How Democracies Die

Donald Trump’s presidency has raised a query that many people by no means thought we’d be asking: Is our democracy in peril? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent greater than twenty years finding out the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, they usually imagine the reply is sure. Democracy not ends with a bang—in a revolution or navy coup—however with a whimper: the sluggish, regular weakening of vital establishments, such because the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The excellent news is that there are a number of exit ramps on the street to authoritarianism. The unhealthy information is that, by electing Trump, now we have already handed the primary one.

Drawing on many years of analysis and a variety of historic and international examples, from Nineteen Thirties Europe to modern Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South throughout Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt present how democracies die—and the way ours may be saved.

Reward for How Democracies Die


“What we desperately want is a sober, dispassionate take a look at the present state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of essentially the most revered students within the subject of democracy research, supply simply that.”
—
The Washington Put up

“The place Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving collectively political science and historic evaluation of each home and worldwide democratic crises; in doing so, they broaden the dialog past Trump and earlier than him, to different nations and to the deep construction of American democracy and politics.”
—Ezra Klein, Vox

“In case you solely learn one ebook for the remainder of the yr, learn 
How Democracies Die. . . .This isn’t a ebook for simply Democrats or Republicans. It’s a ebook for all People. It’s nonpartisan. It’s reality based mostly. It’s deeply rooted in historical past. . . . The very best commentary on our politics, no contest.”
—Michael Morrell, former Appearing Director of the Central Intelligence Company (through Twitter)

“A wise and deeply knowledgeable ebook concerning the methods through which democracy is being undermined in dozens of nations world wide, and in methods which can be completely authorized.”
—Fareed Zakaria, 
CNN