"Strengthening Democratic Resilience in Flawed Democracies."
Researchers: V-Dem Principal Investigator Jan Teorell, and Per Andersson, both from @stockholm-uni.bsky.social, with Filip Milacic (Central European University) and Milan Svolik (Yale University).
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"Explaining Democratic Resilience: Uncovering the key factors explaining why some democracies manage to not only halt but also turnaround processes of autocratization."
Researchers: V-Dem Institute director Staffan I. Lindberg and V-Dem Institute post doc Marina Nord, University of Gothenburg.
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Project 1 will look at the factors that determine if a country manages to halt or even turnaround the process of autocratization.
Project 2 investigates why some voters stop acting as watchdogs against democratic violations, and what characterizes voters that strongly defend democratic norms.
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A strong and independent judiciary is a key factor ensuring checks and balances to executive power and safeguarding democracy. Judicial reforms have the potential to either weaken or strengthen this ability. The judicial reforms in El Salvador and Mexico puts this aspect of democracy at risk.
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Although the Mexican presidency changed hands in 2024 with the win of Claudia Sheinbaum, who is in the same party as her predecessor, the process of reforming the judiciary continued in the same manner.
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In 2024, judicial independence was further challenged by the adoption of a highly disputed judicial reform that politicizes the appointment of judges by shifting from merit-based appointments to popular elections.
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In #Mexico, under the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the appointment of several new supreme court justices viewed as close to the government raised concerns about diminished autonomy.
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Bukele issued a state of emergency in 2022 to fight homicides and gang violence, limiting the judiciary’s ability to exercise their power. The extension of the state of emergency has not been approved by the Supreme Court. Judges that do not comply with the political agenda have been removed.
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In #ElSalvador a series of judicial reforms from 2021 to 2024 curtailed the courts’s powers and independence. In 2021, President Bukele’s legislative supermajority was used to remove all judges from the Supreme Court and to appoint new ones without following constitutional procedures.
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The judicial reform indicator identifies institutional changes made in judiciary power and whether these changes affect its ability to control arbitrary use of state authority. The scale reaches from 0 (a reduction to this ability) to 2 (an enhancement), where 1 reflects no changes.
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The latest blow further deepening Tunisia’s authoritarian turn came in 2025 when Saïed’s government dissolved the National Authority for Access to Information (INAI), severely undermining transparency and oversight.

Make your own graph: v-dem.net/graphing/gra...
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@vdemamlat.bsky.social

He used the COVID-19 pandemic to expand executive power, culminating in a self-coup July 2021. 2022, the constitution was revised, reinforcing the president's powers. The independence of the judiciary has eroded, & political opponents, journalists, & dissent voices face increasing persecution.
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However, socioeconomic challenges, corruption, a lack of accountability mechanisms, and unresolved issues in gender inequality challenged Tunisia’s fragile democracy. With Kaïs Saïed winning the presidential elections in 2019, he gradually steered Tunisia into democratic backsliding.
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Tunisia emerged as the Arab Spring’s democratic success story after the long autocratic rule of Pres. Ben Ali ended in 2011. A progressive new constitution, political rights & civil liberties, a series of free multiparty elections, separation of powers, & freedom of expression fueled optimism.
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Make your own graph with the V-Dem graphing tools: v-dem.net/graphing/gra...
Read more in the Policy Brief "U-turns – The Hope for Democratic Resilience":
v-dem.net/media/public...
or in "When autocratization is reversed: episodes of U-Turns since 1900": www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Both countries are democratizing, but the positive trend has been weakened in recent years by incidents of suppression of political opponents. The upcoming elections in 2026, will give the people of The Gambia and Zambia the opportunity to solidify and deepen their ongoing democratization.
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