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How democracies prevail: democratic resilience as a two-stage process.

ABSTRACT: This article introduces a novel conceptualization of democratic resilience - a two-stage process where democracies avoid democratic declines altogether or avert democratic breakdown given that such autocratization is ongoing. Drawing on the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset, we find that democracies have had a high level of resilience to onset of autocratization since 1900. Nevertheless, democratic resilience has become substantially weaker since the end of the Cold War. Fifty-nine episodes of sustained and substantial declines in democratic practices have occurred since 1993, leading to the unprecedented breakdown of 36 democratic regimes. Ominously, we find that once autocratization begins, only one in five democracies manage to avert breakdown. We also analyse which factors are associated with each stage of democratic resilience. The results suggest that democracies are more resilient when strong judicial constraints on the executive are present and democratic institutions were strong in the past. Conversely and adding nuance to the literature, economic development is only associated with resilience to onset of autocratization, not to resilience against breakdown once autocratization has begun.

SUBMITTER: Boese VA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8336576 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Research funders use a wide variety of application assessment processes yet there is little evidence on their relative advantages and disadvantages. A broad distinction can be made between processes with a single stage assessment of full proposals and those that first invite an outline, with full proposals invited at a second stage only for those which are shortlisted. This paper examines the effects of changing from a one-stage to a two-stage process within the UK's National Institute for Health Research's (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme which made this change in 2015. METHODS:A retrospective comparative design was used to compare eight one-stage funding competitions (912 applications) with eight two-stage funding competitions (1090 applications). Comparisons were made between the number of applications submitted, number of peer and lay reviews required, the duration of the funding round, average external peer review scores, and the total costs involved. RESULTS:There was a mean number of 114 applications per funding round for the one-stage process and 136 for the two-stage process. The one-stage process took a mean of 274 days and the two-stage process 348 days to complete, although those who were not funded (i.e. the majority) were informed at a mean of 195 days (mean 79 days earlier) under the two-stage process. The mean peer review score for full applications using the one-stage process was 6.46 and for the two-stage process 6.82 (5.6% difference using a 1-10 scale (with 10 being the highest), but there was no significant difference between the lay reviewer scores. The one-stage process required a mean of 423 peer reviews and 102 lay reviewers and the two-stage process required a mean of 208 peer reviews and 50 lay reviews (mean difference of 215 peer reviews and 52 lay reviews) per funding round. Overall cost per funding round changed from £148,908 for the one-stage process to £105,342 for the two-stage process saving approximately £43,566 per round. CONCLUSION:We conclude that a two-stage application process increases the number of applications submitted to a funding round, is less burdensome and more efficient for all those involved with the process, is cost effective and has a small increase in peer reviewer scores. For the addition of fewer than 11 weeks to the process substantial efficiencies are gained which benefit funders, applicants and science. Funding agencies should consider adopting a two-stage application assessment process.

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How democracies prevail: democratic resilience as a two-stage process.

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