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.

Orbán Lost. But Did Democracy Win? Hungary’s Election and the Limits of Electoral Recovery

On April 12 2026 Viktor Orbán's sixteen-year grip on Hungary ended. This is when Péter Magyar's Tisza party won a landslide securing a two-thirds supermajority in parliament. The same threshold Orbán had used for years to rewrite the constitution in Fidesz's favor....
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Democratic Erosion and the Far-Right in Post-Estallido Chile

A fundamental question haunts any serious analysis of Chile's recent political trajectory: did the democratic erosion now visibly accelerating under the far-right begin with the mass mobilizations of 2019, or did it come after? The answer requires resisting the...
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When Saving Democracy Looks Like Killing It: Romania’s Election Crisis and the Paradox of Militant Democracy

Romania’s 2024–25 election crisis reveals that annulling a Russian-manipulated vote may have saved democracy procedurally while deepening the institutional distrust that makes democracy fragile in the first place.

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On the ousting of Orbán

Apr 28, 2026 |

Viktor , standard bearer of the international populist right wing and Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, has been defeated. The election took place on April, 12th 2026 and saw Péter Magyar, a...

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