Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, “How Democracies Die“

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt discuss their book, “How Democracies Die“, on 1/25/18. Levitsky and Ziblatt, professors of comparative politics at Harvard, have spent nearly twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies. Focusing on Latin America and Europe, respectively, the two didn’t expect to address the issue for the United States, but that changed when Trump was elected. Building on their December 2016 New York Times op-ed which asked “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” they emphatically answer “yes,” outline the specific risks he poses, and chart ways we can avert the threat of authoritarianism. Drawing on examples of troubled states from around the world since the 1930s, Levitsky and Ziblatt point out that warning signs of collapse include the weakening of institutions, such as the judiciary and the media, erosion of political norms, and the rise of incivility. Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstor