In this paper, colored as it is by my knowledge and experience of democratic backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), I reflect upon the rise of autocracies characterized by electoral pedigree and consider some consequences of these developments. I focus in particular upon its relative invisibility, which is due, among other things, to the fact that autocratic changes proceed incrementally, that their truly invidious effects are triggered by mutual interactions between various discrete changes, that institutions are not formally dismantled but hollowed out of their original meanings, and that assaults upon various pillars of democracy do not proceed at the same pace. To conclude, I draw two lessons from the authoritarian turn in CEE: the first concerns the relative insignificance of formal constitutional design, and the second considers the end of the “transition paradigm.”

中文翻译：

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民选威权时代的宪政民主

在这篇论文中，尽管我对中欧和东欧 (CEE) 民主倒退的知识和经验有所着色，但我反思了以选举血统为特征的专制制度的兴起，并考虑了这些发展的一些后果。我特别关注它的相对不可见性，这主要是因为专制变革是渐进进行的，它们真正令人反感的影响是由各种离散变革之间的相互作用引发的，机构没有被正式拆除而是被掏空它们的原始含义，并且对民主的各个支柱的攻击并没有以相同的速度进行。总而言之，我从中东欧的威权转向中吸取了两个教训：第一个是关于正式宪法设计的相对无足轻重，