Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Steven Levitsky
    -FACULTY PAGE: Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government (Harvard.edu)
    -GOOGLE SCHOLAR: Steven Levitsky
    -WIKIPEDIA: Daniel Ziblatt
    -CV: Daniel Ziblatt
    -WIKIPEDIA: How Democracies Die
    -BOOK SITE: How Democracies Die (Penguin Random House)
    -ETEXT: How Democracies Die (PDF)
    -EXCERPT: from How Democracies Die
    -SUMMARY: How Democracies Die (Allen Cheng)
    -SUMMARY: How Democracies Die (ShortForm)
    -TEACHERS GUIDE: How Democracies Die (Penguin Random House)
    -ESSAY: This is how democracies die: Defending our constitution requires more than outrage (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, 1/21/18, The Guardian)

A comparative approach reveals how elected autocrats in different parts of the world employ remarkably similar strategies to subvert democratic institutions. As these patterns become visible, the steps toward breakdown grow less ambiguous –and easier to combat. Knowing how citizens in other democracies have successfully resisted elected autocrats, or why they tragically failed to do so, is essential to those seeking to defend American democracy today.

We know that extremist demagogues emerge from time to time in all societies, even in healthy democracies. The United States has had its share of them, including Henry Ford, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace.

An essential test for democracies is not whether such figures emerge but whether political leaders, and especially political parties, work to prevent them from gaining power in the first place – by keeping them off mainstream party tickets, refusing to endorse or align with them and, when necessary, making common cause with rivals in support of democratic candidates.

Isolating popular extremists requires political courage. But when fear, opportunism or miscalculation leads established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperiled.

Once a would-be authoritarian makes it to power, democracies face a second critical test: will the autocratic leader subvert democratic institutions or be constrained by them?

Institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats. Constitutions must be defended – by political parties and organized citizens but also by democratic norms. Without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances do not serve as the bulwarks of democracy we imagine them to be. Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not.

This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy – packing and “weaponizing” the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence) and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy – gradually, subtly, and even legally – to kill it.

    -VIDEO LECTURE: How Democracies Die: US Democracy Three Years After Trump's Election (Steven Levitsky gave the first public lecture of his Andrew D. White professorship on Nov. 7, 2019, CornellCast)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: How Democracies Die (Steven Levitsky, Mar 26, 2019, Kellogg Institute)
    -ESSAY: How a Democracy Dies: Donald Trump’s contempt for American political institutions is only the latest chapter in a history of opportunistic attacks against them. This has been happening for decades. (Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, December 7, 2017, New Republic)
    -ESSAY: Why Republicans Play Dirty: They fear that if they stick to the rules, they will lose everything. Their behavior is a threat to democratic stability. (Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Sept. 20, 2019, NY Times)
    -ESSAY: The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism (Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, Journal of Democracy)
    -ESSAY: We are lifelong Zionists. Here’s why we’ve chosen to boycott Israel (Steven Levitsky and Glen Weyl, October 23, 2015, Washington Post)
    -INTERVIEW: The State of American Democracy with Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt : After a year of Trump, how worried should we be? (ISAAC CHOTINER, JAN 16, 2018, Slate)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: 'How Democracies Die' Authors Say Trump Is A Symptom Of 'Deeper Problems' (DAVE DAVIES, January 22, 2018, NPR: Fresh Air)
    -INTERVIEW: How Democracies Die (David Goodman, Medium)
    -VIDEO INTERVIEW: Steven Levitsky on How Democracies Die (C-SPAN, 03/20/2019, Washington Journal)
    -VIDEO DISCUSSION: Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt, "How Democracies Die" (Politics and Prose, Feb 6, 2018)
    -VIDEO DISCUSSION: How Democracies Die: An Interview with Steven Levitsky (Steven Levitsky, 6/13/19, The Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt: Revisiting “How Democracies Die” (Chris Riback's Conversations, 2/17/20)
    -INTERVIEW: How Democracies Die with Steven Levitsky (Rebecca Hill, August 28, 2019, Intellectual Freedom Blog)
    -PODCAST: How Democracies Die (The Ezra Klein Show)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: An interview with Steven Levitsky, Harvard professor and co-author of “How Democracies Die” (Global Americans, August 15, 2019)
    -VIDEO DISCUSSION: Competitive Authoritarianism: A Conversation with Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way (Brent Kallmer, February 11, 2020, Journal of Democracy)
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    -PROFILE: The ‘lifelong Zionists’ who called for an Israel boycott: In a Washington Post op-ed, professors Steven Levitsky and Glen Weyl urged economic sanctions on Jewish state (GABE FRIEDMAN, 27 October 2015, Times of Israel)
    -ESSAY: A Constitutional Check-Up: Is U.S. Democracy Dying? (Clay Oxford, Mar 16, 2020, Harvard Political Review)
    -ESSAY: 30 Years of World Politics: What Has Changed? (Francis Fukuyama, January 2020, Journal of Democracy)
    -ARCHIVES: steven Levitsky democracies (YouTube)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt (Alan Z. Rozenshtein, LawFare)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Sanford Levinson, Democracy)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Christian Caryl, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Jason Willick, WSJ)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (David Runciman, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Adam Tooze, NY Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (David Frum, The Atlantic)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW SYMPOSIUM: of How Democracies Die (Perspectives on Politics)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (David Frum, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Emily Holland and Hadas Aron, LSE)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Matthew Kolasa, Fair Observer)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Rosolino A. Candela, Independent Institute)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (European Council)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Martin Ayankaa Ihembe, Politikon)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Cristian Altavilla, ReVista)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Jennifer M. Welsh, International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Ezra Klein, Vox)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Felix Kloman, LymeLine)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Nick Cohen, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Edward Luce, Financial Times)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Ray Locker, USA TODAY)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Paul Krugman, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Matthew Yglesias, Vox)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Jonathan Chait, New York)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Irshad Rashid and Manzoor Ahmad Padder, Mainstream)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Anne Armstrong, International Affairs Review)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Bruce Ledewitz, SSRN)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Coyle Neal, Christian Humanist)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Eliane Glaser, Times Higher Ed Supplement)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Roger Boyes, Times uk)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (American Educator)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Stevellie Wheeler, Hack Writers)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Sasha Soriano, CERSP)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Darrell Arnold Ph.D., Reason and Meaning)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Colin Kidd, London Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (the Stacks)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Jedediah Britton-Purdy, Dissent)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (Roger I. Abrams, NY Journal of Books)
    -REVIEW: of How Democracies Die (The Economist)