Decline of Democracy in Class and Identity Politics: A Human Rights Theory of Democracy

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Decline of democracy, which used to be associated with developing countries, is now a global concern. Democratic principles and institutions are "backsliding" or under attack even in older, "established" democracies. This article offers a comparative analysis of democratic decline during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras – periods characterized by class and identity politics, respectively. It proposes a human rights theory of democracy that explains the decline of democratic systems by the gap between civil-political and social-economic rights. It highlights the pervasive influence of neo-classical and neoliberal economic paradigms as central factors driving this regression.