How Democracies Die is a thorough look at the dangers that modern democracies face.The writers analyze the potential threat of democratic degradation in the United States by drawing upon historical instances from European and Latin American political systems.Many people think that military coups are the main reason why democratic governments fall apart, but this book says that the main reason why democratic governments have been falling apart lately is because the people in power are becoming more authoritarian, not because of military interventions.The book looks at how modern democracies are slowly dying over the course of its nine chapters and suggests ways to keep democracy from getting worse.The book makes it clear in chapters one through five that democratic collapse does not happen through coups, but rather through the failure of gatekeeping institutions to keep authoritarian-leaning characters out, as seen in Trump's 2016 election.The book says that this failure is followed by partisan abdication, which is when elites put party loyalty above democratic norms.It lets these leaders act like dictators by using referees, pushing opponents to the sidelines, and changing the rules while still making it look like democracy.This dynamic both promotes and speeds up the breakdown of two important implicit norms: mutual toleration -the expectation that political opponents will accept each other as legitimate rivals -and institutional forbearance -the norm of restraint in the exercise of legal powers even in situations where doing so would be politically beneficial.These norms used to protect democracy, but they have become weaker because of growing polarization.The outcome is a self-perpetuating spiral of democratic deterioration that formal institutions alone cannot repair.Chapters six through eight of the book show how bipartisan cooperation grew once racial issues were taken off the national agenda, from the time after the Civil War to the time of the civil rights movement.It looks at how Republican obstructionism offended democratic protections, from Newt Gingrich's aggressive tactics in the 1990s to the growing divide and rule-breaking by both parties under the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.It describes Donald Trump's first year in office and how he attacked democratic values and institutions, such as the courts, the media, law enforcement and his political opponents.The last chapter says that Democrats should avoid using aggressive retaliation, work with conservatives and business leaders to build broad coalitions, change the Republican Party to push out extremists, and make policies that will reduce economic inequality and encourage more people to participate in democracy.At first, the book does a good job of using comparative analysis to explain how American politics works.It shows that the US is not free from the trends of democratic collapse seen in Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela and other places.The book makes a significant theoretical addition by explaining how a democratically elected leader becomes an autocrat by taking over state institutions, as explained in
Meherun Nesa (Thu,) studied this question.