democratic backsliding

democratic backsliding (uncountable)

1. Gradual decline in the quality and robustness of democracy, especially following an initial rise in democracy.

   Synonym: autocratization

   Antonym: democratization

   • 2024 August 29, Whitney Eulich, “Why Mexican judicial reform is causing a rift with the US”, in The Christian Science Monitor:

     But judges, law students, economists, human rights experts, and Mexico’s most important trading partners worry [the judicial reform] could lead to democratic backsliding – and macroeconomic turbulence – that the incoming President Claudia Sheinbaum will inherit when she takes office Oct. 1.