In other words, the two parties are now divided over race and religion—two deeply polarizing issues that tend to generate greater intolerance and hostility than traditional policy issues such as taxes...
In 2012 alone, the Koch family was responsible for some $400 million in election spending.
If partisan animosity prevails over mutual toleration, those in control of congress may prioritize defense of the president over the performance of their constitutional duties.
If partisan animosity prevails over mutual toleration, those in control of congress may prioritize defense of the president over the performance of their constitutional duties. In an effort to stave o...
Huq and Ginsburg recently warned that the constitutional and legal safeguards of [American] democracy…would prove to be fairly easy to manipulate in the face of a truly antidemocratic leader.
Finally, elected autocrats often try to silence cultural figures—artists, intellectuals, pop stars, athletes—whose popularity or moral standing makes them potential threats.
Few societies in history have managed to be both multiracial and genuinely democratic.
Donald Trump’s first year in office followed a familiar script. Like Alberto Fujimori, Hugo Chávez, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, America’s new president began his tenure by launching blistering rhetorica...
Donald Trump, by contrast, has rarely exhibited forbearance in any context. The chances of a conflict occurring on his watch are also considerable. They would be for any president—the United States fo...
Democracy’s fate during the remainder of Trump’s presidency will depend on several factors. The first is the behavior of Republican leaders. Democratic institutions depend crucially on the willingness...
Concerned about the court’s history of striking down pro-labor legislation, Perón’s allies in congress impeached three of the justices on the grounds of malfeasance (a fourth resigned before he could...
But rather than denouncing the coup leaders as an extremist threat, the former president offered them public sympathy—and, with it, an opening to mainstream politics.
We may shed tears on election night when the other side wins, but we do not consider such an event apocalyptic. Put another way, mutual toleration is politicians’ collective willingness to agree to di...
Social and cultural changes have also played a major role. Unlike the Democratic Party, which has grown increasingly diverse in recent decades, the GOP has remained culturally homogeneous. This is sig...
Populists tend to deny the legitimacy of established parties, attacking them as undemocratic and even unpatriotic. They tell voters that the existing system is not really a democracy but instead has b...
Party gatekeeping also helped confine George Wallace to the margins of politics.
In short, most Republican leaders ended up holding the party line. If they had broken decisively with Trump, telling Americans loudly and clearly that he posed a threat to our country’s cherished inst...
In Tennessee, black suffrage made Republicans so competitive in 1888 that the pro-Democratic Avalanche predicted a sweeping Republican victory in the next election unless something were done.
In Israel, the demographic threat created by the de facto annexation of the West Bank is pushing the country toward a political system that two of its former prime ministers have compared to apartheid...
How do elected authoritarians shatter the democratic institutions that are supposed to constrain them? Some do it in one fell swoop. But more often the assault on democracy begins slowly. For many cit...