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...

Populism or Dictablanda? A look at Strongmen in Latin America

May 8, 2024 | Ursinus College

When we consider strongmen or populist leaders in Latin America, Nayib Bukele and Evo Morales stand out. Bukele was raised in El Salvador by the children of immigrants and...

The Only Tzar in the Castle: The Consolidation of Putin’s Rule

May 8, 2024 | Ursinus College

When most think of strongmen, it is often the caricature of Vladmir Putin that comes to mind. A ruthless leader who invokes a rhetoric of nationalism, “traditional values”,...

What the Fukuyama? by Selena Spencer

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

This piece argues against Francis Fukuyama's famous piece "The End of History". In February 1989 at the University of Chicago in room 122 of the Social Science Research Building, Francis Fukuyama...

Is America A Populist Regime? by Kenjiro Lee

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

In Chapter 2 of "What Is Populism?", Jan-Werner Müller takes to task the concept of how a populist in power operates, mainly deconstructing the concept that a populist can no longer use tactics of...

International Pressures and the Sudanese Promissory Coup by Sammy Elmasri

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

Nancy Bermeo, in her 2016 paper “On Democratic Backsliding,” describes the transition of “the classic open-ended coups d’état of the Cold War years [to what she calls] promissory coups,” which, of...

The Foreign Policies of Personalist Dictators by Carter Squires

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

Democratic peace theory, one of the closest semblances to an empirical law in international relations, espouses quite simply that democracies are unlikely to go to war with one another. This seems...

Democratic Backsliding in Romania by Ruth Selipsky

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

Over the past two decades, Romania has enacted several democratizing reforms, including founding the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), repealing defamation laws, and finally joining the...

Populism as a Bid for Legitimacy by Renee Colby

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

"When and why do men obey?" Max Weber poses this question in his 1918 lecture 'Politics as a Vocation'. " Upon what inner justifications and upon what external means does this domination rest?" The...

Is Trump’s Use of Twitter Effective in Cutting Out the Media “Middleman”

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

President Trump has used Twitter to connect with his supporters in an unprecedented way. His use of the platform has increased far...

Bernie Sanders: Populist or Not? by Leon Chin

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

Too often, the word “populist” is used to describe different political characters in the United States and around the world. Although this term of populism is frequently used, the actual definition...

Legislative aggrandizement in sub-national governments. The case of North Carolina.

Apr 29, 2019 | University of Chicago

Democratic erosion and authoritarian tendencies tend to go hand and hand with the executive power. Unlike the self-coups of years past executive aggrandizement has become more common as a way to...