Democratic Purgatory

Why do democracies that appear consolidated unravel, not through coups, but through democratic means? Democratic Purgatory explores this paradox, introducing a powerful new concept to explain why liberal democracies in Latin America and East-Central Europe have faltered. Drawing on comparative case studies from Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, Poland, Hungary, and Romania, the book argues that democratic purgatory is a regime type in which formal institutions endure while legitimacy erodes, representation fails, and elite-driven governance calcifies. Rather than structural inevitability, these breakdowns stem from contingent choices: negotiated transitions, successor party dominance, and technocratic insulation created fertile ground for popularism, a top-down appropriation of populist rhetoric to dismantle liberal norms. From Orbán’s Hungary to Chávez’s Venezuela, the analysis reveals how democratic procedures can hollow out democracy itself. In an era of global democratic backsliding, this book offers a timely framework for understanding the fragility of liberal democracy and the decisive role of political agency in preventing breakdown or enabling renewal.