Teaching

MA course: Threats to modern democracy (STV 4326)

Overview: Until recently, a central tenet of political science held that once a country reaches a certain level of political and economic development, democracy will remain strong indefinitely. Yet, contemporary developments in democracies across the globe have challenged this "consolidation thesis". During the recent decade, many countries seem to have experienced sudden or gradual deteriorations in democracy - so-called democratic erosions, and this includes fairly well established democracies such as Hungary, Poland, Brazil and the United States.

The aim of this course is to understand how and to what extent modern democracies are under threat, and to explore different drivers of democratic erosion. To do so, the course will draw on insights from across various strands of political science - including political behavior, comparative politics, political economy and political psychology. Our focus will be on micro-level processes that drive democratic erosion - including the behavior and choices of key actors such as leaders, political parties and the opposition, and the behavior and preferences of ordinary citizens. Yet, we will also consider how structural forces, such as economic inequality, education and demographic change, feed into these processes.

One recurring theme throughout the course is the question of how we best can draw inferences about the symptoms and causes of democratic erosion. We will critically evaluate and compare evidence from different state-of-the art methodological approaches, such as survey- and lab-experiments, expert-coded data, cross-country time-series analysis, and case studies, discussing when each of these approaches are most suitable, and how they can complement each other.