The Process of Democratic Breakdown: Controlling Information While Evading Term Limits

Politicians often erode democratic institutions to consolidate their personal power through acts like term limit evasions. Violations of fundamental constitutional arrangements, so-called “bright line” institutions, are often expected to result in anti-government opposition. Then how do leaders evading term limits extend the term and keep their office? I argue that political leaders strategically prevent protests after the initiation of term limit evasions by limiting the free flow of information that is imperative for potential dissidents to collectively mobilize against a leader. Using difference-in-differences with matching for TSCS, I show that term limit evasions are followed by a marked decrease in a country’s freedom of expression and it is more salient in autocracies than in democracies. In addition, using Venezuela as an example, I provide micro-evidence of information control by investigating how topics of opposition media change after a term limit evasion.