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.

The Informational Middleman: A Hidden Literacy Crisis, Who Gets to Explain Democracy?

What if you can vote but can’t understand what you’re voting on? Imagine two citizens receiving identical governmental notices before preparing to cast their votes in an upcoming election. Both have the same legal right to vote, contact their representatives, and...

How Many Resignations are Too Many Resignations?: The Political Environment of the UK Leading to Keir Starmer Relinquishing his Premiership

There has been a lot of commotion in the last years about the instability of liberal democracies, and particularly established democracies which have made a considerable amount of people question their validity and efficacy. A particularly interesting example of this...

When Legal Authority May Undermine Democracy: The Overseas Voting Forms Controversy

In late August, the Trump Administration used emergency requests to alter the federal voting form used by overseas U.S. citizens, limiting how certain voters can request ballots. The changes include the elimination of a checkbox for U.S. citizens born abroad who have...

Our First Line of Defense Against an American Authoritarian Regime is Crumbling: Education

Feb 13, 2025 | Boston University

In an effort to explain what some often feel is the unexplainable, political scientists have been devising metrics to analyze those voters who cast their ballots for...

Dissolution of Democratic Norms in Trump’s America

Feb 13, 2025 | Boston University

In January, Congressman Andy Ogles, a Republican Representative for Tennessee, introduced a resolution to revise the 22nd Amendment, allowing President Trump and any future...

The Necessity for Responsible Reporting on Crime in Mexico

Oct 12, 2020 | Brown University

You may not realize it, but the news media plays an enormous role in shaping how the public views and responds to crime. As Vincent Sacco states in his paper, “Media Constructions of Crime”, the way...

Migrant Caravans, U.S. Intervention, and the Case of Honduras

Oct 12, 2020 | Brown University

AFP/Getty, October 2018 You have likely come across the striking wide-shot, panoramic depictions of a blurred mass of bodies on the move. Blocking entire roads as far as the eye can see and...

Color, Corruption, and COVID-19: South Africa’s Democratic Balancing Act

Oct 12, 2020 | Brown University

A nation’s economy contracts by 51% in three months. Blatant corruption severely undermines the legitimacy of a country’s most prominent political party. Racial unrest and an increasingly fraught...

An Alternative to Militarization: Building Public Infrastructure to Fight Crime

Oct 12, 2020 | Brown University

The intuitive approach to deterring criminal behavior is to punish it. But what if legal behavior were instead incentivized such that criminal activity lost some of its relative appeal? Years of...

Negotiating with MS-13: Pragmatism, Corruption, or Both?

Oct 12, 2020 | Brown University

Outrage, shock and dismay greeted the publication of a report from El Faro news site claiming that El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele “cut deals” with the Mara Salvatrucha gang (MS-13) in order to...

AMLO’s Amnesty Proposal: How Government Pardon in Mexico Adds Fuel to the Fire

Oct 10, 2020 | Brown University

Mere weeks before assuming office as the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, often referred to as AMLO, published an eight-pillared plan for the construction of a peaceful future for...

Opal Tometi’s NYU Webinar

Oct 8, 2020 | Suffolk University

In the past few years, Black Lives Matter has grown from a simple Facebook hashtag to one of the worlds most powerful and provocative activist groups. Their mission to shed light on the...

The Curse of the Weimar Republic

Jul 31, 2020 | University of California, Davis

World War II is regarded as the deadliest war in history, showing the abominable consequences of totalitarian regimes and establishing global tensions that still exist today. The war ended more than...

Grappling with the Legacy of Evo Morales and the Future of Bolivian Democracy

Jun 9, 2020 | Arizona State University

On November 10, 2019, facing claims of election fraud and demands from the country’s military for his resignation, Bolivian President Evo Morales stepped down, after almost 14 years at the head of...