Challenges to Local Democracy: Democratization Efforts and Democratic Backsliding at the Sub-national Level

Increasingly, democracy is seen to be under threat. The quality of (liberal) democracy is declining in a number of countries around the world, and hybrid regimes are becoming more common. There are obvious challenges to maintaining or building local democratic governance structures in backsliding democracies, hybrid regimes or (near) authoritarian regimes. However, challenges to local democracy can also emerge locally in nationally democratic countries in the form of illiberal local structures and practices. It also puts the increasing phenomena of institutionalized cross-border cooperation spaces under stress, since these are generally more favored by democratic regimes. Furthermore, local democratic governance has recently been put under stress by social, economic and political challenges triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, these challenges have so far been less researched and documented than their national equivalents. This mirrors the general tendencies for nation-bias and national methodologies in political science, something which this Research Topic aims to counteract.

The goal of the Research Topic is to advance knowledge on:

1. how to assess (measure) the presence and scope of local democracy in backsliding democracies and hybrid regimes, with provision for extended knowledge also on the scope for democratic elements at the local level in authoritarian regimes,
2. what explains sub-national illiberal structures in well-institutionalized democracies,
3. what explains democratization at the sub-national level, given recent global and geo-political trend and in light of previous theoretical work, e.g. identify and test factors that advance or hinder democratization,
4. the effects on local and regional democratic dynamics of recent national-level backsliding;
5. the effects of international policy and interventions on sub-national democracy;
6. the scope for local democracy as well as local cross-border cooperation to mitigate backsliding tendencies or counteract negative effects of hybrid regimes,
7. how to conceptualize and assess the relationship between local democracy and development with a view to democratic backsliding at national levels,
8. the effects of Covid-19 on local democracy in times of social and political polarization: restrictions vs. innovative practices for representation and deliberation.

This Research Topics seeks political scientists and other social scientists that want to contribute to addressing methodological, empirical and theoretical aspects related to the condition and challenges to local (sub-national) democracy, especially, but not exclusively in hybrid regimes and backsliding democracies. This includes how to assess the presence and scope of local democracy in light of earlier theoretical work but recent empirical developments, how to explain democratization and backsliding at the local level, and the effects of political and policy events and interventions on local democracy. Manuscripts focusing on the role of institutional cross-border cooperation in this dynamic, the pandemic and social development will be especially welcome. The Research Topic is open to contributions engaging with developments on all continents and that use different methodological and theoretical approaches as well as strands of literature - these manuscripts should ideally include engagement with research published in core political science outlets. Comparative approaches are encouraged but not required.