic erosion.
2) The mechanisms of decline are not uniform: political and administrative channels operate differently across stages of democratic backsliding and across dimensions of governance.