How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy?

At Yale, Political Scientists Envision New Ways to Study American Democracy | Institution for Social and Policy Studies

At a recent Yale conference, leading U.S. political scientists discussed new and rising challenges to American democracy and how their field of study must adapt to better understand them.

How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy?

Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt, writing in the New York Times: “We propose a simple metric: the cost of opposing the government. In democracies, citizens are not punished for peacefully opposing those in power. They need not worry about publishing critical opinions, supporting opposition candidates or engaging in peaceful protest because they know they will not suffer retribution from the government. In fact, the idea of legitimat…

'A simple metric' to determine if America has 'crossed the line into authoritarianism'

“Authoritarianism is harder to recognize than it used to be,” political scientists Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt tell the New York Times, primarily because “most 21st-century autocrats are elected.”Unlike the regimes of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and U.S.-backed Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, authoritarianism comes in a new flavor called competitive authoritarianism — “a system in which parties compete in elections but the systemati…

My Turn: The hopeful math for saving democracy

Think resisting authoritarianism is too big of a lift? Think again. This spring, while the U.S. resistance movement may not be in full bloom, it is blossoming.

It must be made clear that the decline in the diversity of political space is dangerous.

The hopeful math for saving democracy

Think resisting authoritarianism is too big of a lift? Think again. This spring, while the U.S. resistance movement may not be in full bloom, it is blossoming.