EDMONTON -- Experts from the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden say the U.S. Republican party is beginning to resemble an autocratic party due to its separation from democratic norms fuelled by increasing polarization among Americans.
The report found that the disrespect and encouragement of violence against political opponents, as well as increasing separation from democratic norms and the violation of minority rights, have been increasing within the Republican Party in recent years, even before President Donald Trump took office.
Researchers say the party’s rhetoric is beginning to resemble that of authoritarian parties, such as AKP in Turkey and Fidesz in Hungary.
To draw their analysis, researchers examined each party's willingness to uphold democratic norms and guard the democratic process.
“The measures that we employed are based on political science research that developed the idea of a litmus test for democracy,” Jean Lachapelle, study author and postdoctoral research fellow at V-Dem, told CTV News Channel Saturday.
Lachapelle explained there are four indicators to measure a shift towards more authoritarian rhetoric, including whether or not the party recognizes the legitimacy of its political opponents, whether it accepts defeat if the party loses in a free and fair election, if it encourages or condones political violence against opponents, and a respect for minority rights.
“The data shows that until the 2018 election in the U.S., which is the last year for which we have data, there is a significant shift in the Republican Party on these four dimensions, which suggests an increasing authoritarian term in terms of their rhetoric,” he said.
“The increasing polarization in the United States is clearly a main cause of this.”
But the U.S. isn’t the only country experiencing this type of shift.
“We see increasing polarization across the world, and that makes it very difficult for proponents of democracy to navigate a very tense political terrain,” Lachapelle explained.
He noted that a decline in democracy has occurred in countries like Hungary or Poland, where autocratic rulers “use the dissatisfaction of the people to seize power and erode democratic norms.”
“Very often, extreme polarization facilitates this work,” he said.
The study, the largest of its kind, looked at the shifts of political parties across 169 countries between 1970 and 2019, based on the assessments of 665 experts who considered 30 detailed indicators in their research.
