From resistance to resilience: identifying short and long-term successes in the struggle against autocratization

The literature on opponents of autocratization is expanding rapidly, guided by the question of how autocratization can be stopped. Yet without first clarifying what is meant by “stopping” autocratization, this growing body of work — whose relevance extends beyond academia — risks producing misleading conclusions. This article seeks to bring greater analytical precision to the emerging “oppositional turn” by distinguishing between the short-term and long-term countering of autocratization. It conceptualizes resistance as the immediate thwarting of autocratization, and democratic resilience as the longer-term adaptation or recovery that follows. Furthermore, the article proposes qualitative indicators of resistance and resilience across two alternative pathways to autocratization — state capture and polarization — in order to move beyond the prevailing emphasis on executive aggrandizement. Beyond its conceptual contribution, the article offers an empirical one through the application of the proposed framework to Bulgaria and North Macedonia, illustrative cases of state capture and, respectively, polarization. The empirical analyses highlight the role of often-overlooked actors — such as general prosecutors and smaller kingmaker parties — in enabling autocratization, and suggest that the bilateral dispute between the two countries has influenced the tug of war between the drivers and opponents of autocratization in both.