The main goal of this paper is to explain the rise of competitive authoritarianism in Erdoğan's Turkey. The recent literature has mainly focused on the taxonomical debate about the type of regime established by Erdoğan, dealing only rarely with the factors explaining the Turkish autocratization. Building on Levitsky and Loxton's framework, which underlines the catalyst role played by the election of populist leaders for the rise of competitive authoritarianism in Latin America, the analysis identifies the interactions among Erdoğan's populism and threats and opportunities provided by both domestic and international environments as the major cause explaining Turkish autocratization.
Despite growing concerns expressed by think thanks and international organisations about the deterioration of democracy in Vučić's Serbia, this country has been neglected by the emerging literature on the 'crisis of democracy'. Thanks to a quali-quanti research strategy for detecting changes in regime types, including various V-DEM measures and the over three-dozen indicators provided by the competitive authoritarian framework, the analysis confirms the recent regression of Vučić's Serbia to competitive authoritarianism. The peculiar features of this case, which went through a double transition to and from democracy in less than two decades, appear to strengthen a pessimistic outlook for the future of democracy.Is the current situation proving that Serbia went through an autocratization process or it just represents a further deterioration of the Serbian democracy? What is the theoretical contribution of this case to the debate on the 'crisis of democracy'? The analysis highlights the re-emergence of a competitive authoritarian regime in Vučić's Serbia, making this case part of a broader trend of global authoritarian retreat triggered by elected leaders.
While the Europeanization literature has focused extensively on analysing progress towards the adoption of the European model, scant attention has been devoted to cases of resistance and contestation, which may lead to the emergence of a new phenomenon identified as de-Europeanization. In order to inquire on this phenomenon, a case study analysis will be applied to Serbian media freedom. Is this sector undergoing a process of de-Europeanization while the country is progressing toward full EU membership? The analysis demonstrates the recent consolidation of a de-Europeanizing trend, coinciding with the return to power of former Milošević ruling parties.
Notwithstanding the speculations from the literature, the empirical analyses still neglect the convergence between populism and technocracy. The Italian case can be of some interest in this perspective, given the rise of technocratic populism since Silvio Berlusconi’s rise to power in 1994. By analyzing the style of leadership and the processes of ministerial appointment and delegation, we argue that Berlusconi has been a trendsetter, more than a coherent example of technocratic populist leader. On the one hand, he played the role of the entrepreneur in politics, promising to run the state as a firm. Moreover, he adopted an anti-establishment appeal, delegitimizing political opponents and stressing the divide between ‘us’ (hardworking ordinary people) and ‘them’ (incompetent politicians). On the other hand, however, his anti-elite approach was mainly directed towards the ‘post-communist elite.’ Extending the analysis to the following two decades, we introduce a diachronic comparison involving three examples of leadership somehow influenced by Berlusconi. Mario Monti represents the paradox of the impossible hero: A pure technocrat unable to take a genuinely populist semblance. Matteo Renzi represents the attempt to mix a populist party leadership with a technocratic chief executive style. Finally, Salvini represents the pure nativist heir of Berlusconi, as the new leader of the right-wing camp. The latest developments of executive leadership in Italy, and the re-emergence of other residual hints of technocratic populism, will be discussed in the final section of the article, also in the light of the evident impact of the 2020 pandemic outbreak on the practices of government.
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