How Democracies Die

While some dictators grab power through violent coups, a surprising number of authoritarian leaders initially won power through the ballot box. Levitsky and Ziblatt’s book tells the story of authoritarian populists such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, who won elections and then eroded democratic norms and institutions.

In many cases, populist authoritarians subvert democracy not by overtly breaking the law but by gradually weakening institutional checks and balances. Populists exploit societal divisions and erode democratic norms by portraying themselves as the true voice of the people while demonizing opponents as illegitimate.

I hope all U.S. citizens internalize this book’s essential message. What poses the more serious threat to our ability to continue as a democracy: the events of January 6, 2021, when, for the first time, insurrectionists sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power or the prolonged build-up to January 6 and its aftermath, marking an ongoing erosion of longstanding democratic norms? 

In this amply researched study, Ziblatt and Levitsky demonstrate that throughout history, although some former democracies have suffered spectacular deaths—a military coup or civil war—most witnessed a gradual erosion process, taking years, even decades, before an inflection point… show more.

If you are still wondering how democracies fall apart, How Democracies Die, is one of the more accessibly written accounts of how, where, and why democracy is in danger. The book explains why democracies are no longer ending with a coup, but rather with a steady and slow erosion of democratic institutions. Chock-full of examples, this book highlights what the institutional guardrails are in a democracy and how these safeguards are weakened by leaders and other elected representatives (like Donald Trump, Recip Erdoğan, and Viktor Orbán, etc.), who hold little regard for democratic norms and are willing to engage in… show more.

Hailed by The Economist as the “most important book of the Trump Era,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die is a thoroughly researched, engagingly written book that reminds us that the United States, even with its long democratic tradition, is not immune to a democratic breakdown that may prove irreversible. The authors, both professors of government at Harvard University, look deep into the past and widely around the globe to produce a list of warning signs of shifts from democracy to authoritarianism which have become increasingly common in the twenty-first century. With great persuasiveness, they marshal the thesis… show more.

How Democracies Die is an important best-selling book on perils facing US democracy. The authors, both political scientists at Harvard, are leading experts in democracy in Latin America and Europe. They argue that polarization and a shattering of long-standing democratic norms have created serious threats to US democracy. Their work increased public awareness that US democracy could be at risk. The book is a fairly quick read, and my students love reading and debating it.  

These two authors are experts in comparative politics, and this book turns that lens on the US. I think this is important because it takes us out of the “US is different” mindset and because it is clear that threats to democracy are a global phenomenon. This book puts the US case in that context and shows us just how shaky our democracy currently is and why.