Southern democracy
Southern democracy is term used in political science to describe systems of government which are functionally more than nominally democratic, but which are characteristically illiberal, with significant power in government being wielded by those outside the democratic system. The "southern" descriptor in the term refers to how the model is most prevalent in the global south, but also more specifically, the south of Coius.
The term was first coined and applied by Albert Kavagamu, a Dezevauni political theorist, author and later leader of the Liberal Party, in his book The End of Politics. He capitalised it as "Southern democracy", but since then, it has been more common (including in his own works) to leave the term uncapitalised, as in "southern democracy". The term has found some currency in media outside of academia.
Classification
Kavagamu, in The End of Politics, published in 1999, considered x, x, x, x and x to be extant examples of the type of government he called "Southern democracy". Characteristics of Southern democracy, according to him, were authoritarianism, social conservatism (in particular a lack of pluralism), nationalism, power being held in non-democratic hierarchical institutions such as militaries and bureaucracies, and government policies which emphasised stability. He classified other democracies, in contrast, as council-socialist, or liberal, but these were not novel terms compared to "Southern". Council-socialist democracies in his reckoning included Swetania and Dezevau, whereas liberal democracies included Gaullica, Valentir and Estmere. He justified his choice of the term as an attempt to avoid coining something unintuitive, prescriptive, or vague.
However, <someone else> in <some other book or paper> considered <some other members>.
Alternative terms
Proposed alternative terms include xxx, .
Response
In political scientific academia, the term has been sometimes criticised for giving a geographical appellation to something that is not necessarily delimited by region of the world. More often, it has been criticised for typecasting and exoticising democracy in the developing world, with critics pointing to <x> as an Eastern country which could be classified as a southern democracy.
In global politics, the term has also sometimes been employed or disavowed. <stuff about what leaders of southern democracies think about the term>