“How Democracies Die" and What Does It Have to Do With Europe?: The Democracy Summit Keynote Lecture Recap & The European Context

by Kelsi Quick, Political Science PhD Student & Research Assistant at the European Union Center

The Democracy Summit ft. Dr. Daniel Ziblatt

On the evening of October 23, 2023, the Student Affairs Office of Civic Life at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign hosted Dr. Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard University for the keynote lecture kicking off the week-long “Democracy Summit” centering recent American experiences of democracy with the aim of fostering civic engagement. Dr. Ziblatt, who is the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University as well as co-author of the bestselling book “How Democracies Die,” invited the audience of Monday night’s lecture to examine democracy with him, as well as to ask deeper questions about where America is headed if serious action is not taken to salvage our democracy.

While questions about the health and quality of democracy have been asked with increasing levels of concern over the past several years, the focus of Ziblatt’s lecture drew primarily from his new book, again co-authored with Steven Levitsky. Titled Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, the book focuses on the specific institutional challenges that struggle to adequately accommodate the multiracial society that America has become. Ziblatt began the keynote lecture by confronting the audience with a stark reality: the objective quality of American democracy has decreased (per Freedom House scores), and our society is in a particularly vulnerable place as democracy is pushed to its breaking point by institutions that become less a facilitator of freedom and more of an excessive constraint. Murmurs of assent could be heard throughout the audience as Ziblatt touched on a truth that resonated with audience members across generations.

What is the biggest challenge to America’s democracy today, then? Ziblatt reassured the audience that he intends to be as nonpartisan as possible when he says that one of the major threats to America’s democracy is the radicalization of the far-right wing of the Republican party and the institutions that protect and enable them to prevent the passage of policy supported by the majority of Americans. As in all things, context matters. Historically, the institutional structure of American democracy did work for the purposes of a homogeneous portion of the population, but as our democracy becomes much more inclusive, multiracial, and heterogeneous, consensus across broad groups becomes ever more crucial. When institutional structures and/or norms such as the Electoral College, Senate filibuster, life appointment for Supreme Court justices, and lack of a retirement age for politicians are countermajoritarian in form and practice, our democracy’s lack of responsiveness to the popular will is revealed. If anything is to be done to prevent the continued deterioration and possible failure of American democracy, Ziblatt argues that changing these institutional structures is a great place to start.

What Does It Have to Do With Europe?

While it’s true that Ziblatt’s lecture focused largely on democracy in the specific context of American institutions, many of the themes discussed can also be observed in the European context today. In his lecture, Ziblatt discussed radicalization in the Republican party being driven by a backlash of (largely) white men who experience a perceived loss in status as a result of demographic changes in society. The same trend has been observed in Europe. In a 2019 book entitled Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism, political scientists Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart find that authoritarian populism in America and Europe can be observed in the “Interwar generation, non-college graduates, working class, white Europeans, the more religious, men, and residents of rural communities” (p. 15). The rise of far-right radical populist parties all across Europe further demonstrates this trend: Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party in Hungary, the Alternative für Deutschland party in Germany, the Law & Justice Party in Poland, and the Sweden Democrats, among others, are examples of this trend.

But institutions are built differently in Europe. Parliamentary structures, term limits, mandatory ages for retirement, multi-party and proportional representation, and the lack of electoral colleges make democracy in Europe, if not a different game from that of the Americans, at least the same game but with different rules. Can we, then, learn something from the European experiences?

In Defense of Hope

But maybe, just maybe, there’s something to be learned from Europe’s experience with handling far-right radical populist parties. There may be institutional models to study and learn from as Americans fight to change current institutions to make them more responsive to citizens. After all, America began the modern-day experiment with democracy, and Europe followed along. Maybe this time, it’s time for America to learn from their European partners. As Ziblatt pointed out, Norway has the world’s second-oldest constitution and it has been amended 316 times; the U.S. constitution has been amended only 27 times. Maybe a bit of change wouldn’t be so bad.

Major social movements have led to amendments in the American constitution in the past, and they certainly could again. While Ziblatt stressed that the situation of American democracy is dire, there is still room for hope. The idea that the situation is unsalvageable is what kills democracy, Ziblatt argued. Ziblatt ended with the importance of hope—and the message to become involved in democracy. Run for office, fight for change, and keep engaging with democracy. Democracy won’t be able to fight for us if we don’t find it worth fighting for first.

Works Cited

Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2018). How democracies die. Crown, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House.

Levitsky, S., & Ziblatt, D. (2023). Tyranny of the minority. Crown, an imprint of Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House.

Norris, P., Inglehart, R. (2019). Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism. India: Cambridge University Press.