It’s a genuine word but is very seldom used.

It means intolerant or narrow-minded, basically, the opposite of liberal.

Technically speaking, an illiberal democracy could be any democracy that is not a liberal democracy. However, the term is almost always used to denote a particularly authoritarian kind of representative democracy, in which the leaders and lawmakers are elected by the people but the people lack real liberties. This may be due to the absence of an adequate legal constitutional framework of liberties to restrain the power of the elected government or due the fact that such constitutional liberties are ignored. Thus, although at least initially relatively free and fair elections may take place, the people are cut off from real power due to the lack of real liberties. It is this type of “illiberal democracy” that is discussed in the present article. The term illiberal democracy was used by Fareed Zakaria in an often cited 1997 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, [1] and it tends to be used with a negative connotation, by those who oppose such a system of government and support liberal democracy.

Illiberal democracies are found primarily in newly democratizing countries that do not have a recent history of pluralism. Without such a tradition of different ideas co-existing peacefully, the ruling party or leader — after winning multi-party elections that are mostly free and fair — behaves in a rather authoritarian manner. This may involve corruption, persecutions of political opponents, restrictions on freedom of speech, and other restrictions of the rights and liberties of the general population. This may be allowed by the constitution of the country in question, but many illiberal democracies exist in countries with liberal democratic constitutions that are simply ignored.

There is a spectrum of illiberal democracies: from those who are nearly liberal democracies to those that are almost dictatorships. Examples can be found across the former Soviet Union, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. The mid-to-late 1990s was a period marked by a growing emergence of illiberal democracies.

I would say not in use. I had never heard of “illiberal” before so I checked Webster’s Dictionary to even know what it meant. Definition is “narrow-minded or bigoted.” Those are the words in current use. The word illiberal has fallen out of use by most people. Must be archaic.

1. narrowminded; bigoted.

2. Archaic.

a. not generous in giving; miserly; *********; stingy.

b. Chiefly Literary.without culture or refinement; unscholarly; vulgar.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.

Unfortunately.

I think Fareed Zakaria and Newsweek made the word popular.

yes

it means narrow-minded

i don’t think so . i never heard anyone use that word.

yes and very commen