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...

Myanmar: Exhibit A of the Danger of Military Rule

Nov 27, 2022 | Boston University

While the international community holds various broad examples of the inherent flaws in military institutions in government, Myanmar’s short history of democracy blows any...

United States Polarization Effect on Backsliding

Nov 27, 2022 | Boston University

The rise of polarization here in the United States of America is a major cause of concern for the democratic norms which exist here in the US. Over the years, the United...

The Trouble in North Carolina

Oct 17, 2019 | Salem State University

How anti-democratic measures are eroding democratic norms in North Carolina In the book How Democracies Die, Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky argue that backsliding governments may reject the...

The World’s Biggest Democracy in an Undemocratic Light

Oct 16, 2019 | Salem State University

India, the world’s biggest democratic government, is facing serious challenges to its democracy. To the North, in Kashmir, civil strife is rampant. China, Pakistan, and India all lay claim to parts...

Netanyahu: Pushing the Limits of Democracy

Oct 15, 2019 | Salem State University

The September 2019 parliamentary elections in Israel raise concern about the future of democracy in the country. The Blue and White party, created just this year, ran neck and neck with the...

The 2019 elections in Israel: Evidence of democratic backsliding?

Jun 7, 2019 | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

On May, 9, 2019, elections to the Israeli parliament—the Knesset—were once again conducted. By and large, as on all previous occasions, they were competitive, free, and fair. During the campaigns,...

Rhetoric, democratic backsliding, and Netanyahu’s 2019 election campaign by Tal Been

Jun 6, 2019 | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

An election campaign is of great importance to a country’s political culture, affording an opportunity to examine the behavior of political actors and their influence upon public discourse. In this...

The 2019 elections and the boundaries of the political space by Tally Keigen and Noa Shemesh

Jun 6, 2019 | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

One of the most fundamental values in a democracy is the right of political participation, derived the right to vote and be elected. The “paradox of a defensive democracy” raises the question of the...

The exclusion of the Arab minority by Daniel Padon

Jun 6, 2019 | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

The 2019 elections shed light on the schism between Israel’s Jewish majority and its Arab citizens, who constitute roughly 16% of all eligible voters (CBS 2019). A good starting point is the...

The case of Democratic Erosion in the Ivory Coast

Jun 2, 2019 | University of Chicago

The Ivory Coast under the 1998 regime of president Bédié reflects the effects of democratic erosion as described by both Bermeo and Levitsky and Ziblatt. For historical context. the regime of...

Democracy in Africa: Is the Use of ‘Erosion’ Appropriate?

Jun 2, 2019 | University of Chicago

In this class we learn terminology and methodology that helps us understand mechanisms that cause the erosion of democracy in different specific scenarios. Through this we can have a bigger...