Topic 5 — Mainstream Political and Institutional Enablers

Working definition
Illiberal change is often enabled by mainstream actors: centrist parties, institutions, media, and elites that accommodate or normalize illiberal ideas for strategic or short-term reasons. This includes adopting illiberal rhetoric, weakening informal democratic norms, or failing to defend liberal institutions. The assignment deliberately includes a broad range of social groups, including groups more typically associated with the right (e.g. frequent church-goers, socially conservative voters, small business owners), to avoid equating illiberalism with any single ideology or social profile.

Such accommodation lowers the political cost of illiberalism and accelerates democratic erosion.

Illiberalism advances not only through challengers, but through inaction and compromise.

Definitions and Concepts in this Topic:
Accommodation and normalization, Mainstreaming, institutional capture, democratic culture

Where to look in the literature:

• Wagner et al. (2025)
• Enyedi et al. (2025)