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.

Stealth Authoritarianism in Tunisia

According to Al Jazeera, Tunisia’s January 2026 sentencing of two journalists to three year prison terms for allegedly “spreading false news" illustrates the broader pattern of democratic erosion under president Kais Saied. Once widely regarded as the only democratic...
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AI as Democratic Erosion by Proxy: Trump, Synthetic Media, and the Normalization of Anti-Pluralism

Donald Trump’s use of AI-generated media, particularly content that fabricates or manipulates the speech and actions of political opponents, constitutes a form of democratic erosion by proxy: it does not directly dismantle democratic institutions, but it degrades the...
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Is India Facing Democratic Backsliding?

Within the past decade, political institutions have listed India’s democracy in a steady decline. The V-Dem Institute lists India as #100 out of 179 countries, classifying it as an “electoral autocracy,” citing the excessive pressures on media and challenges to civil...
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