First published 2022
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt draw on twenty years of research studying democratic collapse across Europe and Latin America to argue that American democracy faces serious threat. The Harvard professors contend that modern democracies rarely fall through dramatic coups or revolutions. Instead, they die gradually through institutional weakening of courts and media, combined with the slow erosion of political norms that have traditionally constrained power. Trump's presidency exemplifies this pattern of democratic backsliding. The authors trace parallels between contemporary American politics and historical cases of democratic failure, examining 1930s Europe, present day Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, plus the Jim Crow era American South. While they identify multiple opportunities to reverse authoritarian drift, they warn that Trump's election represents a critical threshold already crossed. Their analysis offers both diagnosis of democratic vulnerability and potential pathways for preservation of democratic institutions and practices.
Genres: history, american, political-science, non-fiction, 21st-century, current-affairs, academic, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: diagnosis-and-prescription, historical-parallels, institutional-weakening
Setting: Europe, Hungary, Latin America, Turkey, United States, Venezuela
Period: 1930s, Jim Crow Era, Present Day
328 pages · Kindle Edition · VOGAIS