Some political scientists argue the United States is no longer functioning as a liberal democracy and is instead exhibiting traits of “competitive authoritarianism,” a system in which elections take place but incumbents use state power to tilt the playing field. The concept’s co-creators, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, told NPR they never expected to apply the term to the U.S.
Steven Levitsky, a Harvard professor of government, and Lucan Way, now a professor at the University of Toronto, coined the term “competitive authoritarianism” in 2002 to describe political systems in countries such as Serbia, Kenya and Peru, according to NPR.
In NPR’s account, competitive authoritarian systems retain democratic rules and competitive elections, but the party in power uses tactics that skew competition to help it stay in office.
Levitsky told NPR that when the term was introduced, he and Way never imagined it would be used to describe the United States. In the same interview, Levitsky pointed to what he described as signs of a familiar “playbook” in the Trump era, including actions that, in his view, raise the costs of political opposition.
NPR also reported that some scholars dispute that characterization and argue the U.S. remains a democracy, citing continued public protest and criticism of the administration as evidence of ongoing political freedoms.