What is it about?
US presidents' two-term limit prevented their autocratic entrenchment but it often failed elsewhere. Reducing incumbency advantages in re-election contests by setting escalating super-majority thresholds for winning re-elections can bar entrenchment.
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Why is it important?
Democratically elected leaders which won consecutive election contests and became autocrats which use accumulated power and prestige to subdue/dismantle/disempower democratic institutions and entrench for many years are prime threat to democracy. While many democratic constitutions adopted the US's two-term limit for presidents which has protected US democracy for 235 years, this adoption has failed to defend it in many other countries. A new defense measure can be reducing incumbency advantages in re-election contests by setting escalating super-majority thresholds for each more re-election contest, as these advantages enhance autocratic leaders' entrenchment.
Perspectives
Israel's 75 years democracy suffered twice too long dominance of autocratic leaders each one retaining power for some 15 years and becoming toxic hubristic narcissistic. The struggle to rid of these two and reinstate a functioning democracy took years and in the second case is still in its high tide and the Prime Minister's autocracy heavily cost every facet of Israelis' lives. Unfortunately only a few political scientists show interest in this problem and even fewer proposed solutions. My article discusses these proposals and explain their drawbacks and the advantages of the super-majority thresholds escalator which I am proposing.
Doctor Reuven Shapira
Western Galilee College
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Majority Escalator Rather than Term Limit Can Mitigate Leaders’ Toxic Oligarchic Entrenchment, Academia Letters, January 2022, Academia.edu,
DOI: 10.20935/al4715.
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