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 are student blog posts written by student participants in the Democratic Erosion Course. These posts were not written by nor represent the views of the Democratic Erosion Consortium.

Food Security is Rooted Abroad

Global fertilizer supply chains connect geopolitical events abroad to food production at home in ways most consumers don’t see. 

The Meaning of Silence : What the moment of silence for Melissa Hortman says about American democracy

   On June 14, 2025, the lives of Melissa Hortman who was a House speaker in Minnesota and her husband Mark were taken in what authorities believe to be a politically motivated act of violence. The same day Senator John Hoffman and his wife were also shot and...

The New Future of Warfare? How Social Media is Inflating Tensions Between the U.S. and Iran.

Social media is moving to the forefront of the ongoing tensions between the U.S. and Iran, with political elites from both sides of the conflict using social media as a weapon to fabricate narratives and generate AI videos to publicly denounce the actions of one...

Democracy or Oligarchy?

As the election results in favor of Joe Biden are becoming officially certified, and the courts are consistently denying credence to Trump’s frivolous claims of election fraud, many Americans...

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U.S. Trust on Elections

In the last 20 years, the United States has seen an increasing rise in the lack of trust in election results. Public trust in elections began to erode with the Supreme Court's decision in Gore v....

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