Governing Through Democratic Backsliding: Why Global Turbulence Demands a New Model of Public Administration

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Dana-Marie Ramjit
December 5, 2025

Introduction

Democratic backsliding is no longer a regional anomaly; it is a global pattern reshaping the work of public administrators across political systems, levels of development and cultural contexts. Whether in established democracies such as the United States or emerging democracies across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, once-stable institutional norms are eroding in the face of political polarization, weakened accountability, misinformation and declining trust. The result is a complex international landscape where the assumptions underpinning democratic governance are increasingly unstable.

Yet much of our response remains anchored in outdated state-centric models of power. These models presume that governments operate as the principal and often exclusive source of authority and legitimacy. Today, this is not the world public administrators inhabit. Authority has become diffuse. Policy challenges spill across borders. Non-state actors shape agendas, deliver services and mobilize citizens, and political turbulence driven by technology, global crises and contested identities destabilizes even the strongest institutional frameworks.

If democratic backsliding is now a defining feature of global governance, then public administration must rethink the foundations of how governance works. This moment requires moving beyond rigid hierarchies toward more adaptive, networked forms of authority that can withstand turbulence.

Democratic Backsliding as a Global Governance Challenge
While democratic erosion manifests differently across regions, several shared patterns have emerged worldwide:

1. Executive aggrandizement: leaders consolidate authority under the guise of efficiency or crisis response.

2. Legislative and judicial capture: political elites weaken institutional checks from within.

3. Civil society restrictions: NGOs, media and grassroots movements face legal, financial or physical threats.

4. Identity polarization: ethnicity, religion and cultural divisions become tools of political mobilization.

5. Erosion of administrative neutrality: public services become politicized, undermining competence and trust.

These dynamics now appear in countries as varied as India, Hungary, Brazil, Tanzania, Israel, Tunisia, Mexico, the U.S. and the Caribbean. Their proliferation suggests democratic backsliding is not simply a governance failure but a structural byproduct of global turbulence, a term scholars use to describe rapidly shifting, uncertain and multidimensional conditions in which traditional institutions no longer hold monopoly power.

For public administrators, this turbulence reshapes day-to-day practice: greater scrutiny, more actors at the table, increased politicization and heightened citizen expectations, all in an environment of declining trust.

Understanding Power Beyond the State

To understand democratic backsliding in this global context, administrators need analytical frameworks that reflect how governance operates today. Postinternationalism provides one such lens. It explains the diffusion of power across multiple centers of authority:

1. International organizations influence domestic policy.

2. NGOs co-produce services and accountability mechanisms.

3. Advocacy networks mobilize transnational pressure.

4. Informal community structures fill governance gaps.

5. Digital platforms reshape civic engagement and political narratives.

These dispersed networks challenge the traditional top-down model of democratic governance, yet they also offer opportunities for resilience if states can leverage them effectively. Democratic backsliding often accelerates when governments reject these networks, undermining civic actors, demonizing NGOs or centralizing authority in ways that reduce collaboration. Conversely, when states integrate diverse actors into governance, they expand transparency, shared legitimacy and the institutional adaptability needed to withstand turbulence.

A Mirror for Global Democracies

Regions shaped by colonial legacies such as the Caribbean, South Asia and parts of Africa provide insight into how democratic institutions falter even when formal systems appear intact. Here, backsliding is not simply a political deviation; it is rooted in longstanding historical and structural tensions:

1. Institutional forms imported from colonial powers persist without adapting to local social realities.

2. Identity-based politics shaped by historical hierarchies drive political competition.

3. State-society relationships remain fragile with limited avenues for meaningful participation.

4. Executive dominance and patronage systems undermine checks and balances.

5. Economic dependency and climate vulnerability weaken administrative capacity.

Though the U.S. and Europe operate in different historical contexts, they now face parallel challenges: political polarization around identity, contested notions of citizenship, declining trust in institutions and the rise of non-state actors who both support and sometimes threaten democratic governance.

Postcolonial analysis helps global public administrators see that democratic backsliding is not solely about authoritarian leaders. It is about governance systems that fail to evolve with society, fail to address historical inequalities or fail to integrate diverse voices into the policy process.

Turbulence as the New Operating Environment

Rosenau’s theory of turbulence captures the underlying condition that makes contemporary governance so difficult: unpredictable, fast-moving and multi-scalar change. Public administrators today must manage crises that do not respect borders or bureaucratic boundaries including pandemics, climate disasters, mass migration, cyber threats, misinformation and geopolitical instability. In this environment:

1. Institutional rigidity becomes a liability.

2. Traditional chains of command are too slow for rapid change.

3. Policy problems require interdisciplinary cross-border solutions.

4. Citizens expect responsiveness, transparency and participation.

Democratic backsliding thrives where institutions are unable to respond to this turbulence. Populism grows in gaps between citizen expectations and state capacity. Misinformation fills voids created by slow or opaque governance, and centralization is often presented as a shortcut for solving complex problems even though it usually deepens distrust.

A Model for Governing Through Backsliding and Turbulence

To meet these global challenges, governance must shift from rigid hierarchical models to heterarchical systems, structures defined by distributed authority, collaborative decision-making and shared power across networks of actors. Reorganization does not dismantle the state. Rather, it positions the state as one node among many:

1. Governments provide legitimacy, coordination and resources.

2. NGOs supply localized knowledge and accountability.

3. Private actors contribute innovation and capacity.

4. International organizations offer frameworks and funding.

5. Communities provide lived experience and democratic grounding.

In practice, heterarchy strengthens democracy by:

1. Diversifying decision-making and reducing the risks of elite capture.

2. Improving responsiveness through localized and flexible policy solutions.

3. Enhancing legitimacy by embedding participation into governance.

4. Countering backsliding because power distributed across networks is harder to erode from the top.

This model is increasingly visible in global climate governance, pandemic response, disaster resilience, urban planning and cross-border environmental initiatives. Still, it remains underutilized in national democratic reform, especially in countries grappling with polarization or executive centralization.

Implications for Public Administrators Worldwide

To protect democratic integrity amid turbulence, public administration must invest in:

1. Institutional openness: build mechanisms that integrate civil society, research communities, business, youth and marginalized groups into policymaking.

2. Networked governance capacity: train administrators in coalition building, negotiation, network management and cross-sector collaboration.

3. Adaptive systems and learning institutions: incorporate real-time data, continuous evaluation and flexible policy design.

4. Just governance: address historical and structural inequalities that fuel democratic erosion.

5. Transparency and participatory accountability: use digital tools, public scorecards and deliberative processes to reinforce trust and legitimacy.

Conclusion

Democratic backsliding is not simply a political trend; it is a symptom of deeper structural transformations in global governance. As turbulence intensifies, public administrators must move beyond inherited models of authority and embrace collaborative, distributed and adaptive structures that define governance today. The future of democracy will not be secured by defending old hierarchies. It will be built through new forms of partnership, new channels of participation and new ways of sharing power. Heterarchical governance offers a path forward not by replacing the state but by evolving it to meet the demands of a complex and interconnected world.

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Author: Dana-Marie Ramjit is Professor of Political Science at St. Mary’s University. She holds a PhD in Public Policy and Administration and an MSc. in International Relations. Dana-Marie is also a Research Fellow at the Human Capital Lab, Bellevue University. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X (formerly Twitter) @DanaMarieRamjit.

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