We develop a model of democratic backsliding, in which voters are uncertain about whether an incumbent politician is an aspiring autocrat who is taking actions to subvert elections. The media can provide warnings about the incumbent’s behavior. However voters don’t know whether the media is a neutral provider of information or a biased type making false accusations against the incumbent. We analyze how voters react when the incumbent alleges that the media is biased and untrustworthy. This, in turn, allows us to analyze whether there is a complementarity between electoral subversion and anti-media rhetoric, i.e., under what conditions does the possibility of undermining the media make it easier for an incumbent to subvert elections and move towards autocracy.

[Background information: we have been toying with a model of this sort for a couple of years and we have some results, but we haven’t fully solved it out or written it up].