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.

The Erosion of an Already Weak Democracy: The Rise and Fall of Jovenel Moïse

Jovenel Moïse's presidency marked a dangerous shift from Haiti's already shaky democracy to overt authoritarianism. Delayed elections, unchecked abuse of executive power, and violent suppression of resistance became the norm. By the time of his assassination in 2021,...

Undermining the Feedback Loop: How Trump’s Educational Policies Hinder Democratic Accountability

In a larger trend of censoring opinions which the Trump administration views as undesirable, the Trump administration’s actions towards schools and universities has a negative impact on democracy as a whole. Such a system depends on the free transmission of...

Democracy Six Feet Under: How Disinformation is Burying Philippine Democracy Alive

Philippine democracy is in great danger once again now that the two families who benefited the most from disinformation – the Marcoses and Dutertes, are in power and have turned against one another. As both camps sling disinformation against each other, the...

Hong Kong’s Autonomy Eroding: The Impact of the National Security Law

Oct 16, 2023 | School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University

Hong Kong, once hailed for its "One country, two systems" framework that promised a high degree of autonomy in various aspects of governance, has been witnessing a gradual...

Democracy Decline in India: Worth Compromising for the West and the U.S.

Oct 16, 2023 | School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University

The rise of China’s assertions around the world and the fall of liberal values among political stakeholders in the United States and the West had been married to the...

The Danger of Trump’s Rhetoric in American Democracy

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

In 2016, a man with no political experience and little political support was elected president of the United States. Previously, no president had been elected without a background in government or...

Constitutional Hardball and the United States Supreme Court

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

In their seminal work How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt identify two principal constitutional guardrails that, they argue, have allowed democracy to survive in the United...

The End of Nicaraguan Democracy

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

In 1984, Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) won the presidency after having overthrown the almost ten-year dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Ortega served one...

The Threat Against Democracy in the Era of “Fake News”

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

In 2016, American trust of mass media was at an all-time low. Gallup found that of 1,020 adult Americans surveyed, 32% reported having a “great deal/fair amount” of trust in the media. When sorted...

The Fourth Estate: Democracy, Journalism, and the Social Media Age

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

According to James Carey, "without journalism there is no democracy, but without democracy there is no journalism either.” In other words, the ability of journalism to inform citizens of a...

Conservative Gatekeeping of the United States Supreme Court

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

Right wing, conservative senators are gatekeeping the Supreme Court, in a way that they failed to during the political rise of President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential primaries. [1] Focused...

The Case of Alexei Navalny: A Study in Mutual Tolerance, Non-Political Crimes, and Surveillance

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

At the end of August, while returning from campaigning for local elections in the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny fell violently ill....

Takes Two to Tango: How the Democratic Elites Have Fueled Trump’s Fire

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

The 25th amendment, allows for a sitting President’s powers to be suspended if they become unfit for office. Section 4, which can suspend Presidential power without the sitting President’s consent,...

An Attack on Democracy in the Name of Bipartisanship

Oct 23, 2020 | University of Chicago

It is clear that increasing partisanship correlates with democratic erosion. Matthew Graham and Milan Svolik, in a candidate-choice experiment, found that US voters who identified with a certain...