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.

Arresting Opposition and Squashing Protests: Democratic Backsliding in Turkey Under Erdoğan

Turkey has been inching towards autocracy under Erdoğan and the AKP for the last 22 years.

2025 Romanian Elections: An Election Redo and a Barred Candidate

Only two weeks out from Presidential Elections, Romanian voters face a tough decision in deciding on the next leader of their country. The latest opinion polls show that nearly 40% of voters are still undecided on who to vote for. After all, most voters already cast...

Why Protecting American Democracy Means Coming Together In Protest

In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, the Democratic Erosion Consortium's very own professors Robert Blair and Steven Rosenzweig wrote an article in The Boston Globe urging readers to “Get ready to protest like democracy depends on it.” The article was in...

How Democratic Backsliding Hurts Elections? The Case of Orban’s Victory in 2022 Hungary General Elections

Jan 6, 2023 | Sabanci University

Hungary was seen as the success story of democratization among post-communist countries. When Orbán won the majority in 2010, democratic backsliding indicators came out...

Is There Any Hope Left for Belarus? 2020 Election Protests in “the Last Dictatorship in Europe”

Jan 6, 2023 | Sabanci University

Following the 2020 presidential election results in favor of Lukashenko, Belarusians move to the streets demanding free and fair elections and democracy. However, this...

¡Juntos haremos historia!: The Case of AMLO and Mexican Populism

May 11, 2020 | Utah State University

“[G]overnment is in principle democratic, in (liberal) theory mixed, and in practice oligarchic”-Michael Walzer- The use of populist techniques has set president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO),...

Is Argentina’s Democracy in Danger?

May 11, 2020 | Georgia State University

Democratic Roots Argentina today is a fairly robust democracy, they are a federal constitutional republic with a representative...

The Anti-Apartheid Movement: A Case Study of Finkel’s “The Phoenix Effect of State Repression”

May 9, 2020 | American University

In "The Phoenix Effect of State Repression: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust" Evgeny Finkel argued that rebel groups that have been forced underground in the past learn the “resister’s...

Viability of the Virtually Organized Protests in Hong Kong

May 9, 2020 | American University

Photo: Danish Siddiqui, December 8, 2019, Reuters.1 In “’Conventional’ and ‘Virtual’ Civil Societies in Autocratic Regimes” Mark Beissinger argues that protests that mobilize people mainly via...

How Denmark Remains Above the Fray

May 9, 2020 | Georgia State University

There has been much discussion over the past few years on the best ways to stop democratic erosion, especially democratic erosion in countries with solid constitutional principles and consistent...

The Prespa Agreement: A New Hope for Macedonian Democracy?

May 9, 2020 | Koç University

In June 2018, an important agreement was reached between Macedonia and Greece, solving the legal name dispute between the two neighbors. As a consequence of the agreement, Macedonia acknowledged...

Venezuela’s Democratic Decline

May 7, 2020 | American University

Venezuela was once a wealthy country known for its strong constitutional democracy and peaceful shifts of power but collapsed under Higo Chavez’s misguides regime. Under Venezuela’s current...

Democratic Dreams in Georgia

May 7, 2020 | American University

Under any circumstance a flawed election can be an uncharacteristic setback in democracy. The amount of democratic electoral systems around the world attempt to maintain equity between mathematical...

Stop Waiting on the Feeling, There Isn’t One: Democratic Backsliding in the United States by Jessamyn Lockett

May 6, 2020 | Georgia State University Perimeter College

Forget the clickbait: President Donald J. Trump and the Republican party are unraveling the democratic process in the United States, just because you cannot “feel” it,...