Delegative Democracy Reconsidered: Principal–Agent Distortions and the Erosion of Mandate Accountability in Hybrid Polities

Abstract

Delegative democracy, as originally theorized by O'Donnell, posited a distinct regime subtype in which electoral mandates confer near-unconditional executive discretion. This article critically re-examines that framework in light of post-2015 governance trajectories across Central-Eastern European and Latin American hybrid polities, arguing that classical principal–agent formulations fail to capture the asymmetric information environments and veto-player realignments now characteristic of populist executive consolidation. Drawing on a mixed-methods design combining Boolean fsQCA across 24 polity-cases with structured elite interviews, the study identifies three previously undertheorized distortion pathways: mandate overextension, accountability forum displacement, and constitutional reinterpretation cascades. Findings challenge the binary authoritarian/democratic classification and suggest that delegative logic has mutated into a durable governance equilibrium resistant to conventional institutional correction mechanisms.