From Democracy to Hybrid Regime. Democratic Backsliding and Populism in Hungary and Tunisia

Abstract Democratic backsliding has become a global reality which in the past decade has curiously occurred together with populism and the polarization of societies. How do these phenomena interact? Through a comparative study of two iconic cases of democratization and democratic backsliding from different world regions, Hungary and Tunisia, we find that polarization – typically instrumentalized by populists along the socio-cultural axis – harms social trust, setting a context in which societies accept democratic backsliding. Based in a most different systems design, our findings confirm the causal link between populism and democratic backsliding and represent a starting point for further analysis focused on the effects of the socio-cultural dimension on institutional change.