Steven Levitsky’s and Daniel Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die showcases the potential of political science. It demonstrates the value of comparative work, bringing together scholars of Latin America (Levitsky) and Europe (Ziblatt) who use their knowledge of these regions to help us better understand what is going on in the United States. The book also proves that there is no trade-off between top-notch scholarly work and public engagement. Indeed, the success of the book reflects how much hunger there is for smart, accessible analyses of contemporary issues—and makes clear the disservice our profession has done by not explicitly encouraging political scientists to share the knowledge they have had the privilege to accumulate with the wider public.
What do the authors aim to accomplish? The “How” in their title is crucial: The book analyzes the means and mechanisms through which democracies become dictatorships. Although many assume democracies die “at the hands of men with guns,” Levitsky and Ziblatt stress that there are “other ways to break a democracy” (p. 3)—less dramatic but equally effective, via politicians undermining the democratic system that brought them to power. When democratic death is a process rather than event, and there is accordingly no “single moment” when potential dictators make their intentions clear, it is difficult for citizens to recognize and therefore react to threats. By examining how this process has unfolded in Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere, the authors hope to arm citizens with the knowledge they need to identify when their countries are in danger.
Much of the book therefore analyzes how politicians have eviscerated the formal and informal infrastructures of democracy across time and space. The former are what most scholars and observers of democracy focus on: the institutions, with their checks and balances, or what Levitsky and Ziblatt refer to as the “referees,” that restrain politicians and prevent excessive accumulations of power—courts, constitutions, the media, law enforcement agencies, and civil society. They analyze the tools that would-be dictators have used to render these impotent, without “setting off alarm bells” (p. 92). For example, the book discusses how in order to undermine the independence of courts, the retirement age of judges has been lowered and obstreperous judges charged with malfeasance, enabling leaders to restock courts with pliant supporters; how frivolous libel suits or other trumped-up charges have been used to intimidate the press; how bribes or access to government contracts have been used to buy the support of business and cultural elites; and how constitutions and electoral laws have been changed to tilt the playing field in ruling parties’ favor.
Tactics like these are well studied by political scientists and, when highlighted, probably recognized by most citizens as threats to democracy. Therefore, the more interesting and perhaps helpful part of How Democracies Die is its emphasis on democracy’s informal infrastructure: the norms, unwritten rules, or what Levitsky and Ziblatt call the “soft guardrails” of democracy that “prevent day-to-day political competition from devolving into no-holds barred conflict” (p. 101). The authors focus on two of these in particular: mutual toleration and institutional forbearance. The former refers to the idea “that as long as rivals play by constitutional rules, they accept that the other has an equal right to exist, compete for power and govern” (p. 102). Mutual toleration is thus simply a collective willingness to disagree; without this, rivals become enemies, disputes become zero sum, and elections become extremely high stakes. Forbearance, on the other hand, refers to “patient self-control” and restraint (p. 106), a collective willingness to avoid actions that respect the letter of the law but violate its spirit. Again, drawing on numerous cases, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how these norms can be gradually undermined, stretching the rules of the democratic game past their breaking point and rendering democracy’s “players” so aggravated that they may be willing to go to extremes or even suspend the game entirely.
Based on these criteria, Levitsky and Ziblatt conclude that American democracy is in danger, with Trump accelerating trends set in motion before his election. “When Donald Trump took office in January 2017,” they argue, “the guardrails were still there, but they were weaker than they had been in a century—and things were about to get worse” (p. 175). Although they consider the role played by Democrats and Republicans in this process, they find the latter more culpable, arguing that since Newt Gingrich, the Republican Party has practiced a “no compromise, no-holds barred” (p. 150) style of politics antithetical to democratic health and stability. Taking this “style” to the next level and following a “familiar authoritarian script” (p. 176–77), the authors argue that Trump has pushed our democracy’s formal and informal infrastructures to the breaking point. He has attacked our political system’s institutions and checks and balances, exhibiting little knowledge of or regard for the Constitution; questioning the validity of elections and trying to weaken voting rights; assailing courts, law enforcement and intelligence agencies; refusing to openly condemn illiberal and even violent tactics used by some of his supporters; and using public office to favor his backers and intimidate his opponents. Trump has also assaulted our democracy’s norms or “soft guardrails,” throwing mutual toleration out the window by openly doubting the patriotism and legitimacy of political rivals, civil society opponents, and the press, and using falsehoods and threats to rile up supporters. Institutional forebearance has also deteriorated, as Republicans have engaged in obstructionism at the national and state levels, and refused to even consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in the run-up to Trump’s election.
How Democracies Die’s most obvious contribution, in short, is offering a concise, accessible master course in the means and mechanisms of democratic decline. But as with all great books, this one raises as many questions as it answers. The How in the book’s title leads inextricably to the Why: Levitsky and Ziblatt focus on democracy’s endgame and thus are naturally led to focus on elites. But if we really want to understand democratic health and stability, we need to study politics from the bottom up, as well as from the top down; in particular, we need to know why citizens become dissatisfied with and lose faith in democracy, setting the stage for democratic decline—and for that, focusing on elites is not enough. For example, the authors recognize that polarization lies behind many of the worrying trends facing our democracy today—but polarization is not merely the consequence of elite actions. It is also the consequence of long-term developments like rising economic inequality, growing divergence between the economic and social vibrancy of regions of the country; social and cultural divisions; the sorting of the American electorate into white, Evangelical, conservative, and noncoastal Republicans and nonwhite, non-Evangelical, liberal and coastal/metropolitan Democrats; and the organizational decline of political parties, particularly the Democratic Party, in many parts of the country.
If we want, in other words, to protect our democracy from dying, we need more books about why democracies die as well as how they do so. Thankfully, political scientists are engaged in this task and some are also, like Levitsky and Ziblatt, committed to informing the general public as well as their colleagues. (Recent work by Yascha Mounk,Footnote 1 Theda Skocpol,Footnote 2 Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld,Footnote 3 Julia Azari,Footnote 4 and Lilliana MasonFootnote 5 exemplify this trend.) Alongside the book’s excellent analysis of how democracies can die, perhaps its most useful contribution may be encouraging other members of the profession to help create a new “independent variable”: a more informed citizenry that can help counteract democratic decline.
