Reviewing Competitive Authoritarianism (January 2026)

In its January/February issue, Foreign Affairs published an essay entitled, ‘The Price of American Authoritarianism: What Can Reverse Democratic Decline?' by Steven Levitsky (Harvard University) and Lucan Way (University of Toronto). The authors argue that “In Trump’s second term, the United States has descended into competitive authoritarianism.” So, what is ‘competitive authoritarianism and how is it different from other forms of authoritarianism? According to Levitsky and Way, [it is] a system in which parties compete in elections but incumbents routinely abuse their power to punish critics and tilt the playing field against their opposition.” The key word is ‘compete’—there being a possibility that the opposition may actually pull off an upset victory. In 2010, the authors published Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War in which they use their model to evaluate competitive authoritarianism in the regimes of 35 countries at the end of the Soviet era.(1)

The authors’ definition of democracy is important from the outset. For them, “What distinguishes competitive authoritarianism from democracy . . . is the fact that incumbent abuse of the state violates at least one of three defining attributes of democracy: (1) free elections, (2) broad protection of civil liberties, and (3) a reasonably level playing field.” The contrast between their working definition and the more common view that regularly contested elections suffice for a democracy could not be sharper. Accordingly, they believe that “Western democracy promotion was ‘electoralist’ in that it focused almost exclusively on multiparty elections while often ignoring dimensions such as civil liberties and a level playing field.” In other words, there was a prioritization of form over substance.

To protect themselves from the charge of overextending their theory, Levitsky and Lucan limit their analysis and conclusions to those factors that principally contribute to democratization or maintenance of the status quo. They shy away from claiming that their approach is universal, yet their Foreign Affairs’ essay suggests that they have since revisited their model and found it to fit contemporary America. Their model outright excludes rigidly authoritarian regimes such as those found in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. For the term competitive authoritarianism to apply, there has to be a chance, however unlikely, that an opposition party can win an election. This would be impossible in any one of the four countries just mentioned.

What then is distinctive about Levitsky and Lucan’s methodology? Here, three terms need to be unpacked: organization power, leverage and linkage. Organization power, which can refer to the state and/or party, refers to an “incumbents’ capacity to prevent elite defection, co-opt or repress opponents, defuse or crack down on protest, and win (or steal) elections.” Leverage describes the existence and employment of political, economic and military intervention by another country. This often comes to mind when reviewing the history of American foreign policy, but it is equally applicable to the EU’s use of membership accession as an incentive for countries to democratize. And, linkage relates to the sum total of economic, intergovernmental, technocratic, social, information and civil-society interactions between those within the borders and the rest of the world, especially the Western world of forbidden freedoms and democratic institutions. In the authors’ opinion, there is no substitute for the free movement of people, ideas and trade across borders.

Levitsky and Lucan’s analysis suggest that a high linkage with the West corresponds with democratization of competitive authoritarian systems. The authors explain this in terms of raising the costs of authoritarian abuse. Thus, a porous border allows the government’s abuse of power to be internationalized and sanctioned, and it permits international solidarity with the opposition. Both tend to weaken the authoritarian grip. Where high linkage is missing, the probability of sustained democratization is very low. For example, in Eastern Europe and the Americas where linkage with the U.S. and/or EU was high, democratic pressures on competitive authoritarian regimes increased from the both outside and the inside. In Africa, the failure of democratization is largely attributable to low Western linkage. In Africa, it is as if nobody knows what is happening there and nobody cares, so without a powerful external catalyst and no support to sustain a vigorous opposition, democracy remains dormant.

Implicitly, the authors are shaming the U.S. and EU for their negligence. But here, there is also irony, as this book reads as if it might have been commissioned by the U.S. State Department. Its analysis usefully describes when, where and how the U.S. can influence smaller and more vulnerable countries. From the weak state’s perspective Western linkage is welcome, but it is also understood to be just steps away from infringing on national sovereignty and the right of countries to chart their own courses.

To complement this account of why competitive authoritarian countries go one way or another, it would be useful to explore the principal reasons why some states interfere in the politics of other states. In this account, a country like Russia is described as a ‘black knight,’ so presumably the U.S. and EU would be cast as white knights. But this characterization is overly simplistic and fails to distinguish the mixed motivations of the white knight, not all of which are benign. To highlight Western motives for the purpose of discussion and self-examination might contribute to fewer cases of democratization being abandoned in Africa. The same could apply to a critique of Chinese and Russian motives for intervening in other countries’ domestic politics via, for example, the Belt and Road Initiative and the Wagner Group.

Returning to Levitsky and Way’s Foreign Affairs’ essay, the authors write that “In 2025, the United States ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany, or even Argentina are democracies.” How so? Just as was shown in their 2010 book, nearly all of the governments examined were formally democratic, but nevertheless they were

nondemocracies because constitutional rules were routinely subverted. Supreme Courts or constitutional courts were circumvented or trampled upon . . nominally independent electoral commissions were packed or emasculated . . . and term limits were violated or dismantled.

The Trump administration is following the same playbook, “To weaponize the state, elected autocrats must purge and then pack it.” The purpose is not to lead the U.S. but to consolidate the power of Trump and his Republican Party by using intimidation and retribution to tilt the political playing field for long-term advantage. The authors note that U.S. history is filled with “examples of antidemocratic behavior” but are quick to add that “overtly authoritarian abuse largely disappeared in the United States after the civil rights reforms of the 1950s and 1960s and the post-Watergate reforms of the 1970s.”

At this moment, Americans who oppose the authoritarian turn are advised to acknowledge that theirs is unquestionably an authoritarian regime in its ascendancy. At the same, they are reminded not lose faith that democratic resistance can stop and ultimately reverse the course of American authoritarianism. History has proven that authoritarianism can be rolled back. It’s all in the will.

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Endnotes