The third wave of democratization has given way to a reverse wave of autocratization. A critical question is what can be done to prevent democratic breakdowns and make democracy endure. A large body of historical-narrative and small-N comparative scholarship has suggested that an active mobilized civil society and institutionalized political parties can be mobilized to protect democracy from authoritarian takeovers. We provide the first rigorous set of empirical analyses to test this argument using data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project for the period from 1900 to 2010. We find that both exert a robust, independent, and substantial effect on the survival of democracies. These findings have important policy implications for the international community.

中文翻译：

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政党、公民社会和对民主叛逃的威慑

第三波民主化浪潮已经让位于逆向专制化浪潮。一个关键问题是可以采取哪些措施来防止民主崩溃并使民主持久。大量历史叙述和小 N 比较研究表明，可以动员积极动员的公民社会和制度化的政党来保护民主免受专制接管。我们提供了第一组严格的实证分析，使用 1900 年至 2010 年期间的各种民主 (V-Dem) 项目的数据来检验这一论点。我们发现两者都对生存产生了稳健、独立和实质性的影响民主国家。这些发现对国际社会具有重要的政策意义。