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...

Burkina Faso: a 2022 marked by coups d’état

Jan 4, 2023 | Sabanci University

The two military coups occurred in 2022 in Burkina Faso lead to some conclusions about the development of authoritarian systems On 29 November 2015, general elections were...

The Infamous Transformation of SCOTUS: An American Horror Story

Jan 1, 2023 | Sabanci University

In this epoch, it is not seldom to come across an example of backsliding democracy. In a way, this phenomenon defines the gist of our times. However, the kind we witness in...

Trump’s COVID Crisis: A Response to “Trump’s Authoritarian Tendencies and its Relation to Covid-19”

Apr 24, 2020 | Rollins College

It is no secret that the President is currently and has been exercising his power with increasingly less resistance as his administration has pushed forward through scandals and crises. Despite...

Democratic Erosion in the Supreme Court Following COVID-19

Apr 24, 2020 | Rollins College

COVID-19 has highlighted many problems in global governmental systems ever since its initial outbreak in late 2019. However, after reading the New York Times Article “Supreme Court Blocks Extended...

The Internet’s Involvement with Politics

Apr 24, 2020 | Rollins College

On April 19th, 2020, rioters took the streets of state capitals to protest against the state closures due to the novel virus SARS-CoV-2. The infectious disease has caused a nationwide lockdown for...

How President Trump’s response to the stay at home order protestors reflects his political ideology.

Apr 24, 2020 | Rollins College

With the coronavirus pandemic, many states have postponed their primaries election, and of course, the president of the country has been under a lot of pressure with the given situation. It is...

A Positive American Identity Politics

Apr 24, 2020 | Rollins College

In November of 2019, David Leonhardt of the New York Times wrote an article called The Left’s Identity Problem. In it, he discusses the (accurate) forecast of the UK’s Labour Party losing their...

Fake News, Social Identities, and Political Responsibility by Hallie Walker

Apr 24, 2020 | Rollins College

Fake news as a political influence is not a recent development, but partisan differences strengthening in United States democracy paired with increasing distribution through online media outlets has...

Las Vegas Mayor Wanting to use Citizens as COVID-19 Guinea Pigs

Apr 24, 2020 | Suffolk University

Interview of Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, hosted by Anderson Cooper for CNN's Newsroom Have people not learned from the Tuskegee experiment which began in 1932? In the past few days, news...

Coronavirus in Nigeria

Apr 24, 2020 | Georgia State University

How the growing pandemic is threatening stability in Africa's largest nation Even though Nigeria still has a relatively low number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of this moment, the chaos that...

Off With His Head! – How Viktor Orban’s new powers lynched Hungarian democracy in one fell swoop.

Apr 24, 2020 | Rollins College

The COVID-19 pandemic has bulldozed its way through even the most powerful nations leaving countless millions unemployed and healthcare systems around the world bursting at the seams. However, to a...