Explaining Media Freedom Decline in Democracies

2020 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K03565
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Kellam Marisa.A 早稲田大学, 政治経済学術院, 准教授 (30711866)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: Comparative Politics / Media Freedom / Democracy / Democratic Backsliding / Accountability

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

During FY 2020, I revised the statistical analysis and edited the text of my research paper titled “Dying in Darkness: The Dynamic Relationship between Media Freedom and Democratic Backsliding.” This paper, co-authored with Elizabeth A. Stein, will contribute to the growing literature that seeks to describe and explain the widespread decline in the quality of democracy in several countries around the globe. In particular, the paper demonstrates that declines in press freedom precede increases in electoral manipulation and decreases in institutional checks on executive power. The results indicate that changes in media freedom have lasting effects on democratic accountability, and thus democracy, over the long-run. My co-author and I will submit this paper to an international, high impact journal in the beginning of FY 2021.


In completing this project, I observed a probable relationship between media freedom decline and populists in power. Thus, I also began working on a new project in FY 2020 to investigate the relationship between populism and democratic backsliding. I built a global database of populist leaders and electoral outcomes, taking advantage of several new publicly available datasets the identify populist political parties or populist leaders. Going forward, I will connect this project to another project focused on “Transitions within Democracy: Institutions, Interests, and Accountability.”