Abstract
Abstract Protection diplomacy is defined as a strategic exchange between governments in which democratic accountability (openness, participation, oversight) is traded for military protection, economic protection or diplomatic protection from powerful states abroad. This study addresses gaps found in other research by connecting alliances, democratic backsliding and authoritarian resilience through security dependence. Securitization theory, critical political economy and relational sovereignty are used to illustrate how protection diplomacy legitimizes government power based on external recognition of power rather than popular consent. Protection diplomacy can occur across different forms of government (authoritarian, hybrid and democratic). This promotes executive centralization and establishes emergency governance as the new normal. A qualitative comparative analysis of protection diplomacy cases from the Sahel, Eastern Europe and the Middle East show that while international security cooperation may appear to promote democratic consolidation many security partnerships have enhanced democratic erosion by providing regimes with protection from domestic accountability. Inter-national actors who provide security assistance become co-producers of governance outcomes instead of neutral guarantors of stability. Protection diplomacy advances int’l relations theory by providing a conceptual framework for understanding a new form of global governance. It also advances discussions surrounding alliance politics, sovereignty and democratic decline. Ultimately, the study finds that protection diplomacy represents a structural tension between security and democracy in the 21st-century international order and will require a fundamental reassessment of the normative and institutional foundations of global security provision.