Discrepancy between theory and practice: Democratic recession or a crisis of state legitimacy?

ABSTRACT The discrepancy between democratic theory and practice is common to all democratic and quasi-democratic governments. Democratic recession manifests where there is an extreme discrepancy between normative democratic values and their practice – for instance where the state has flouted democratic normative rules (theory) and rendered major democratic institutions dysfunctional. This article posits that democratic recession can be seen in the 21st century as a reaction to at least four factors: 1) shifts in global geopolitics, 2) a crisis of representative democracy, 3) democratic silence, and 4) the rise of populism and post-truth framing. Indices of democracy do not, however, reveal the extent of the state’s role in undermining democratic institutions (ie, political parties, election monitoring bodies, parliaments, the media, civil society), due to a bias of liberal individualism. The outcome has been a crisis of state legitimacy, where citizens lose trust in the state rather than in democratic governance.


Introduction
Two enduring theoretical and practical dimensions define and frame democratic recession debates.First is an implicit distinction between democratic theory and practice, 1 where normative political values' promise is never fully realisable within the confines of political democratic pragmatism. 2 Second is the extent to which, when political institutions designed to regulate the defining dimensions of democracy (representation, participation, inclusion, protection, and contestation) are manipulated, democratic recession is ensured.Instead of rehashing these debates, this article discusses four democratic theory determinants within the remit of 21st-century democratic recession.
The current debate considers democratic recession as a reaction to at least four factors, which are: 1) shifts in global geopolitics, 2) a crisis of representative democracy, 3) democratic silence, and 4) the rise of populism and post-truth framing.All four of these are signposts of developments which may or may not be incongruent with the ideals of democratic theory.
Concomitantly, freedom of expression and organisation, equality before the law, access to state institutions, and the possibility to contest political and judicial controls to protect rights and liberty are cardinal democratic theory traits.Essentially, democratic practice goes far beyond the remit of democratic theory to test, elucidate and assess the effectiveness of political institutions.
Democratic recession debates are informed by an ideal type of democracy supported by empirical assessments about the functioning of major political institutions aggregated to produce analysis at the country, cross-country, world regional and global level.Furthermore, these debates reflect responses to democratic theory and the methods that support the core set of established assumptions and academic protocols that structure theory production. 3It is plausible to argue that democratic recession assessment methods apply a limited set of methodologies suited to explain discrepancies between theory and practice, and that these methodologies are designed to support a certain set of assumptions.More specifically, indices of democracy and their producers generally focus on how liberal individualism fares in a country, region, or worldwide; this, it is here argued, limits the emancipatory potential of variations in democratic politics. 4nforming the following discussion is a wider view of the discrepancy between normative democratic theory and democratic practise as seen in the manipulation of democratic institutions by the state.The structure and content of this article will be presented in four sections.Section one offers a re-reading of the democracy indices landscape; of major concern here are the indices that focus on liberal individualism rather than the state's manipulation of the democratic institutions to alter the democratic outcomes in its favour.Section two discusses democracy indices and flaws.Section three offers a synopsis of the history of democratic recession and its close association with the erosion of state legitimacy.Section four turns to the 21st century and the new national and geopolitical context of democratic recession.
The issues explored are limited to the analysis of the four critical areas: 1) emergent geopolitical shifts, 2) the crisis of representative democracy, 3) democratic silence, 4) populism, and the rise of post-truth framing.It is argued that these are all democracy delegitimising phenomena, and they are used and abused by the state to further undermine dysfunctional democratic institutions.In these circumstances, the state has restricted various key democratic institutions from discharging their sanctioned functions, stripping them of their capacity to realise the promise of democracy.Furthermore, when democratic institutions are forced to operate outside the remit of legitimate democratic processes, this produces a crisis of state legitimacy.

Indexing democratic recession
Cerardo Munck posits the ideal that 'measuring democracy' creates 'a bridge between scholarship and politics. 5What is measured for the purpose of indexing must, however, be seen to reflect an assumed political reality backed by implicit theoretical norms.This logic would be relatively easy to follow if democracy meant the same for all individuals in all countries where it is measured.In a different contextual analysis, Jan-Erik Refle articulated this challenge by arguing that applying a singular definition of democracy still poses measurement problems, even if the multidimensionality of democratic definitions is considered. 6his section briefly explores two important democracy indices: Freedom in the World run by the American-based think tank Freedom House, and the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) run by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, based in the United Kingdom.These two indices are selected because they have both had an impact on worldwide academic and policy debates on democratic recession.
This section aims to elucidate how these indices have treated the state's role in democratic recession by arguing that their emphasis on liberal individualism has shifted their attention away from the state's role in democratic recession.

Freedom in the World
In operation since 1973, Freedom in the World was by 2022 evaluating the state of freedom in 195 countries and 15 territories.Each country or territory is assigned a score between 0 and 4 points on a series of 25 indicators, for an aggregate score of up to 100.The indicators are grouped into political rights (0-40 points) and civil liberties (0-60 points); the two sets of points are weighted equally to determine whether the country or territory has an overall status of free, partly free, or not free. 7Freedom House notes that, 'In 1973, only 44 of 148 countriesless than 30%were rated free.In 2022, 84 of 195 nations, or 43%, are free.' 8 According to the Report, this indicates a positive turning point.
Freedom in the World methodology has two attributes which, for the purposes of the present discussion, deserve attention: First, 'it applies to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographic location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.'Second, it focuses on what it refers to as 'real-world rights and freedoms enjoyed by individuals rather than governments or government performance per se.' 9 A strong correlation exists between development and democratic and human rights scores in this index,where states termed 'developing', 'conflict-ridden', and 'fragile' regularly rank lowest in democracy, governance, transparency, human rights, and civil liberties. 10However, in the view of the present study, assessing whether states are free, partly free, or not free for individuals to practice their civil and democratic rights without assessing the state's adherence to and reinforcement of the norms and values of democracy is deficient.In addition, a lingering critique of democracy indices, including Freedom in the World, is that: 11 … most countries which have begun to hold elections decades ago are either at the tail of ranking or an intermediary zone between democratic and authoritarian opposites.From a methodological perspective distinguishing such countries is quite complex, requiring careful consideration.
The machinery of government (often divided into the executive, judiciary, and legislature) is expected to ensure that individuals enjoy equal treatment before the law, including the protections and the freedoms granted in the constitution.It is true that individuals practice the freedom of expression and the right to organise to influence government behaviour where these rights are granted, but the ability of individuals to operate within their respective states as free, partly free or not free, is a function of the incumbent government extending freedoms or constraining themthe latter through illegitimate use of power and sometimes coercion to hamper the activities of political institutions tasked with creating an even playing field for political competition and peaceful transfer of power.By surveying individuals independent of the state action, Freedom in the World has kept the state or state performance outside their democratic assessments.
While it is acknowledged that the intention of Freedom in the World is not to absolve the state from its role in contributing to democratic recession, this article questions the efficacy of this index in view of this glaring omission.Surely such measurements must take seriously the state's negative role in derailing the operations of democratic institutions, such as frustrating or undermining the activities of election monitoring bodies, opposition parties, and civic and non-governmental organisations.

Ibrahim Index of African Governance
Moving from the global level to the regional level, and specifically to Africa, discussion turns next to the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG).The IIAG reports are published every two years and offer comprehensive datasets measuring African governance performance. 12The datasets form a framework consisting of data collected from citizens, governments, institutions, academics, and businesses, focusing on assessing the delivery of public goods and services and policy outcomes across the continent.The IIAG 2022 report covers 54 countries and includes the latest data collected from a composite of 47 sources, 81 indicators, and 265 variables. 13hile IIAG must be applauded for statistical mastery, the state-centric nature of its governance definition on which the rankings are based must be noted.The Mo Ibrahim Foundation (MIF) defines governance as 'the provision of the political, social, economic and environmental goods and services that every citizen has the right to expect from their state, and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens'. 14In other words, governance is a system where the state is expected to deliver security, the rule of law, participation, rights, and inclusion, including a space for citizens' voices.
These governance elements have a direct bearing on the health of African democracy and provide a perspective on the state of democracy on the continent.For instance, IIAG ten-year trends (2012-2021) show that there has been deterioration in Africa in terms of security and the rule of law (from 50.3 to 49.0), as well as in the area of participation, rights, and inclusion (from 47.5 to 46.7), but improvements in foundations for economic opportunity (from 45.3 to 48.3) and human development (from 48.0 to 51.5). 15The net effect, according to IIAG, is that: 16 More than half of Africa's population lives in a country where overall governance has improved between 2012 and 2021.While more than 40 countries have progressed in the IIAG categories of foundations for economic opportunity and human development, in more than 30 countries, security and the rule of law and participation, rights, and inclusion have deteriorated in the categories.
In other words, the democratic deterioration occurred in areas where the state has not fulfilled its responsibility to its citizens, thus they are expressing their dissatisfaction with the state's performance.
Despite their methodological differences, particularly the depth and breadth of IIAG's datasets, both indices purport that Africa, while improving in some areas of governance, is less secure as of 2022, and that important elements of democracy, such as election administration, participation and freedom of expression have been eroded over the previous decade.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
The similarity of conclusions, despite methodological differences, should not come as a surprise.Both IIAG and Freedom in the World reports are based on an explanatory method informed by liberal individualism.Hence an analysis of individual conceptions of democratic governance improvement or deterioration is contingent on their experience of the state's capacity or will to deliver on its responsibilities.How do we measure, instead, the failure of the state to expand the democratic space for civic engagement for political, social, and economic participation?
This article argues that these two indices are limited in that they have pitched their methodologies within the remit of a liberal institutional political order.This is problematic in that the findings of Freedom in the World and the Ibrahim Index of African Governance are state centric. 17They: 1. Absolve the state from its responsibilities to protect the democratic institutions on which democratic performance rests.Using liberal individualism as a preferred methodology, the conclusions border on holding citizens responsible for having their rights disregarded or not guaranteed or not acted upon as codified in the jurisdictions of the legislative state.2. Assume that institutional politics and organised civic associations are the only spaces where democracy is practised, thus ignoring the pervasive nature of politics permeating the totality of human activities and existence.3. Explain democratic decline in terms of individuals' inability or unwillingness to practice their democratic rights without sufficiently interrogating the state's role in sabotaging the very democratic institutions that endow it with legitimacy.
The following section closely explores the relationship between democracy and state legitimacy, emphasising that democratic recession directly results from the state's systematic delegitimisation of the institutionsthe function of which is to confer legitimacy on the state.It focuses on and assesses 20 th -century democratic recession as part of historical incidences of democratic decline.The main argument here is that this time the state's delegitimisation of the democratic institutions has rendered the state itself illegitimate.

Democracy and state legitimacy in the last century
One role of democratic institutions (ie, political parties, election monitoring bodies, legislatures) is to endow the state with legitimacy.For instance, the interactions between political party systems and the electoral boards which govern the election processesfrom delimitation of constituencies to registration of voters, conducting and announcing the election resultsare intended to result in a parliamentary majority and minority.Parliament makes or unmakes government and, by doing so, simultaneously confers legitimacy on the government it supports, and relegates minority parliamentary political parties to the role of the loyal opposition.
In sum, any state worthy of being designated as ruled by a legitimate democratic governmentwhere citizens are deemed to be free or even partly freehinges on the legality of the processes that culminate in the formation of a government.The state is illegitimate if the institutions lack legitimacy or the processes that produced it are not democratic in nature.
The rest of this section argues that, historically, democratic recession occurred when the state's legitimacy was questioned.
In the modern history of democracy, three periods of a democratic recession were associated with a crisis of state legitimacy.First, the period between the First and Second World Wars was dominated by totalitarian regimes infamous for their notoriety and crimes against humanity: communism under Stalin (Russia), Nazism under Hitler (Germany), and fascism under Mussolini (Italy). 18To be sure, between the two world wars, democracy was in recession.By some accounts, it was dead or nearing its death. 19It was a period of grave crimes against humanity, leading to the Holocaust, in which the Jewish people were mercilessly decimated and millions of others died. 20The triumph of fascism and Nazism between the two world wars was the: 21 decisive moment that constituted a veritable 'normative watershed' that undermined the foundations of all forms of political legitimation that do not subscribe to the universalist spirit of political enlightenment -and even if arguably only nominally so of democratic regimes.
Second, the 1960s and 1970s witnessed momentous worldwide political developments with which the post-war world could not cope.Consider, for example, the climax of the civil rights struggle, environmental activism, the women's movement, and in the 1950s, McCarthyism.The United States established the Trilateral Commission, founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller, to respond to a perceived decline of democracy in the US, Europe and Asia.The commission's report titled The Crisis of Democracy was prudent enough to ask the question as to whether political democracy, as it existed during the mid-1970s, was a viable form of government for the industrialised countries of Europe, North America, and Asia.The commission concluded that representative democracy and its institutions required significant reforms to establish a more viable system of government for the 20th century. 22emocracy rebounded during the 1990s and has been celebrated as the most viable form of government despite gloomy predictions of its fate. 23he first two decades of the 21st century, however, have dealt a blow to the selfconfidence of liberal democracy and its sense of moral superiority. 24Premature proclamations of the triumph of liberalism over illiberal government systems have now come into question. 25The perceived theorised democratic recession has invited some comparisons with previous democratic recessions, in that: a) state legitimacy has been questioned in all historical incidences of democratic recession -from the challenges to democracy between the two world wars (1918-1939, and 1939-1945), to democratic recession as seen in the 01960s and 1970s and in the present period of crisis in representative democracy; b) populism has again reared its head, as in the eras of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, and later McCarthy, as seen in their current period ideological successors (neo-Nazism and neo-fascism); 26 c) the semblance of bipolarity (East vs West) again coexists within a muted multilateralism, exemplified by NATO versus the China-Russia nexus.
The latter has been reinforced by the Russian war on Ukraine and US-China competition for global economic dominance.Furthermore, while a nuanced analysis of the BRICS founding members (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) expanding the group to include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates in August 2023 is yet to be concluded, at face value, early commentaries suggest that BRICs expansion has heralded the birth of a counterweight to the West. 27One criteria that distinguishes it from the West is that only three of its members are classified as free (Argentina, Brazil and South Africa); one of its members is deemed to be partly free (India) while seven are deemed not free (China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates).The UN Security Council records shows that China and Russia have already shown their capacity to use their veto power to support countries in their orbit of influence. 28he state's role in undermining the conduct of democratic institutions and, by doing so, undermining its own legitimacy in theory and practice, is exemplified in three specific strategies of states from this historical period: 1) Denying citizens their right to participate in political activities by using the security apparatus to disperse sanctioned opposition political rallies and conventions.2) Thwarting election integrity, authentic representation, and contestation through illegitimate practices such as election rigging, voter intimidation, and arrest of opposition leaders and party functionaries during the buildup to elections.3) Abusing, instead of protecting, civil and human rights and freedom of expression by arresting and imprisoning journalists, and through closure or censorship of media outlets critical of the state's performance.Similarly, minority, religious, ethnic and other rights are infringed, and the right to representation, participation, and protection is regularly stifled by the undermining of citizens' representation in public institutions.
Overall, the relationship between a buoyant democracy and well-functioning democratic institutions is complex and requires much deeper analysis than that offered by the current indices and scholarly publications.However, what is clear is that while democratic institutions have their internal weaknesses, these have often been compounded by state intervention counter to the democratic norms to which they claim to subscribe.This section has provided insight into some of the dynamics during various periods in the 20th century which resulted in democratic recession and crises of state legitimacy.The following section is devoted to some current factors contributing to the democratic recession and the new crisis of state legitimacy in the 21st century.

21st century's democratic recession
The end of the 20 th century was greeted with euphoric optimism about the onset of a new age, with pronunciations at the end of the Cold War 29 about the triumph of liberal democracy over Marxism and civil dictatorships. 30Some even proclaimed the 'end of history', 31 and predicted a 'third wave of democratization'. 32In 2023, as noted above, the policy, academic, and theoretical debates about democracy are dominated by gloomy depictions of democracy.This section focuses on the state's role in the democratic recession in the 21st century and the widening wedge between democratic theory and practice.
During the last decade, the study of the decline of democracy has proliferated, seen in books and journal issues produced to lament this phenomenon. 33Democracy promotion scholars, intellectuals, and policymakers who experienced first-hand the undoing of their work joined the fray attempting to explain the 21st century's democratic blues.It is safe to argue that at least four major explanatory strands have dominated the debate.These are 1) shifts in global geopolitics, 2) a crisis of representative democracy, 3) democratic silence, and 4) the rise of populism and post-truth framing.

Shifts in global geopolitics
Francis Fukuyama asked in 2015 whether democracy was declining, whether the world was experiencing a momentary setback in a general movement toward greater democracy, or whether there was a broader shift in world politics with the rise of alternatives to democracy taking place. 34He concluded that where there was decline, the main reason was to do with: 35 … a failure of institutionalisationthe fact that state capacity in many new and existing democracies [had] not kept pace with popular demands for democratic accountability … and that there has been a failure to establish modern, well-governed states.
This, according to Fukuyama, had been the Achilles heel of recent democratic transitions.
Larry Diamond in 2016 argued that: 36 Democracy itself seems to have lost its appeal.Many emerging democracies have failed to meet their citizens' hopes for freedom, security, and economic growth, just as the world's established democracies, including the United States, have grown increasingly dysfunctional.
Marc Plattner, also in 2015, suggested three chief reasons for this shift: 37 1) the growing sense that the advanced democracies are in trouble in terms of their economic and political performance; 2) the new self-confidence and seeming vitality of some authoritarian countries; and 3) the shifting geopolitical balance between the democracies and their rivals.
Democracy is also challenged by its rivals' capacity to master four dimensions of structural power: trade and finance, science and technology, production, and military power, thus leveraging their ability to back their authoritarian allies from a position of strength.These global geopolitical shifts have mimicked the Cold War, dividing old and new aspiring superpowers into democratic and authoritarian camps.This division of labour has been reflected in a barely functioning UN Security Council and a divided UN Human Rights Commission, where members have seen authoritarian regimes protect countries that have committed crimes against humanity and gruesome human rights abuses. 38 case in point is Russia's interference in elections between 2014 and 2016.Russia began cyberattacks and online disinformation campaigns to disrupt elections in Poland, France and Germany, as well as before Scotland's independence referendum.In the 2016 US elections, Russian hackers penetrated, obtained and released thousands of private emails of the Democratic National Committee networks.Maggie Tennis posits that 'Throughout 2017 and 2018, Russian-sponsored disinformation through state media and fake social media accounts was rampant in general elections in Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain during the Catalonia independence referendum. 39n addition, authoritarian regimes do not condemn other authoritarian regimes for harbouring non-democratic practices such as election interference and detention of opposition leaders, journalists, and social media activists. 40n essence, corrupt and anti-democratic leaders benefit, directly or indirectly, from the patronage of authoritarian states that shore up allies to boost their bank accounts and their ambitions for power. 41

A crisis of representative democracy
Second, a crisis of representative democracy has been a major theme in democracy assessment scholarship and policy for even longer. 42The literature notes indicators that point to this crisis: low voter turnout, declining party membership, lack of trust in politicians, and meagre interest in politics.Simon Tormey has argued that: 43 As citizens become emboldened to assume greater responsibility, those who are elected to represent them come to appear less as representatives and more as 'politicians,' less like one of 'us' and more as one of 'them,' part of the governing apparatus.
John Kean, in 2009, developed another premise in his seminal work on the Life and Death of Democracy, where he argues that during the previous six decades, assembly-based and representative mechanisms had been mixed with new public policy monitoring and control methods for exercising power by the executive, positing that: 44 … the death or near death of representative democracy will be replaced by monitoring democracy because citizens distrust democratic institutions, governments, and politicians.It can, therefore, be deduced that an activist democracy has emerged, challenging representative democracy and its comfort zone of conventional institutional politics.
In other words, age-old representative democracy can no longer satisfy citizens' yearning for an alternative institutional makeup suited to the demands of the 21st century.
The fact that representative democracy is in crisis can be testified to by the state's systematic assault on institutions that make democracy work, ie, electoral boards, political parties, opposition figures, parliament, civic associations, journalism, and the media.

Democratic silence
A third signpost of democratic recession is democratic silence, which conventionally has been epitomised by low voter turnout during elections, 45 attributed to political apathy and disenchantment with political parties, as well as a distrust of the political elite.More wide-ranging explanations point to sufficient affluence among citizens, who do not consider engagement in politics as adding value to their well-being.However, when politics impedes citizens' autonomy or infringes on their capacity for self-actualisation, they flock to the polling stations to protest government policies or to support counteraction that would maintain the status quo. 46olitical silence entails more than voter turnout, however.It focuses, among other aspects, on citizens' voices as expressions of political preferences outside of elections, where they are free to weigh competing public policy outcomes or to resist policies perceived as ineffective or working against the public or national interest.Whether debating, deliberating, protesting, or voting, the ability of citizens to voice their views is an essential element of democracy.Silence, by contrast, is conceived as the antithesis of having voice.Even at a purely conceptual level, democratic thinking about silence typically comes precharged with a negative valence, 47 because democracy is about giving voice rather than promoting silence.
It is important to note the distinction between self-imposed political silence and citizens being silenced by the state or by political opponents.The unlawful arrest of political opponents, disruption of political rallies, ballot box stuffing or improper counting procedures are among state strategies to silence citizens, as well as outlawing political parties or candidates, restricting media access, and curtailing the freedom of expression.Silence is considered the antithesis of voice and matters less in democracy assessment methodologies than voicing a political position through voting or participating in public life.
In contrast, democratic silence theorists consider silence a form of communication in itself, conveying a message.Silence may indicate a lack of interest in politics, arising from a sense that voting does not make a difference, that governments are not responsive to citizens' demands, or that the quality of party candidates contesting the elections is poor. 48The state imposes some forms of silence, such as discrimination in issuing identity cards necessary for voting and the location of voting stations which do not take into account voters' lack of financial resources and time to travel.Voter perceptions that the political elite is corrupt, that election integrity is flouted, and that the elections are fraudulent can also be considered factors behind the specific type of silence leading to political apathy and low voter turnout and participation in politics generally.
Engaging a democratic theory is critical for energising the policy debate and interrogating the inclusion of those who use silence as a self-empowering discourse 49 or are deliberately silenced by political opponents and denied the right to invoke their voice in shaping the democratic process.It is safe to argue that low voter turnout is only one aspect of silencing that coexists with other more sinister forms of denying voice, as explained herein.

Populism and post-truth conundrums
In this fourth signpost, populist leaders survive on post-truth pronouncements in an era in which political speech is increasingly detached from factual truth. 50Populism represents a set of ideas 'that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, "the pure people" versus "the corrupt elite", and argues that politics should express the people's general will.' 51 According to Danielle Resnick, the emergence of populism in Africa has rightly been attributed to socioeconomic and demographic shifts that resulted in rising inequality, the growth of urban poverty, and the expansion of youth unemployment.Such patterns, along with disillusionment with democratic expectations, created the basis of grievances that savvy politicians could capitalise on. 52It is theorised as one of the many contemporary expressions of dissent, where various global expressions of nationalist and xenophobic populism claim to defend a people under assault from enemies both within and external to the national community. 53The essential irony is that while dissent should, in the view of this author, be understood as a sign of pluralism, populism is both anti-pluralist and anti-democratic in effect.This kind of dissent promotes the abolition of difference and pluralism. 54he African literature on populism 55 concurs with Resnik's observations, noting the prevalence of populism where strong authoritarian leaders who disregard democratic rules by claiming the elite-dominated democracy cannot be trusted to guarantee security gain power.These leaders promise protection against a looming invasion by others that threatens a revered ethnic and religious purity and way of life.Populists project the strong leader as a 'transcendental and charismatic figure that embodies the will of the people and is beyond the formalities of liberal democracy'. 56African populism is no different from that of other regions in undermining democratic institutions and values by opposition political parties; initially, populists remain silent or jubilantly welcome military coups, whose leaders are perceived as the antithesis of fragile democratic government. 57opulists of the 21st century use social media platforms as well as other more traditional mass media to mobilise and energise their supporters and to attract the support of those who feel disadvantaged by elite-dominated state and democratic institutions. 58In so doing, they raise important questions about the legitimacy of liberaldemocratic states. 59Hence mutual delegitimating processes are underway.The democratic states question the legitimacy of populist leaders.Likewise, populist leaders hold similar views of democratically elected leadersregardless of the quality of the democratic processes, including election integrity.
Deception and slanting of facts are not new phenomena in Africa.Manipulating facts and spreading false truths through government-owned national media is a product of colonialism's legacy.Some African countries have suffered political conflict ranging from post-election violence to the worst civil war or even genocide by steering hatred and spreading falsehood.Political conflict is the primary target of social media. 60Traditionally, African states held a firm grip on the media and restricted the emergence of private media, although this situation changed considerably during the last decade of the 20 th century. 61However, despite the proliferation of mobile technology on the continent in the past 20-30 years allowing African populations access to communications, the 21st century telecommunications and media freedoms were forsaken by censorship and Internet blockage; Africa has the world's highest incidence of Internet and social media blockage, according to Freedom House. 62n short, the state's contribution to undermining democracy is indisputable, often shored up by authoritarian global actors who, as noted above, themselves seek to undermine the functioning of democracy.States silence and discipline opponents and vocal political democratic forces, forcing them to vote with their feet.Post-truth social media enables populism to thrive, in an environment where fake news matters and truth matters least.By undermining and legitimising democratic institutions, the state has become a key player in deepening democratic recession.

Conclusion
This article argues that democratic recession results where there are dysfunctional democratic institutions (political parties, electoral boards, and parliaments) and examines the state's role as a major contributing factor to that dysfunction.It takes issue with indexing democracy on the basis only of liberal individualism, which has shaped the indices considered the major democracy assessment source to explain and inform debates on the buoyancy or recession of democracy.By employing methodologies based on liberal individualism, the indices reviewed in this article downplay the state's role as a major contributor to citizens' disenchantment with the state rather than with democracy itself as the most preferred system of government.
The article also attempts to demonstrate that, historically, democratic recessions were associated with the emergence of authoritarian states that stifled democracy in favour of instituting totalitarian regimes (for example, Nazism and fascism) without legitimacy to rule.The 20 th -century democratic recessions were dominated by military coups and the prevalence of military, socialist, and civil dictatorships.The 21st century democratic recession has, thus far, been dominated less by military coups 63 and more by questions of legitimacy pertaining to oppressive democratic and quasi-democratic regimes. 64These regimes gain political dominance through democratic means, but then undermine and make dysfunctional the democratic institutions on which state legitimacy to govern rests.By delegitimising these democratic institutions, the states render their own rule illegitimate.This phenomenon has become a major contributor to the discrepancy between democratic theory and norms, on the one hand, and democratic practice, on the other, resulting in democratic recession.
In Africa and elsewhere, democratic recession in the 21st century has been exacerbated by four significant dimensions that deserve serious attention: 1) shifts in global geopolitics, 2) the crisis of representative democracy, 3) neglect of democratic silence, and 4) populism and post-truth political framing.For citizens, democracy is in recession because the state is the dominant actor in stifling democracy, thus forcing them to commit, partially, to self-enforced democratic silence (voting with their feet) or to succumb to the whim of the state silencing institutions.
This article argues that democratic recession is born out of the crisis of state legitimacy.In a nutshell, in the 21st century, the democratic recession has been influenced by the interplay of internal and external dynamics epitomised by the promise of democracy degenerating into xenophobia, nationalism, protectionism, and populism.Similarly, states, employing populism and nationalism, exploit old media and new social media, heralding a post-truth era to silence and suppress democratic voices.