Harvard University professors show how democracy is dying - and how it can still be saved.
When Donald Trump won the election, many asked the question no one thought we would ask: Is democracy in the USA in danger? Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, professors at Harvard University, have been studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America for more than twenty years. They both think the answer to the above question is yes. Democracy today is no longer dying with a bang - during revolutions or military coups - but slowly, through the steady weakening of the "watchdogs of democracy", i.e. the judiciary and the press, and the increasing erosion of basic political norms. However, we still have the option of leaving the path to authoritarianism.
Levitsky and Ziblatt build on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples spanning from 1930s Europe to present-day Hungary, from Turkey and Venezuela to the American South during the Jim Crow laws. They show how democracy is dying - and how it can still be saved.
