Democratic Erosion University Course Student Blog

Students enrolled in our course are encouraged to write for the course blog, and to read and comment on posts from students at other participating universities. The blog offers students the opportunity to analyze current events through the lens of the theory and case studies they engage with through the course.

These blogs reflect the views of the student authors, and not those of the Democratic Erosion Consortium.

Presidential Crisis in Guatemala: The Challenges and Resilience of Democracy

Guatemalan anti-corruption reformer Bernardo Arévalo’s rise to power and election in 2023 brought political blowback from the incumbent power bloc, threatening democratic norms and only being curtailed through widespread international pressure and citizen-led protests.

El Salvador: Nayib Bukele’s Stealth Authoritarian Tactics

How the popularity of Bukele’s war on gangs has emboldened him to quietly dismantle checks on power through specific stealth authoritarian tactics to further erode democratic systems.

El Salvador Chose Bukele, Not Democracy

Constitutional reforms enacted by El Salvadors New Ideas party provide for the consolidation of power and continued rule of President Nayib Bukele.

How Trump’s 20-Point Plan risks deepening Democratic Erosion in Israel and Palestine

Oct 29, 2025 | University of Georgia

When politicians promise “peace”, they usually mean silence, not democracy. On nearly the anniversary of Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack on Israel from October 7, 2023,...

Lawful Erosion: Is it Legal or No? Maybe…

Oct 20, 2025 | Arizona State University

Recent reports by The New York Times share a growing consensus within the judiciary of an impending crisis, with a lack of clarity creating foreseeable conflict and...

How to Erode a Democracy: Hungary’s Illiberal Turn Under Orbán

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán turned Hungary from a hopeful post-communist democracy into the first “illiberal democracy” since taking office in 2010. Originally rated “Free, Hungary is now only...

Congress Party vs BJP

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

Members of the Congress Party have been charged with money laundering in connection to the National Herald case. Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, high-status figures of the Congress Party in India, are being...

Trump vs The Judiciary: A Brief Spat or a Wider Issue?

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

In mid-March, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. This is despite the fact that Mr. Garcia was barred from being deported under an order...

Marine Le Pen’s Conviction and the Erosion of Democracy in France

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

On the 31st March the leader of the French far-right party (The National Rally), Marine Le Pen, was banned from running in the 2027 presidential election. She was convicted of embezzlement of...

Senegal: Success or Failure?

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

Being known as one of the more stable democracies in Africa, with a ranking of 10th in regards to the democratic index for African countries in 2022, Senegal has had a long standing history of...

The Alien Enemies Act: Mass Deportation as a Pathway to Democratic Erosion

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

Trump’s notorious anti-immigration plans have remained ambitious during his second term in office, promising he “will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the...

Executive Aggrandizement & Institutional Resistance: South Korea

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

On December 3rd, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law on the basis that the “North Korean Communist forces” and “Anti-State forces” had infiltrated the legislative...

How the Economic State Impacts Politics

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

One connection I see between the United States right now and Weimar Germany is the economic state. The failure of the economic system in Germany, “Acted as a trigger, occasioning the abandonment of...

The Role of Universities in Keeping American Democracy Alive

Apr 18, 2025 | Boston University

Political scientists Matthew Cleary and Aykut Öztürk, in their article When Does Backsliding Lead to Breakdown? Uncertainty and Opposition Strategies in Democracies at Risk, explain how democratic...