Democratic Decline in Philippines

Choose a single country and period from the list of possible cases of democratic decline between 1900 and 2019 (see below). In a 4-5 page essay, provide an analysis of the causes of democratic decline in that case. 

Your essay should include the following sections:

1. Democratic roots (1 page) (20% of grade)
   
   
   
   1. How long has the country been a democracy? In the years before the country began backsliding, how would you describe the state of the democracy?
   
   
   
   2. NB: The V-Dem Country Graph  feature can help you visualize the quality of democracy over time. The V-Dem Codebook   includes descriptions of democracy indices including the “Liberal Democracy Index” and the “Electoral Democracy Index”. You can plot these and their subcomponents in the Country Graph tool to get an initial sense of how the quality of democracy is changing over time in your case. You are not required to include this plot in your paper.
   
   
   



2. Symptoms of erosion (1 page) (20% of grade)
   
   
   
   1. When did the country start to backslide? For how many years was democracy on the decline?
   
   
   
   2. What does backsliding look like in your country? Lecture 17 on patterns of democratic decline may be particularly useful here.
   
   
   



3. Explaining the decline (2-3 pages) (40% of grade)
   
   
   
   1. What are the one or two main factors that seem to drive the decline in democratic quality in your country? This can be a structural feature, like ethnic tensions or economic inequality, or an institutional factor, like a particular electoral system or type of executive, or something else.
   
   
   
   2. Be sure to connect the problems that you discuss to the erosion of democracy, and do not just list problems in the case. How did those factors lead to a decline in the quality of democracy? Exemplary papers will discuss whether patterns in the case are consistent with the argument that the factor(s) that you identify have led to democratic decline. These patterns could be related to which citizens support an anti-democratic party, or when changes in the social, economic, or institutional features occurred relative to democratic decline, among other things. 
   
   
   
   3. If the factor(s) that you identify as contributing to decline in your case are discussed in some of the theories of democratic decline covered in Lectures 17-24, be sure to cite and briefly describe the theory in your discussion of the case.
   
   
   

The other 20% of your grade is for the general quality and clarity of your essay (logically structured, no obvious factual errors, proper cited, clearly written, etc).

Your essay should make an argument about the cause(s) of democratic decline in your case.  Your essay should be well-organized, clear, and easy to read. It must include citations in MLA format from applicable course readings as well as sources specific to your country. The essay should be no more than five pages (not including the Works Cited page) and typed in Times New Roman 12 point font. The margins should be one inch on all sides, and it should be double-spaced. 

Sources

To get full credit on the paper, you must use at least two academic sources from outside the course readings. Academic sources go through the peer review process where other qualified scholars thoroughly judge the research before it is published. Google Scholar ) is a great way to find academic sources.

Suggested academic sources:

• Journal of Democracy – covers whole world



• Area studies journals (e.g. African Affairs , Latin American Politics and Society)

Secondary sources:

• Economist Intelligence Reports )



• Freedom House reports )(both Freedom in the World reports and Freedom of Press reports)



• State Department Human Rights Reports )



• Human Rights Watch reports )



• International Crisis Group reports )



• Africa Confidential。



• Reports from local civil society organizations



• Newspapers and magazines (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, New Yorker, etc)

Databases on quality of democracy:

            Varieties of Democracy (链接到外部网站。)

Polity IV (链接到外部网站。)

Economist Democracy Index (链接到外部网站。)

NB: Internet sources that do not have quality-control systems (ex. blogs, websites with unclear authorship) can be helpful starting points but shouldn’t be cited as academic sources.

List of Possible Cases

The following list includes countries between 1900 and 2019 that 1) started at a minimal level of electoral democracy and then 2) experienced a drop in their liberal democracy score according to the V-Dem data.[1]

Pick one case (country and period) from this list to analyze in your paper. 

NOTE: It may be more difficult to find information on very early cases, or cases with relatively small declines in the quality of democracy. Please keep this in mind when choosing your case. If you have relatively little research experience, we recommend choosing a case from the 1990s-2010s.

[1] A few cases have been dropped because the decline in the liberal democracy score was very small and short-lived. Venezuela and the US have also been dropped because we will analyze them in other activities.