How Democracies Die

How Democracies Die

How Democracies Die

How Democracies Die

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Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Comprehensive, enlightening, and terrifyingly timely.”
New York Times Book Review


“Cool and persuasive... How Democracies Die comes at exactly the right moment.”
The Washington Post

Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.

Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how ours can be saved.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781524762933
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Publication date: 01/16/2018
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are Professors of Government at Harvard University. Levitsky’s research focuses on Latin America and the developing world. He is the author of Competitive Authoritarianism and is the recipient of numerous teaching awards. Ziblatt studies Europe from the nineteenth century to the present. He is the author, most recently, of Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy. Both Levitsky and Ziblatt have written for Vox and The New York Times, among other publications.

Read an Excerpt

We tend to think of democracies dying at the hands of men with guns. During the Cold War, coups d’état accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic break­downs, and more re­cently, military coups toppled Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014. In these cases democracy dissolved in spectacular fashion, through military power and coercion.
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Excerpted from "How Democracies Die"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Steven Levitsky.
Excerpted by permission of Crown/Archetype.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Fateful Alliances 11

2 Gatekeeping in America 33

3 The Great Republican Abdication 53

4 Subverting Democracy 72

5 The Guardrails of Democracy 97

6 The Unwritten Rules of American Politics 118

7 The Unraveling 145

8 Trump Against the Guardrails 176

9 Saving Democracy 204

Acknowledgments 233

Endnotes 235

Index 301

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