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How Democracies Die

What History Reveals About Our Future

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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, read by Fred Sanders.

Two Harvard professors explain the dangerous world we face today

Democracies can die with a coup d'état - or they can die slowly. This happens most deceptively when in piecemeal fashion, with the election of an authoritarian leader, the abuse of governmental power and the complete repression of opposition. All three steps are being taken around the world - not least with the election of Donald Trump - and we must all understand how we can stop them.

In How Democracies Die, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt draw insightful lessons from across history - from the rule of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile to the quiet undermining of Turkey's constitutional system by President Recip Erdogan - to shine a light on regime breakdown across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Notably they point to the dangers of an authoritarian leader faced with a major crisis.

Based on years of research, they present a deep understanding of how and why democracies die; an alarming analysis of how democracy is being subverted today in the US and beyond; and a guide for maintaining and repairing a threatened democracy, for governments, political parties and individuals.

History doesn't repeat itself. But we can protect our democracy by learning its lessons, before it's too late.

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Critic reviews

Anyone who is concerned about the future of democracy should read this brisk, accessible book. Anyone who is not concerned should definitely read it. (Daron Acemoglu, co-author of Why Nations Fail)
How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt is a useful primer on the importance of norms, institutional restraints and civic participation in maintaining a democracy - and how quickly those things can erode when we're not paying attention
With great energy and integrity [Levitsky and Ziblatt] apply their expertise to the current problems of the United States. (Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny)
We owe the authors a debt of thanks for bringing their deep understanding to bear on the central political issue of the day. (Francis Fukuyama, author of Political Order and Political Decay)
What's the worst thing to happen to US democracy recently? Most answers to that question start and end with Donald Trump. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, though as horrified by Trump as anyone, try to take a wider view. This book looks to history to provide a guide for defending democratic norms when they are under threat, and finds that it is possible to fight back. Provocative and readable. (David Runciman)

There are two must-read books about the Trump presidency at the moment. This is the one you probably haven't heard of. It is also the one that is most useful to British readers. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are anti-Donald Trump politics professors at Harvard. And the big advantage of political scientists over even the shrewdest and luckiest of eavesdropping journalists is that they have the training to give us a bigger picture.
They set out some rules about the slow, internal collapse of democracies, which are entirely relevant to Britain...
The greatest of the many merits of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's contribution to what will doubtless be the ballooning discipline of democracy death studies is their rejection of western exceptionalism. They tell inspiring stories I had not heard before...excellent, scholarly and readable, alarming and level-headed.
The political-science text in vogue this winter is How Democracies Die.
[An] important new book.
Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies have collapsed elsewhere-not just through violent coups, but more commonly (and insidiously) through a gradual slide into authoritarianism.... How Democracies Die is a lucid and essential guide to what can happen here.
All stars
Most relevant
Liked it. full of interesting information, well narrated. A must for anybody interested in political analysis.

Full of relevant information.

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I am British and had little knowlege of the American political system. This book was enlightning, riveting and prohetic. Written in 2018 there are three possible outcomes given for the 2020 election...

Most enlightening and prophetic .

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Perhaps too many examples given. More readers come from fewer pages and this book needs to be read.

Outstanding

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Listening to this after 1/6 — their analysis was apt and timely. But (hopefully) American democratic norms are also proving more resilient than their worst scenarios. A very illuminating read.

Fascinating, timely

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American democracy has been in crisis, no doubt. But the authors identified why and discussed it as a process. It is less about how a system itself is uniquely good or bad but how people have worked with it, perfectionised it, or destroyed it. I learned a great deal from this outstanding book. However, cutting through all the detailed analyses, I find the hidden thread though the entire narration is misguidedly placed on democracy, but the fact that neither of these two main political parties really paid attention to the diversified American population- demo- but have focused on doing -cracy- against each other. Simply put, the failing democracy wasn’t its structure being destabilised but the politics do not reflect the changing demographics and their equal needs. Overall, it’s an excellent book but I would like to read more on the core issue: race, racism, ethnic assimilation and politicisation of them as a challenge to bipartisan democracy.

Excellent angle into democracy but more suitable title is: the racial challenge to American bipartisan democracy

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