How Democracies Die is a 2018 comparative politics book by Harvard University political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt about democratic backsliding and how elected leaders can gradually subvert the democratic process to increase their power. In 2021, The Economist described the book as the "most important book of the Trump era." The book, which offers stark warnings about the impact of the Republican Party and Donald Trump's presidency on U.S. democracy, influenced Joe Biden prior to his decision to run in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Synopsis
The book warns against the breakdown of "mutual toleration" and respect for the political legitimacy of the opposition. This tolerance involves accepting the results of a free and fair election where the opposition has won, in contrast with advocacy for overthrow or spurious complaints about the election mechanism. The authors also assert the importance of respecting the opinions of those who come to legitimately different political opinions, in contrast to attacking the patriotism of any who disagree, or warning that if they come to power they will destroy the country.
The authors cite the various branches of government in a system with separation of powers have actions available to them that could completely undermine the other branches or the opposition. The authors warn against ramming through a political agenda or accumulating power by playing "constitutional hardball" with tactics like court packing, stonewalling nominations, or abusing the power of the purse, and recommend "forbearance" and some degree of cooperation to keep government functioning in a balanced fashion. Other threats to democratic stability cited by the authors include economic inequality and segregation of the political parties by race, religion, and geography.
The authors dedicate many chapters to the study of the United States, Donald Trump, and the 2016 U.S. presidential election but also apply their theory to Latin America and European countries, especially Venezuela and Russia. According to them, the United States has, until 2016, resisted the attempts to undermine democracy thanks to two norms: mutual toleration and forbearance, the latter defined as the intentional restraint of one's power in order to respect the spirit of the law if not its letters. They finally predict three potential scenarios for the post-Trump United States.
Analysis
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard professors and political scientists, study the prospect of the democratic system in an holistic approach, and take a critical stand of the Trump presidency. They describe their work as a study of how democracies die. The main subjects are drawn in the introduction: the authors argue that in our time, democracies still die but by different means, "less at the hand of men with guns and more by elected leaders". The methodology used is mainly based on the "comparative method" and it is a book that tries to "reveal about our future" based on history, more specifically on historical comparisons (finding similar dynamics, presenting models of "gatekeeping" and the "rhymes" of history). The object of the study is the president Trump as an "autocrat in becoming" and, a comparison with state failures and autocrats. The study assesses the risk of his presidency and tries to identify the pattern of autocratic tendencies.
Recommendations of the authors
Levitsky and Ziblatt accept the fear of the Trump presidency as legitimate and pledge for the protection of the democracy. Particularly the last chapter saving democracy, put emphasis on political recommendations to save democracy in a pledge: "We must be humble and bold. We must learn from other countries to see the warning signs. We must be aware of the fateful missteps that have wrecked other democracies. We must see how citizens have risen to meet the great democratic crisis of the past." A proposed solution to the crisis is that "[w]e must not only restore democratic norms but extend them through the whole of increasingly diverse societies. This is a daunting challenge ... this is the challenge we face, previous generations ... made extraordinary sacrifice ... we must prevent it from dying from within ... ."