KEY TAKEAWAYSDemocratic erosion does not start by doing away with elections; it starts with the weakening of institutions that limit political power.Montesquieu’s intuition back in the 18th century helps us to to gain a sounder understanding of the mechanisms at work in France today.For the French philosopher, without intermediate bodies, only the “fleeting and capricious will of absolute power” lays itself bare to acts of revolt.Can contemporary regimes become less democratic while formally upholding elections, parliaments, courts and a constitution? The question may seem paradoxical. Yet it is at the heart of contemporary analyses of “democratic erosion” (Nancy Bermeo, David Waldner and Ellen Lust). This does not spell the sudden death of democracy and its transformation into an electoral autocracy. It reflects a more insidious process: the gradual weakening of the institutions that allow power to be controlled and its decisions to be challenged.In order to understand this phenomenon, it might not be completely pointless to come back to Montesquieu, an author who was actually not a democrat in the contemporary sense of the term. In The Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, he develops his theory of political moderation based on the fundamental idea that to avoid abuse of power, power must clash with power.‘All men who come to power end up abusing power’Montesquieu’s famous school of thought is often associated with the separation of powers: institutions must be organised in such a way that power, whether it comes from the prince or the people, must have its limits.In the French monarchy, which he analyses in The Spirit of Laws, this function is provided by what he calls “intermediate, subordinate and dependent powers”. The nobility, the clergy, the cities and the political bodies constitute as many instances which “go-between” the prince and his subjects. Even when the prince remains the “source of political and civil power”, his power must not be exercised without mediation. Montesquieu did not call for universal suffrage or the abolition of privileges. What interests him is the function of statutorily autonomous bodies, capable of limiting absolute power.Rather than privilege the exhortation to virtue, Montesquieu thus places “intermediate powers” at the heart of his pyramidal theory of the monarchy: here as elsewhere, only power can stop power. Because every man who holds power tends to abuse it, it is advisable to provide for resistance to the indefinite extension of royal power. This explains the usefulness of institutions capable of opposing the will of the executive, that is to say, what pleases and suits the president: the desire to put a brake on absolutist tendencies justifies a distribution of powers rooted within a differentiated social structure.The intermediate bodies thus constitute a vital function in the equilibrium of the modern state. Because in the despotic regime, power remains personal, that is neither institutionalised nor distributed among competing political and social forces. The absence of a public space prohibits any negotiated solution to conflicts, which can only be resolved through revolution or usurpation.By contrast, the parliaments of non-despotic regimes play a fundamental role: they do not merely limit the royal will by inscribing it in the tradition of other legal wills; they are useful from the point of view of preserving power itself: an illuminated and tempered power should be more stable. Intermediate powers enlighten both the prince and his people, acting as a kind of rampart, by mitigating the risks of rebellion and strengthening the loyalty of its citizens. The argument of enlightened interest is put forward to the prince, throughout The Spirit of Laws, to safeguard against despotic temptation: increasing one’s power only serves to make it less secure.Democratic erosion plays out via erosion of mediationAs dated as it may seem, Montesquieu’s analysis sheds light on the phenomena of de-democratisation to which states are subjected in Europe, the Americas and almost everywhere else in the world. To be sure, contemporary democracies are no longer monarchies based on a society organised around orders. But democratic regimes, too, need institutions and bodies that can interpose a distance between those who govern and those who obey: parliaments, independent jurisdictions, territorial communities, autonomous authorities, media, unions, associations, universities or other civil society organisations. These institutions do not all have the same function and are not all “intermediate powers” in the precise sense that Montesquieu had in mind. But in different contexts they perform a comparable function by preventing the arbitrary concentration and exercise of political power.A disciple of Montesquieu, Tocqueville notably showed to what extent the “dogma of the sovereignty of the people” must be accompanied, in the democratic centuries, by the power of associations that anchor decentralisation. For individuals not to fall into servitude, it is essential that they be able to find in political and civil associations, as well as in the freedom of the press, an opportunity to counter the tyranny of the majority in power. Analogous to the aristocrats of France’s Ancien Regime (which ended with the French Revolution in 1789), associations play the role of intermediate powers where equality of conditions prevails.In the light of these analyses, the erosion of democracy can then be understood as the gradual exhaustion of mediating entities that limit power and animate deliberations in the public space. A government can be elected democratically and, once in power, reduce the autonomy of Parliament, weaken the independence of the judiciary, monopolise administrative appointments, restrict the autonomy of communities, delegitimise critical media, in order to undermine academic freedom or exert increasing pressure on associations. With this in mind, institutions do not necessarily disappear; if they are hindered or brought into line, they lose their independence, become exhausted, self-censored, and gradually cease to play their role as “brakes”.Bring on the canals and the embankmentsIt is thus necessary to recognise the crucial importance of intermediary bodies, such as trade unions, universities, user associations, environmental non-governmental organisations, etc. If they can slow down political action, complicate its decisions, compel it to negotiate and listen, instead of simply imposing its will, these other powers also serve as a buffer for citizens’ anger. The slowdown associated with democratic deliberation is not a dysfunction of this regime, but one of the conditions that enables its stability. Checks and balances must not appear simply as obstacles to the effectiveness of public action: a parliament that controls, a judge who censors, a community that resists, a media organisation that investigates, an academic who criticises, an association that disputes are not only obstacles, but real assistants, who block despotic temptations.No doubt the “canals” Montesquieu metaphorically referred to in his time look very different today. The intermediary bodies of France’s Ancien Regime gave way to democratic institutions and various countervailing powers, vectors at best of freedom, equality and fraternity. However, their primary role remains unchanged: to ensure that political authority does not flow directly from will to submission.In France, it is the duty of the Third Republic to have established freedom of association by the law of July 1 1901, “without permission or prior declaration”, after proclaiming freedom of association in 1884, which the empires of Napoleon I and Napoleon III mishandled, and that Vichy would go on to attack mercilessly.Democratic erosion begins precisely when these “canals” are embolised, when the levees give way and when power faces only isolated individuals. Then, according to Montesquieu’s formula, soon only the “fleeting and capricious will of absolute power” remains, vulnerable to acts of revolt. A weekly e-mail in English featuring expertise from scholars and researchers. It provides an introduction to the diversity of research coming out of the continent and considers some of the key issues facing European countries. 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