The ethics of responding to democratic backsliding abroad

Abstract The past decade has seen a marked shift as many previously liberal democratic states have backslidden, taking authoritarian turns. How should liberal actors respond to democratic backsliding by others? Although it might seem that it is vital for liberal actors to react robustly to avoid complicity or to maintain their liberal integrity, this paper argues that complicity‐based and integrity‐based approaches offer an incomplete picture of the ethical challenges posed by democratic backsliding and propose problematic responses. They tend to focus too much on the internal effects of backsliding, that is, the effects on the citizens within the backsliding state. Instead, the paper proposes a responsibility‐based approach that emphasizes the need to take much more seriously the external effects of backsliding, arguing that the central focus of responses to democratic backsliding should be the dangers posed to the fulfilment of global responsibilities.