“How Democracies die” by Levitsky &
Ziblatt (2018) + exam Q’s
Introduction
Havard professors of comparative politics Steven Levitsky and Daniell Ziblatt start with a discussion of US democracy.
They believe there is a cause of concern that US democracy is under threat eventhough the US has a strong and rich
middle class, a solid constitution, with its values of freedom and equality instilled in its people. They base this concern
on their historical analysis of democracies that died before.
Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that when most people think of democracies dying, they think of it as “at the
hands of men with guns”. They, however note that the death of democracies are recently happening
much more as a longer and sometimes more stealthy “process of democratic decline”. Here Levitsky and
Ziblatt take Venezuela under Hugo Chavez in the late 90’s/early 2000’s as example. Hugo Chavez started
as an anti-elite outsider candidate promising democracy and fighting corruption among others. A
promise he didn’t completely falter on at the first. However as the years went on he showed more and
more authoritarian traits like stalling an election where he was forecasted to lose his presidency,
expanding term limits etc. until he was regarded a full blown autocrat locking up oppositional leaders, judges and
media figures on bogus claims, controlling the media and using the government for his gain. Venezuela was regarded
as an autocracy in the later years of his rule. Meanwhile the majority of the people themselves saw Venezuela as a
democratic country at the end of his presidency 1. This stealthy process of democratic decline in the hands of elected
leaders is according to Levitsky and Ziblatt now the most common way of democracies dying, citing other countries
such as Turkey, Poland and Hungary.
Levitsky and Ziblatt developed some tools to prevent a process of democratic backsliding: A “Litmus test” to prevent
would-be authoritarians from coming to powers and a shared conscience between parties on how to tackle would be
authoritarians. Even rival parties have to team up to isolate would be authoritarians. This still requires political
courage. Something the republican party failed at with electing Donald Trump, someone who appeared to not respect
democratic norms. However, to backtrack. Trump is not the cause of democratic backsliding, heightening political
polarization -which have been happening since the 1980’s- is, according to Levitsky and Ziblatt.
1.Fateful alliances
Summarized excerpt: In the 1920’s, right after the end of the German empire and start of the Weimar Republic, there
was a prodemocratic coalition of Catholics, Liberals, and Social Democrats in Germany. However in the 1930’s the
center fell prey to infighting and the Communists and Nazis grew in popularity. But it got worse as the great
depression of the 1930s also hit. The government collapsed. WWI hero Paul von Hindenburg took advantage of a
constitutional article that gave him the power to appoint chancellors without them being elected to make a
government. After a few short lived governments that couldn’t reach majorities in the house, a group of conservatives
with Hindenburg decided to go for a popular outsider at the time: Adolf Hitler. They thought they could easily control
him “We’ve engaged him for ourselves….Within two months, we will have pushed [him] so far into a corner that he’ll
squeal.” A more profound miscalculation is hard to imagine. Almost the identical situation happened with Mussolini
where the king -under pressure- decided to invite him as prime-minister to form a cabinet.
These two cases show, just as with Hugo Chavez 2, that established politicians often want to co-opt an extremist
outsider thinking that they can control him, fullfilling establishment goals, while presenting as a new government that
can solve the current crisis. However, the opposite is true, since it gives them the legitimacy they wanted in the first
place. Levitsky and Ziblatt also note that countries that avoided democratic backsliding is not because of its citizens
being more pro-democratic but because of political party co-operation in identifying and isolating the extremist
outsider. Political parties are democracy’s gatekeepers.
Levitsky and Ziblatt argue for a political process of identifying, isolating and defeating these extremist outsiders:
1
as observed in a country wide survey. The majority of people picked a score of 8 or higher out of 10 rating Venezuela as an autocratic
to democratic country.
2
the outgoing president Caldera dropped all Chavez’s treason charges (Chavez orchestrated many coups before his time as elected
official) to gain popularity. Instead what he could have done is pardoning him after trial. This way Caldera legitimised him.
, o Process of identifying would be authoritarians: some follow a clear anti-democratic pattern; Mussolini, Chavez
and Hitler all partook in attempted coups. However a lot of potential authoritarians don’t. That is why Levitsky
and Ziblatt propose the four-point warning system or Litmus Test3 for autocrats which helps identify would be
authoritarians or anti-democratic politicians. They drew inspiration from old political scientist Juan Linz who built
the Litmus test:
A politician who put into question any democratic principle (e.g. integrity of elections).
A politician who has denied the legitimacy of any political opponent.
A politician who has encouraged violence.
A politician who has indicated to thread on civil liberties of other actors in society (e.g. the media or
political opponents).
o Isolating (and defeating) authoritarian politicians is harder to do since anyone should have the right to run for
office. However there are things that parties can do such as:
Expelling any would-be authoritatarian extremists in the party even if that means that you miss out on free
votes.
Forming an alliance (“united democratic fronts”) with rival parties to keep out authoritarian parties.
A success story here was the Belgian Catholics in the 1930’s. In light of a big election loss in 1936 and the
antidemocratic movements in Europa with nearby Italy and Germany the Belgian Catholics under prime
minister Paul van Zeeland could have made a right-wing alliance with the “Rexists”, a Catholic far right party.
Instead they chose to denounce the rexists and form an alliance with their long time rival the socialists.
Internally, the Catholic party also expelled candidates with pro-Rexists sympathies or extremists. The king
helped forge the alliance aswell by talking with leaders of both parties.
Another success story is that of Austrian People’s party ÖVP that endorsed their long time rival the Green party
to thwart the candidate of extreme right wing freedom party FPÖ in 2016. It was a courageous decision that
ideologically split many families for ÖVP party members.
In Chapters 2 and 3 Levitsky and Ziblatt examine how American democracy has kept extremist candidates at bay
because American democracy did experience its share of would-be autocrats according to Levitsky and Ziblatt. But
such candidates were prevented from assuming power by the gatekeeping function of political parties. Until the
1960’s, when changes were made to the voting system.
3
The origin of the name Litmus comes from its use in chemistry, an organic substance (from algae) that turns red in acid solution e.g.
vinegar and blue in alkaline solutions e.g. water with baking soda. It is used as an acid-base indicator to estimate the acidity of a
solution. Later on it slowly was used figuratively to any single factor that somehow established a person’s true character. (Not to be
known).
,2.Gatekeeping in America
In Chapters 2 and 3 Levitsky and Ziblatt examine how American democracy has kept extremist candidates at bay (until
the 1960’s) because American democracy did experience its share of would-be autocrats according to Levitsky and
Ziblatt. They name politicians such as:
o Politician and governor Huey Long in the 1920’s who smeared and supressed his opponents.
o Father Charles Coughlin in the 1930’s who garnered millions of listeners to his radio broadcasts accusing Franklin
D. Roosevelt to be influenced by Jews and communists, he also praised Hitler and Mussolini.
o Joseph McCarthy, which will be extensively covered in later chapter.
o George Wallace, governor of Alabama in the 1960’s who was a staunch segregationist and opposed the civil
rights movement. He won a large share of the votes in the primaries by appealing to white voters who felt
threatened by social change and racial equality. He also denounced the government and the media. He also used
violent language to intimidate his opponents.
But such candidates were prevented from assuming power by the gatekeeping function of political parties.
Levitsky and Ziblatt go on to talk about the Republican convention of 1920 where Repiublican leadership had to
choose nominees for president. Eventhough it was behind closed doors and not very democrat, they always chose
safe candidates. This was the gatekeeping function back then and goes back the founding of the US republic. Namely
the founders grappled with the dilemma (which is still a dilemma today) of letting the people choose, elect someone
for president but they did not completely trust the people’s ability to judge a candidate’s fitness to serve as president
since public support is easily garnered with fear and ignorance.
An answer to this dilemma for them was the establishment of the electoral college as the first gatekeeper. The
electorates are smart degree holding people with requisite qualification that could in the end override the people’s
wishes. However, the system was flawed as it doesn’t prevent someone from assuming nomination, but more
importantly; it was a time before parties, a system the founding fathers didn’t predict. Once parties came to the
forefront in the early 1800s, the electorates became party loyalists thus surrendering its gatekeeping function. Ever
since then, parties became the gatekeepers of American democracy because they select presidential candidates by
endorsing and funding them.
As was clear in earlier example with Republican convention choosing presidential nominees, they weren’t particularly
democratic with insiders or “organisation men” determining who would get nominated behind closed doors.
Eventhough it was a strong gatekeeping mechanism to keep antidemocratic politicians from assuming power (e.g. Henry
Ford, one of the richest and popular men in the world at that time, using his weekly newspaper claiming that jews were conspiring and
infiltrating America through the banking system, was cast out by Democratic “organisation men” despite his widespread public support. Another
example, George Wallace, already mentioned; he had Trump like support but Democratic insiders did not want him, forcing him to change
parties and lose a large share of the vote) it also meant people that are poor or politically unconnected or part of minorities
usually had no chances to get nominated. This system persevered even after the first open primary elections in some
states were introduced in the early 20 th century.
However the convention system ended after the insiders of the Democratic convention appointed an unpopular
candidate Hubert Humphrey after the assassination of Robert F Kennedy in ‘63 and unpopular Lyndon B Jonhon’s
handling of the Vietnam war. Before his assassination, Kennedy took a somewhat antiwar position and Hubert
Humbhrey was a Lyndon B johnson associate thus his appointment made the public lose faith in the old system. This
lead to a march on the convention with protests and violence on the convention floor.
The defeat of Humprhey in the presidential election lead to an overhaul of the convention system in 1972 where both
parties adopted a system of binding presidential primaries where candidates were directly chosen by voters.
However Democratic party leadership did not want to give up the gate-keeping system that fast. In the 80’s a system
of superdelegates4 was in place; between 15 and 20% of the delegates had to be governors, mayors, senators and
representatives that can freely choose their preferred democratic nominee for president in primaries as a
counterbalance to the public as a mechanism to fend off anti-democratic candidates. The GOP opted out of a system
of superdelegates.
Prominent political scientists at the time did critique the new binding primary system for their absent gatekeeping
function. However, minority candidates at the time set the stage so the fears dissipated slowly. However,
circumventing the party establishment was still not completely done for. Money still plays a big role in American
4
Electorates choose the president and vice president, delegates choose - in line with the people’s wishes- the democratic nominee for
president.
, politics. Being favoured by party establishment meant more funding and media coverage with popular politicians.
Arthur Hadley called this establishment support the “invisible primary”. Hadley was right, until the coming of Donald
Trump.
Ch.3 The great Republican Abdication
In Chapter three Levitsky and Ziblatt explain the Trump situation. After the convention system changed into a binding
primary system, more outsider ran for office, but in particular those with money and fame, circumventing Hadley’s
invisible primary. The invisible primary died with Trump. However other factors also contributed to a diminishing of
the powers of establishment gatekeepers and to the rise of Trump:
o the supreme’s Court 2010 Citizens United ruling made it easier for outside candidates -like for example Bernie
Sanders resp. Herman Cain - to get funded by small donations on the internet resp. by finding billionaire
financiers.
o The rise of alternative media or the “news entertainment complex” e.g. Fox News, which gave more recognition
to extremist characters because they increase viewership- and social media which makes name recognition
something much easier to accomplish. It is in particular the news entertainment complex that circumvented
Hadley’s invisible primary; Trump didn’t have endorsements from influential republican politicians and funding
from party leadership, but what he did have was support from right-wing media figures like Sean Hannity and
Ann Coulter. Trump’s controversies also elevated him to free coverage from traditional unsympathetic media
outlets. One can say that by 2016 the gatekeepers of the invisible primary left the building entirely (money in
politics does not however).
Despite that Trump’s rhetoric was described by many of his supporters as “mere words” he did meet all four criteria
of the Litmus test for autocrats:
o The first – a politician who puts democratic principles in question- Trump tested positive for by suggesting that
millions of illegal immigrants and dead people would be mobilised to vote for Clinton and later in his campaign
made the unprecedented suggestion that he might not accept the results of the 2016 election.
o The second – questioning the legitimacy and status (criminal, unpatriotic, a threat) of political opponents- which
he did by suggesting that Obama was not an American national, that he was born in Kenya. Even more, that he
was a muslim, which many of his supporters see as “unamerican”, and that Hillary Clinton was a criminal. The
saying “crooked Hillary Clinton” is all too well known.
o The third -inciting violence- are a few examples: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of
them, would ya? Seriously. Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you I will pay the legal fees. I promise.” (February 1, 2016,
Iowa). “We had some people, some rough guys like we have right in here. And they started punching back. It was a beautiful thing. I
mean, they started punching back. In the good old days, this doesn’t happen, because they used to treat them very, very rough. And when
they protested once, you know, they would not do it so easily again. But today, they walk in and they put their hand up and put the wrong
finger in the air at everybody, and they get away with murder, because we’ve become weak.” (March 9, 2016, North Carolina)
o Fourth: curbing civil liberties of actors in society, such as the media. In 2016 he described the media as “among
the most dishonest groups of people I’ve ever met”. He also barred certain media groups from the White House.
Excluding Richard Nixon, no presidential candidate even met one of the four criteria. However, the republican party
did bare to nothing to stop Trump give the clear four-point warnings, much less working with rivals to stop the anti-
democratic demagogue. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that when Trump entered the general election in 2016,
Republicans should have backed Hillary Clinton (some did but not the leading national republican politicians such as
Micth McConnell, Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan which would have made the difference), much like the ÖVP president
backed the Green party candidate van der Bellen, right wing Froncois Fillon (and half of his party Les Républicans)
endorsed left-center Emmanuel Macron against far right Le pen. They have to accept short-term political sacrifice for
the good of the country. Losing a democracy is far worse than losing an election.
Instead, most Republicans “ended up holding the party line” meaning normalizing Trump’s candidacy and making it
into a standard two-party race. Any small event can weigh heavily, for example a surfaced video that paints a
candidate in a bad light. With it being forecasted as a close race, without any leading Republican indicating there was
anything dangerous about their candidate, Trump won.
In chapter 4 Levitsky and Ziblatt discuss the role of institutions such as courts and in chapter 5 discuss norms - mutual
toleration and institutional forbearance- in preserving democracy.
, Ch. 4 Subverting Democracy
Levitsky and Ziblatt use Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in 1990s Peru as an example of how
democratic breakdown happens as a gradual process whereby conflict escalates between an outsider,
Fujimori, and the political establishment, in this case congress (where the opposition had a majority), the
supreme court whose members were mostly picked by said opposition, and the media. Essentially an
escalating tit-for-tat between a demagogic 5 leader and a threatened political establishment.
Fujimori was a university administrator with little political experience who ran for office and surprisingly
got a large share of the vote. He ran on a platform of economic reform and anti-terrorism – the country
was plagued by an violent insurgency group called the Shining Path-. The opposing candidate was a well read nobel
prize winning politician but the public was drawn by Fujimori’s populist means of appealing to emotions and
prejudices, which got him elected eventually. Fujimori attacked congress as corrupt elites because they did not want
to pass his laws. The courts were also not in his favour which led to him calling them scoundrels and corrupt judges.
Fujimori began to bypass congress by using executive decrees where he among others freed thousands of prisoners
and made statements such as “Are we really a democracy?” i.e. he started to show real authoritarianism. The court
accused him of “antidemocratic authoritarianism” and went on with articles of impeachment, all the while the media
began to depict him as a Japanese emperor. However this only made Fujimori double down, in a speech he said “I am
not going to stop until I have broken all of the taboos that are left, one by one they are going to fall” . He sent a massive
package of 126 decrees which include far reaching antiterrorism measures that threatened civil liberties. Congress
objected and instead passed legislation to curb Fujimori’s power. This conflict eventually led to Fujimori dissolving
congress and the constitution with the help of the military.
Levitsky and Ziblatt put emphasis in this anecdote on the role of “words” in the process of democratic breakdown.
Authoritarians like Fujimori, much like Chavez called his opponents corrupt oligarchs or drug traffickers, their critics as
“enemies” or “traitors” and the media and journalists as spreading lies. In particular, it forments mistrust, which
makes it easier to justify for the authoritarians to take action against them.
Another point is that authoritarians like Fujimori are often unused to the slow working of democratic systems and
find it frustrating to work with. This is why they will try to take over the courts, society’s “referees” by appointing or
packing them with loyalists (court packing), blackmailing uncooperative judges and bribing supreme court justices, as
happened under Fujimori. This was a very quiet and secret process, a large amount of judges and public prosecutors
were on Fujimori’s payroll. The remaining justices that wouldn’t be bribed could later on be impeached and the courts
packed. As happened with Chavez, he packed the supreme court from twenty to thirty-two, essentially creating a new
court. Over the next years, not a single Supreme court ruling went against the government.
Once the courts are under loyalist control, the authoritarian is both shielded and can use the courts to target rival
politicians, businesses and media outlets. Most elected autocrats begin with offering public figures and the media
favourable positions or quietly bribing them off. This is what Fujimori did, at the impeachment trial, the necessary
votes were there but three opposition members were bought off. He also bought off almost every major news
channel.
The persecution of opposition politicians has also changed, whereas old school dictators would often jail, exile or even
kill their rivals, temporary autocrats hide behind a veneer of legality. Like Erdogan, who fined the opposing biggest
news independent news company with an amount that almost exceeded their net worth for tax evasion. In Putin’s
case, Putin was someone who targeted big business aswell because they had the opportunity to finance opposition. In
2000, Putin summoned twenty-one of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen where he told them that they’re free to make
money under his watch aslong as they stayed out of politics. Even the richest could not escape. Mikhail Khodorkovsky
was head of Yukos oil. As a liberal he disliked Putin and had financed many opposition politicians. He was deposed for
tax evasion. Another, Boris Berezovsky the largest shareholder of a large television station had a bogus fraud case
levied against him. He fled the country and his junior partner was appointed.
Lastly, elected autocrats try to change the rules of the game by reforming the electoral system. In Malaysia and
Hungary they did this by something called Gerrymandering: changing the way electoral districts are structured so that
in a FPTP system districts are favoured to go to a particular party. Eventhough only a small majority of Malaysians
were “malay”, the party in power still got 70% of the vote. In Hungary they changed the constitution after a 2/3rds
majority in the 2010 election, rewriting electoral districts. Eventhough they faced losses in the election after, they
could still hold on to a larger share of the vote than they should have.
Another example of reforming the electoral system was in post-civil war US. During this time, African American males
were given the right of suffrage. This meant that in some southern US states (Mississippi, SC and Louisiana) African
5
A demagogue is a leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the public.
