A political theory in practice: the reduction of democracy to elections alone, while ignoring everything else—participation, accountability, rule of law, civil society, economic justice. When elections become the sole measure of democracy, oligarchs can win cleanly and call themselves democratic, even as they dismantle the institutions that make democracy meaningful. Crony electoralism is the ideology that legitimizes crony democracy: as long as there is a vote, critics are told, the system is democratic, and any deeper critique is dismissed as anti-democratic.
Example: "When journalists asked about media censorship, the president replied: 'We have elections, don't we?' Crony electoralism: using the fact of voting to ignore everything else that makes democracy real."
by Abzugal March 22, 2026
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