How Democracies Die

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has raised a question that many Americans never thought they’d be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have studied the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. They argue that our democracy is imperiled by the destruction of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and by the gradual erosion of political norms. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical 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 offer suggestions for how our own can be saved.