Checks and Balances and Institutional Gridlock: Implications for Authoritarianism

Abstract

Recently, the world saw a wave of elected leaders attack democracy. Why do people support leaders who remove checks and balances? I argue that aspiring autocrats gain more popular support when they present these institutions as obstacles to getting things done. In doing so, they exploit a critical tension between the possibility of gridlock and the abuse of power, which is inherent in democratic institutions. Using cross-national data and leveraging an original survey experiment from Turkey, I show that effective checks and balances decrease democracy satisfaction and that aspiring autocrats gain more popular support when they present these institutions as obstacles. More interestingly, respondents perceive the aspiring autocrats' gridlock justification to dismantle checks and balances as a pro-democratic attempt to remove the obstacles to a policy-responsive regime. These results show that aspiring autocrats exploit the tension in democracies, making it harder for citizens to perceive the threat they face.