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.

You Can’t Sit with Us: The Practice of Democratic Gatekeeping and How It Has Saved Democracies

At the 11th hour of the 2024 election many Republican politicians and members of congress took a stance against Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Through the “Republicans for Harris” tagline, they urged their supporters through various forms of appeals to vote...

The Erosion of an Already Weak Democracy: The Rise and Fall of Jovenel Moïse

Jovenel Moïse's presidency marked a dangerous shift from Haiti's already shaky democracy to overt authoritarianism. Delayed elections, unchecked abuse of executive power, and violent suppression of resistance became the norm. By the time of his assassination in 2021,...

Undermining the Feedback Loop: How Trump’s Educational Policies Hinder Democratic Accountability

In a larger trend of censoring opinions which the Trump administration views as undesirable, the Trump administration’s actions towards schools and universities has a negative impact on democracy as a whole. Such a system depends on the free transmission of...

Haitian Deportation and the Breakdown of the Democracy in the Dominican Republic

Nov 22, 2022 | Boston University

The Dominican Republic has been an established democracy since the 1960s when it established itself as such in their constitution in 1966. During the 1960s and 70s the DR...

Democratic Backsliding in South Korea: Controlling the Media

Nov 22, 2022 | Boston University

What is Media Control? South Korea is a fairly new democratic country that was formed after the Korean war in the 1950s. Despite its extraordinary rise to become a democracy...

Election Commission Chaos: Are Hard-to-Access Public Meetings a Sign of Democratic Erosion? by Allison Todd

Mar 31, 2019 | University of Memphis

When I was a child, I would ever-so-often hear my mother ask my grandmother what had happened in the most recent election commission meeting; my grandmother, active in the local political sphere as...

Assessing Public Opinion by Rajdeep Singh

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

When looking at daily news, a few topics have been constantly appearing in the last two years. The most frequent of them all: the Brexit Referendum and its fallout in the British parliament. It...

The Divide Between Right-Wing Populists and the Left-Wing Elite by Jacob Buckelew

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

It is the great paradox within the party of the welfare state that economic populism results in a greater level of elitism in Washington. As David Brooks suggests, centralization-as opposed to...

Rhetoric and Reactionism in the Brexit Debacle – by Matt Willis @ Rollins College

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

In his article, Max Fisher of the New York Times describes an intriguing conundrum in the democratic process, and two parallel cases that expose it. At the forefront is a recall election in the town...

Perils of the Green New Deal

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

The Green New Deal, proposed earlier this year, is a non-binding resolution that primarily plans to battle the detrimental effects of climate change, but also advocates for methods to lower economic...

Green Old Deal

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

A country where there is no pollution, and everyone has a job sounds like a perfect place to live. This utopian vision of a state is the end game for the Green New Deal that is presented by the...

Ignoring Constitutional Obligations by Sydney Willis

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

How hyper polarization has led to politicians in the United States ignoring their constitutional obligations Ever since...

Donald Trump vs The Media: A Threat to Our American Democracy? By Samuel Reeder

Mar 31, 2019 | American University

President Donald Trump has been consistently undermining and discrediting the news media in the United States since the start of his campaign back in 2016. The president, who has famously...

What Impeachment Means by Evangelina Wong

Mar 31, 2019 | Rollins College

The presidential election of 2016 was one that stirred the nation. The way that a businessman and television personality, Donald Trump, took over the Republican party and later the presidential...