Understanding Democratic Erosion, Lowy Institute, August 2025
Authors: Lydia Khalil, Peter Woodrow, James Paterson, Robert Kaufman
Democratic erosion is the incremental and multifaceted deterioration in the freedoms, guarantees, and processes vital to the functioning of democracy. Various studies have tried to pinpoint one cause or set of causes of democratic erosion. But we argue that democratic erosion is a systems problem that is best understood by applying systems thinking to identify and explore the complex processes and pathways behind the phenomenon. This interactive feature illustrates those dynamics and uses systems mapping to show how reinforcing “loops” — the circular chains of cause and effect — accelerate democratic erosion.