How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future
by Steven Levitsky
View on GoodreadsModern democracies rarely end in a coup. More often, Levitsky and Ziblatt argue, elected leaders take them apart from the inside, and what has protected American democracy is less its constitution than unwritten norms that extreme partisan polarization has been wearing down.
Core ideas
- Four warning signs: Watch for leaders who reject democratic rules, deny opponents' legitimacy, tolerate or encourage violence, and would curb rivals' and the media's civil liberties.
- Two unwritten norms: Mutual toleration treats rivals as legitimate, and forbearance means not using power to the hilt, which the Senate's refusal to consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee abandoned.
- Trump as accelerant: Drawing on 1930s Europe, Latin America, Hungary and Turkey, they argue Trump sped up a fraying of norms underway since the late twentieth century.
Published2018
Pages320
ISBN9781524762933
ReadJan 2023
