Deadline for submitting title and short (100 words) abstract: 15 May 2024
Article submission deadline: 15 September 2024
The literature on the state of democracy and freedom around the world has been overshadowed the growing concerns about democratic backsliding, the proliferation of illiberal democracies and electoral authoritarianism, and lately, outright autocratization against the background of the Covid-19 pandemic which has provided the pretext for radical measures.
In order to understand how democratic backsliding and autocratization were checked in some nations but not in others, the proposed special thematic block of Journal of Comparative Politics (www.jofcp.org; Scopus IF Q2), to be published in January 2025 issue, focuses on the electoral arena (including but not limited to national elections and referendums) where leaders in both electoral democracies and electoral autocracies had to overcome a series of health, socioeconomic, and political risks amid the pandemic since 2020.
We welcome research articles which seek to make original contributions through comparative and empirical studies to shed light on some of the key aspects backsliding and autocratization, namely: (a) how regime types shaped the choices available to the leaders in response to the crisis, (b) how such choices were made and presented to various stakeholders of the regimes, (c) how the public responded, and (d) the extent to which the elections and referendums in question served to consolidate or weaken the incumbents. In all, the collection of scholarly works is expected to yield nuanced analyses and substantive findings with supporting evidence against the background of a rapid rise of populist, illiberal politics at the expense of the checkand-balance and power-sharing politics, with the hybrid and the authoritarian regimes, whose leaders are said to have taken advantage of the pandemic to consolidate autocratic rule. In addition to small-N case studies, which would provide rich details and narratives, potential contributors are welcome to bring together under the Most Similar Systems Design as well as the Most Dissimilar Systems Design of the ‘electoral episodes’ with reference to both regime types and the geographical distribution where they took place.
For further inquiry, please do not hesitate to reach to Kenneth Chan (kklchan@hkbu.edu.hk).