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 blogs reflect the views of the student authors, and not those of the Democratic Erosion Consortium.

Democratic Backsliding: Be Observant

Setting the Stage for Autocracy Democratic backsliding is nothing if not the gradual death of democracy. Democracy is eroded through incremental steps taken by the dominant political party to consolidate power into their own hands. The specific means of doing this is...

Propaganda, The Iran War, and Democratic Erosion

The U.S. response to the Iran conflict demonstrates how propaganda and narrative manipulation transform foreign policy into a domestic political tool, contributing to democratic erosion by undermining informed citizenship, weakening accountability, and expanding...

Israel’s Nation-State Law and the Fight Over Belonging

Israel’s Nation-State Law and the Fight Over Belonging Every democracy is based on a single premise: equality. That is why Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law matters. In July 2018, the Israeli Knesset passed Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, also...

A Seemingly Controversial 15 Minutes

Feb 13, 2026 | Boston University

Every February, a football team earns the right to call itself “world champions” by winning the Super Bowl. However, one of the most exciting aspects of the night, aside...

Tunisia Under Saied: The Unraveling of the Arab Spring’s Lone Success Story

Feb 12, 2026 | Boston University, Featured

On January 31, 2026, Tunisian President Kais Saied extended the country’s state of emergency once more, now marking ten consecutive years of its being in effect. While he...

Recent Election Leaves Brazil in Polarized State

Dec 10, 2022 | SUNY-Binghamton

https://globalvoices.org/2022/11/21/how-football-and-politics-are-intertwined-in-a-polarized-post-election-brazil/ The most recent Brazilian presidential election between leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da...

The Invasion of Ukraine: A Crisis Magnifies a Larger Issue of Internal Instability and Corruption

Dec 9, 2022 | Suffolk University

Ukraine is facing a Constitutional Court and corruption crisis that will impact its ability to recover from the devastation to democratic sovereignty caused by Russia’s advances of military action...

Free Speech, Social Media, and Elections: A Factor Analysis

Dec 8, 2022 | Boston University

Context On December 2nd, Elon Musk retweeted a thread which was posted at Musk’s behest by Matt Taibbi, called The “Twitter Files.” The thread details the censorship Twitter executives engaged in...

The Uphill Battle for Democracy in Vietnam

Dec 8, 2022 | Boston University

On June 23rd 2022, Phan Huu Diep Anh, a Facebook user living in Ho Chi Minh City, was sentenced to one and a half years in prison on the charge of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe on State...

Populist Reforms in Mexico

Dec 6, 2022 | SUNY-Binghamton

Another populist attempts to strengthen their power through eliminating electoral institutions in Mexico. Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has used his power in the presidency to...

The Republican Party Has a Viktor Orbán Problem

Dec 5, 2022 | Skidmore College

On August 4, 2022, Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán spoke at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas. CPAC is a conference where American...

Conspiracy Theories and the 2020 United States Elections

Dec 4, 2022 | SUNY-Binghamton

On January 6, 2021, the American public received a startling reminder of the effects of conspiracy theories. As a direct result of President Trump’s conspiratorial rhetoric, a violent mob invaded...

Ortega’s Obstruction of Fair Process in Nicaragua

Dec 4, 2022 | SUNY-Binghamton

Nicaragua is a coastal country in Central America founded in 1821 after gaining independence from Spain, then joining the Mexican...

This Musk Be a Joke

Dec 4, 2022 | SUNY-Binghamton

“Elon Musk he’s such a f***ing moron” (Conover, 2022) said Adam Conover in relation to Elon Musk on the Trillionaire Pod, a podcast. Elon Musk who recently bought Twitter in an effort to “clean...