ABSTRACT:
The inability of established democratic institutions to offer adequate and effective solutions to accumulated crises has created fertile ground for the rise of populism, which is transforming liberal democracy into an illiberal order that we can term populistocracy. In imperfect democracies, it is correct to diagnose the phenomenon of unfulfilled and dysfunctional liberal democracy, including an analysis of the factors contributing to this state of affairs. Key empirical findings reveal an asymmetry in citizens’ commitment to democratic principles: while citizens remain firmly committed to the electoral pillar (free elections), their support for key liberal pillars – such as judicial independence, media freedom, and horizontal accountability – is surprisingly elastic (Ferrer et al., 2025). Quantifying this phenomenon through Willingness to Pay (WTP) shows that citizens are willing to give up individual liberal principles for a relatively small increase in income, which legitimises the gradual weakening of democracy – creeping authoritarianism (Diamond, 2020). Empirical findings support the authors’ thesis that we are witnessing a transition from politics based on universal values and rational argumentation to semantic politics, where rhetoric, emotions, and symbolic gestures replace rationality. This transformation of the political paradigm is not a random development, but the result of a deep crisis caused by a set of interrelated factors – economic uncertainty, structural inequalities, a crisis of trust in institutions, and the sophisticated use of disinformation in the digital age.
KEY WORDS:
creeping authoritarianism, liberal democracy, populism, populistocracy, price elasticity, semantic politics, Willingness to Pay
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34135/communicationtoday.2026.Vol.17.No.1.1