Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way write:

When we began writing about competitive authoritarianism a quarter-century ago, we never imagined applying the concept to the United States. Our initial study of 35 post–Cold War competitive authoritarian regimes centered overwhelmingly on postcommunist and lower- and middle-income countries with weak states and weak civil societies. But in the early twenty-first century, a set of “new” competitive authoritarian regimes emerged in countries with more established democratic institutions, such as Hungary, India, Poland, Turkey, and Venezuela. The United States joined that group during Donald Trump’s second presidency, which began in January 2025. The U.S. slide into competitive authoritarianism was modest and reversible—but it was real.

Competitive authoritarianism is a regime in which parties compete in meaningful elections but incumbents systematically abuse state institutions to tilt the political playing field against their opponents. Unlike traditional dictatorships, opposition parties genuinely compete for power. Parties are legal and operate above ground, and they view elections as the principal route to power. Elections are often highly competitive affairs in which incumbents are forced to sweat. Occasionally, incumbents lose—as they did in Malaysia in 2018, Poland in 2023, Botswana in 2024, and Hungary in 2026.

But democracy is more than just elections; it requires protection of civil liberties and fair competition. Competitive authoritarian regimes differ from democracies in that the competition is unfair. Incumbents weaponize state institutions and deploy them in ways that weaken or seriously disadvantage their opponents. In Peru under Alberto Fujimori, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Hungary under Viktor Orbán, and El Salvador under Nayib Bukele, governments purged judicial, law-enforcement, intelligence, tax, election-administration, and other state institutions and packed them with loyalists. These governments then deployed those institutions systematically against rivals, independent media, and civil society, tilting the playing field against the opposition.

Elections in competitive authoritarian regimes are marked by varying degrees of unfairness. Incumbents may gerrymander election boundaries nationwide to disadvantage their opponents, restrict opposition parties’ ability to raise money and campaign on equal footing, and pack the election administration with loyalists. Packed electoral authorities may then turn a blind eye to incumbent abuse of state resources, acts of voter intimidation, and even fraud.

Weaponization and abuse extend beyond the electoral arena. Incumbents in competitive authoritarian regimes deploy law-enforcement, tax, and regulatory authorities to selectively punish critics. Opponents of the government are investigated and prosecuted, often for petty infractions; businesspeople who finance opposition parties or own independent media outlets are targeted for tax or fraud investigations; independent media are hit with government lawsuits and selective regulatory enforcement; intelligence agencies are used to spy on opposition; and police and other security agents harass opposition activists and repress opposition protest. [Continue reading…]