Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

When we think of a democracy dying, what comes to mind is usually a military coup or civil war or other sudden violent action. In How Democracies Die, Harvard Government professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt show how countries can lose their democracy more slowly and insidiously, often without a single shot fired. They assert that, beyond the obvious mechanisms we depend on like free and fair elections and a strong constitution, democracies work best when these mechanisms are reinforced by unwritten democratic norms of mutual toleration of competing parties and forbearance in deploying institutional pregogatives. They also develop a set of four behavioral warning signs to help identify an authoritarian and a litmus test to identify autocrats. The authors support each of the general principles they put forth with many detailed examples of democracies that fell under autocratic rule and how it happened. These include the countries most likely to come to mind like Hitler’s Germany and others like Venezuela, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. After making their case for how democracies die, the authors warn that the United States is not immune from this disease and give good evidence for their assertion. Not surprisingly the Trump administration is their primary example, but there are other recent examples from before Trump took office. As an example of the violation of the civil norm of forbearance (which has been broken by both parties), they cite the Senate’s refusal to consider President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Until I read this book I had not realized that no president since Reconstruction has been denied the opportunity to fill a Supreme Court vacancy when he nominated someone before his successor was elected. Specific nominees had been turned down, but replacements were considered and someone was appointed in every instance until the Garland nomination. It was also interesting to read about the crucial role that the political parties play in keeping authoritarians on the fringes. The book makes a good argument that the use of primary elections to select nominees, a step most of us see as supporting democracy, could instead make it easier for an authoritarian to gain power. Not all the examples in the book are negative. It also cites instances where threats to democracy have been foiled, both in the United States and elsewhere. An excellent example was when President Roosevelt tried to neutralize a Supreme Court that was hostile to some of his New Deal by expanding the Supreme Court to 15 members. The bipartisan negative reaction was especially significant given that Roosevelt was extremely popular and had just been re-elected in a landslide. There ARE actions and attitudes that can counter threats. The book’s theses are well-reasoned and well-documented. Most of the current examples in the United States would be familiar to well-informed readers, and we probably did not need to hear about them to see their relevance to the general principles the authors developed from their examinations of history. It was especially chilling to read about a behavioral warning sign and then to see an example of it in the news. For example the day after I read about “willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media” as a warning sign, President Trump’s lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to try to prevent publication of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff. Like most Americans, I react to the thought of losing our democratic way of life with “No, it can’t happen here.” This book has convinced me that it could. NOTE: I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from Netgalley with a request for an honest review.