Title: Erosion of democracy and adequacy of the Strasbourg court's response

Authors: Armen Harutyunyan

Addresses: European Court of Human Rights, Allée des Droits de l'Homme, Strasbourg, Cedex, 67075, France

Abstract: In this article, the author examines the metamorphoses of political regimes of Council of Europe states, as well as the erosion of democracy in some of them. Political regimes are classified into liberal democracy, militant democracy, patronal democracy and patronal autocracy. The last three types of political regimes are considered in the context of Article 17 of the first part, Article 18 and Article 17 of the second part of ECHR. The response of Strasbourg court to the challenges of militant democracy and partronal democracy are adequate. In regards of challenges of patronal autocracy, the Strasbourg court's response is not relevant. The author comes to a conclusion that the court has not fully uncovered the potential of the second part of Article 17. Instead, the court uses Article 18 of the convention, which is an effective response to the challenges of patronal democracy, but not patronal autocracy.

Keywords: metamorphosis of political regimes; liberal democracy; militant democracy; patronal democracy; flew democracy; patronal autocracy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRCS.2025.142872

International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2025 Vol.12 No.1, pp.85 - 112

Received: 29 Jul 2023
Accepted: 01 Aug 2023
Published online: 30 Nov 2024 *