This Article argues that democratic backsliding is operationalized through selective government funding of private speech. Subsidized speech can leverage the government’s voice while silencing or diminishing voices that seek to challenge the government’s message or create the background conditions for critical faculties. This leveraging, in turn, serves to entrench the power of the political majority, further insulating it from the processes of democratic change. Despite the voluminous literature on free speech, few discuss the problem of subsidized speech, even though it plays an ever-growing role in the formation of public discourse and public opinion. Accordingly, the Article makes three contributions. First, the Article examines three jurisdictions (Israel, Hungary, and Poland), arguing that the strategic use of subsidized speech is particularly prevalent in countries that are experiencing some version of “democratic backsliding.” The commonalities between these countries are no accident, for the motivation is the same: increasing governmental domination of civil society. Second, the Article departs from the extant approaches that identify subsidized speech as a problem for free speech or equality, by situating subsidized speech as a structural problem for democracy: majoritarian entrenchment. Although democracies have mechanisms to prevent entrenchment of the current political majority, those focus on elections and related aspects. Entrenchment, however, is not confined to these contexts. The Article thus extends the problem of entrenchment to the speech context. Third, the Article introduces and develops the “anti-entrenchment” principle. When the government seeks to entrench its power through funding decisions, the anti-entrenchment principle is triggered. Applying the anti-entrenchment principle can have far-reaching consequences, for it may require the government to subsidize precisely the speech it rejects.

中文翻译：

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民主倒退、受资助的言论和新的多数派巩固

本文认为，民主倒退是通过政府对私人言论的选择性资助来实现的。受资助的演讲可以利用政府的声音，同时压制或削弱那些试图挑战政府信息或为关键学院创造背景条件的声音。反过来，这种杠杆作用有助于巩固政治多数的权力，进一步将其与民主变革进程隔离开来。尽管有大量关于言论自由的文献，但很少有人讨论受补贴的言论问题，尽管它在公共话语和舆论的形成中发挥着越来越大的作用。因此，该条做出了三点贡献。首先，本文考察了三个司法管辖区（以色列、匈牙利和波兰），他认为，在经历某种形式的“民主倒退”的国家中，战略性地使用补贴言论尤为普遍。这些国家之间的共同点并非偶然，因为动机是相同的：增加政府对公民社会的支配。其次，这篇文章偏离了将受补贴的言论视为言论自由或平等的问题的现有方法，将受补贴的言论视为民主的结构性问题：多数派巩固。尽管民主国家有防止巩固当前政治多数的机制，但这些机制侧重于选举和相关方面。然而，巩固并不局限于这些情况。因此，这篇文章将巩固问题延伸到演讲语境。第三，文章介绍并发展了“反设防”原则。当政府试图通过资助决定巩固其权力时，就会触发反巩固原则。应用反巩固原则可能会产生深远的影响，因为它可能需要政府精确地补贴它拒绝的言论。