GOVT 382 – Erosion of Democracy

This seminar will explore the characteristics, causes, and consequences of “democratic backsliding” — deterioration in the quality of democracy that may or may not lead to democratic breakdown. Topics to be covered include the meaning of democracy, the measurement of democracy, the right to vote, electoral integrity, democracy and the rule of law, democracy and populism, democracy and the Covid-19 pandemic, dimensions and sequences of democratic erosion, the causes of democratic erosion, and resistance to democratic erosion.