Beyond Performance: Why Leaders Still Matter

Abstract: In their response to "Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding," Francis Fukuyama, Chris Dann, and Beatriz Magaloni defend the proposition that democracies' failure to deliver is a primary cause of democratic backsliding. Yet evidence that poor economic performance correlates with citizen dissatisfaction with democracy falls short as an explanation of backsliding. Democracy has persisted in some faltering economies while eroding in various strong economies. Moreover, the leaders driving the rise of electoral autocracy were often elected promising to reform, not dismantle, democracy. A focus on the methods and motivations of such leaders, and the failure of existing guardrails to constrain them, remains essential to explaining democracy backsliding.