"How Do Democracies Fall Apart (And Could it Happen Here)?" Session 2

"How Do Democracies Fall Apart (And Could it Happen Here)?"

A conference of the Yale Program on Democracy () and Bright Line Watch ().

October 6, 2017 at Yale University

Session Two:  Signs and Instances of Democratic Erosion

Moderator: Susan Stokes, Yale University

Nancy Bermeo, Nuffield College, Oxford

Anna Grzymala-Busse, Stanford University

Susan Hyde, University of California, Berkeley

Timothy Snyder, Yale University

Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard University

American democracy seems more endangered than at any time in living memory. Partisan polarization, both in Congress and the electorate, is at a historical high. During the 2016 presidential campaign, implicit rules of political discourse and conduct were violated, one after another. Ethnic, national, and religious groups were attacked as criminal enemies and calls were made to remove the citizenship of some native-born groups. Opposing candidates were threatened with criminal prosecution. Campaigns conjured imaginary threats to the electoral process while real threats were ignored or minimized.

After the election, the sense of danger to our institutions and norms has only increased. The Yale Program on Democracy and Bright Line Watch have convened a conference that draws on the knowledge and perspectives of world-renowned scholars and journalists, with the goal of answering two basic questions:

·  What are the critical factors that have led to the degradation or destruction of democracy in other times and places?

·  Could these factors conspire to have the same effect in the United States today?