John Carreyrou
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller Bad Blood
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
Authors of the New York Times bestselling How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority
Photo credit: Stephanie Mitchell
Harvard University professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are renowned for their research on authoritarian regimes and the rise of despots. In their lectures and their acclaimed books, How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority, they educate audiences on warning signs that threated a free democracy and the crucial elements needed to protect it.
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About Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
The rise of authoritarian governments conjures images of violent coup d’états, revolutions, and angry mobs. However, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue political changes are usually slow-building and subtle, and that democracies die not at the hands of generals but of elected leaders. In their New York Times-bestselling book How Democracies Die, they take a deep dive into the historical trends and warning signs of rising fascism from Latin American to Europe. Recommended by Barak Obama as “a useful primer on the importance of norms, institutional restraints, and civic participation in maintaining a democracy,” they explain how demagogues can take over political parties and rise to power. Now, they believe that American democracy may be in danger.
In their talks, Levitsky and Ziblatt warn against the steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die—and how to save ours.
Their highly anticipated follow-up title, Tyranny of the Minority offers a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. Drawing from a wealth of examples, they explain why and how political parties turn against democracy and show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within.
Daniel Ziblatt is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University where he is also a resident faculty associate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies and Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he serves on the executive committee for the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Ziblatt and Levitsky are co-chairs of the new Challenges to Democracy Research Cluster at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center.
Both Levitsky and Ziblatt are available to speak as a duo or individually.
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Speaking Topics
How Democracies Die
In this thought-provoking lecture, Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky delve into the history of where democracy has failed in Latin America and Europe, and explain their four-part test for identifying authoritarian leaders. Drawing on decades of research, they explain the two crucial traditions, mutual tolerance and forbearance, that have allowed American democracy to survive for so long—and the greatest threats to its future. Ziblatt and Levitsky leave audiences with concrete actions they can take to bolster democracy everywhere, such as building alliances that extend beyond traditional party lines, defending institutions, and mobilizing the vote.
An Urgent Call to Save Our Democracy
In this lecture, Levitsky and Ziblatt offer a framework for understanding the current crisis in America's democratic system and issue an urgent call to reform and save our nation's democracy. Drawing on historical examples from the United States and other countries, they show audiences why and how political parties turn against democracy, why this has happened in the U.S., and how our country’s antiquated institutions have made the problem worse. They call for the awakening of a longstanding American tradition of working to make our political system more democratic so that we can realize our nation’s promise of a democratic republic for all.
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Praise for Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
Praise for Tyranny of the Minority
Extending the brilliant analysis of their runaway bestseller, How Democracies Die, the authors vividly analyze the facets of America’s democracy, some of them hardwired into our constitutional design and others baked into our history, that make our political system uniquely vulnerable to unrepresentative rule by the few over the many. To their credit, they offer no easy solutions, but Levitsky and Ziblatt challenge us to use our voices and our votes to push back against these inherently antidemocratic features of our endangered republic.
— Laurence H. Tribe, University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus, HarvardOld democracies tend to last, and so do rich democracies, Levitsky and Ziblatt point out in this searing, unsettling, and essential new book, but American democracy, which is both old and rich, is dying. In
— Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United StatesLevitsky and Ziblatt explain why we Americans are still in the fight of our lives. This eye-opening study, filled with analysis of analogous historical moments from around the world, is an essential primer in the struggle for our democracy this century.
— Congressman Jamie Raskin, author of Unthinkable[A] chilling study of how recent political turmoil demonstrates that, ‘far from checking authoritarian power, our institutions have begun to augment it.’ . . . The authors bolster their wide-ranging narrative with geopolitical and historical examples and informed analyses of the intricate mechanisms of governance. . . . A well-organized and convincing argument.
— Kirkus ReviewsPraise for How Democracies Die
Two years ago, a book like this could not have been written: two leading political scientists who are expert in the breakdown of democracy in other parts of the world using that knowledge to inform Americans of the dangers their democracy faces today. 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 DecayThe authors argue, with good evidence, that democracies aren’t destroyed because of the impulses of a single man; they are, instead, degraded in the course of a partisan tit-for-tat dynamic that degrades norms over time until one side sees an opening to deliver the death blow. Donald Trump is not a dictator. But it’s impossible to read How Democracies Die without worrying that our collective decay of democratic norms may open the door to one down the line—perhaps even one of an entirely different ideological persuasion.
— Wall Street JournalThe 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…. [Levitsky and Ziblatt] bring to bear useful global and historical context… [showing] the mistakes democratic politicians make as they let dangerous demagogues into the heart of power.
— The Sunday TimesA powerful wake-up call.
— Foreign AffairsThe great strength of Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die is that it rejects the exceptionalist account of US democracy. Their lens is comparative. The authors say America is not immune to the trends that have led to democracy’s collapse in other parts of the world.
— Financial TimesHow Democracies Die studies the modern history of apparently healthy democracies that have slid into autocracy. It is hard to read this fine book without coming away terribly concerned about the possibility Trump might inflict a mortal wound on the health of the republic…. It is simplistic to expect boots marching in the streets, but there will be a battle for democracy.
— Jonathan Chait, New York MagazineThe political-science text in vogue this winter is How Democracies Die.
— The New Yorker[An] important new book.
— Nicholas Kristof, The New York TimesScholarly and readable, alarming and level-headed… 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. There are no vaccines in American (or, I would add, British) culture that protects us: just ways of doing business that now feel decrepit.
— The GuardianCarefully researched and persuasive… the authors show the fragility of even the best democracies and also caution politicians… who think they can somehow co-opt autocrats without getting burned…. How Democracies Die provides a guide for Americans of all political persuasions for what to avoid.
— USA TodayA smart and deeply informed book about the ways in which democracy is being undermined in dozens of countries around the world, and in ways that are perfectly legal.
— Fareed Zakaria, CNNIf you only read one book for the rest of the year, read How Democracies Die… This is not a book for just Democrats or Republicans. It is a book for all Americans. It is nonpartisan. It is fact based. It is deeply rooted in history… the best commentary on our politics, no contest.
— Michael Morrell, former Acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (via Twitter)Fair warning: reading Levitsky and Ziblatt will leave you very, very unsettled. They make a powerful case that we really and truly are in uncharted territory, living in a moment when the line between difficult times and dark times has blurred.
— Washington MonthlyWhere Levitsky and Ziblatt make their mark is in weaving together political science and historical analysis of both domestic and international democratic crises; in doing so, they expand the conversation beyond Trump and before him, to other countries and to the deep structure of American democracy and politics.
— Ezra Klein, VoxWe’re already awash in public indignation—what we desperately need is a sober, dispassionate look at the current state of affairs. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two of the most respected scholars in the field of democracy studies, offer just that.
— The Washington PostLevitsky 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.
— The New York TimesThe defining political book, so far, of 2018.
— The Philadelphia Inquirer -
Books by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
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Tyranny of the Minority
“An exceptionally persuasive book . . . [Daniel] Ziblatt and [Steven] Levitsky are two of America’s very best comparative political scientists, with expertise that makes them uniquely well-equipped for the subject they’re examining. . . . Tyranny of the Minority is one of the best guides out there to the crisis of American democracy.” —Vox
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