PS 400 U.S. Democratic Backsliding

Levitsky & Way and Carrier & Carothers both argue that U.S. democratic backsliding is most likely to produce what kind of regime?

Competitive authoritarianism — a system where elections still occur but the incumbent's abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition

All three Monday readings identify a common political method behind contemporary democratic backsliding worldwide. What is it?

Executive aggrandizement — elected leaders incrementally amassing power and undermining checks on the executive

Across the Monday readings, what is the assessment of the integrity of U.S. elections?

Elections remain largely intact for now, but the 2026 midterms are flagged as a critical test amid federal pressure on state-run elections, harassment of election officials, and the administration's claims of unconstrained executive authority

Levitsky & Way argue that Trump's second term is more dangerous than his first. Which best captures their reasoning?

Trump now has a plan, loyal personnel, dominance over a purged Republican Party, and broad presidential immunity from a Supreme Court ruling

What do Carrier & Carothers and the V-Dem report conclude about the speed of U.S. democratic backsliding under Trump 2.0?

Faster than even the rapid early-stage backsliding seen in Hungary and Poland — unusually condensed and aggressive

V-Dem reports that under Trump 2.0, the U.S. Liberal Democracy Index has dropped to its 1965 level. What does V-Dem say this drop signals?

The largest one-year drop in U.S. history in V-Dem data — but with fundamentally different deficiencies than the 1960s, now centered on executive overreach and suppression of dissent

Why is the U.S. drop on V-Dem's Liberal Democracy Index in 2025 not even larger than it appears?

Election-specific indicators are only re-evaluated in election years, so 2025 still reflects the (free and fair) 2024 elections

According to V-Dem, which component of liberal democracy showed the steepest single-year decline in the U.S. in 2025?

Legislative constraints on the executive — losing roughly one-third of its value and reaching its lowest level in over a century

V-Dem reports that historically, what proportion of "third wave" autocratization episodes have been reversed (i.e., resulted in U-turns back toward democracy)?

Roughly 70% — the majority of episodes are eventually reversed, especially when reversal happens within the first electoral cycle

According to V-Dem, what combination of factors tends to produce successful U-turns from autocratization?

Strong institutional safeguards (the "brakes"), robust societal action (the "engine"), and acting early — typically within the first electoral cycle

Levitsky & Way describe the "weaponized state" as the central tool of contemporary competitive authoritarianism. What do they mean?

The politicization of bureaucratic agencies (DOJ, FBI, IRS, and others) to investigate rivals, co-opt civil society, and shield allies from prosecution

What is the basic dynamic of Levitsky & Way's "honey trap"?

The state uses regulatory and economic tools — contracts, antitrust decisions, tariff waivers, tax-exempt status — as carrots to co-opt businesses, media owners, and universities

Levitsky & Way warn about "self-sidelining" by potential opponents of the Trump administration. What does this refer to?

Politicians, business leaders, journalists, and university leaders voluntarily retreating, softening criticism, or staying silent because the costs of opposition (lawsuits, audits, lost contracts, harassment) outweigh the benefits

Levitsky & Way argue that the U.S. has several sources of resilience that make full authoritarian consolidation unlikely. Which best captures these?

An independent judiciary, federalism, bicameralism, midterm elections, and a large, well-organized, well-financed opposition

Levitsky & Way argue that "the Constitution alone cannot save American democracy." What is their main reason?

Even well-designed constitutions have ambiguities and gaps that determined leaders can exploit — the same constitutional order permitted Jim Crow, Japanese internment, and McCarthyism

Carrier & Carothers describe Trump's executive aggrandizement as operating on three interrelated levels. What are they?

The president supreme within the executive branch; the executive branch dominant over the other branches and the states; and societal constraints on executive power weakened

Carrier & Carothers compare the U.S. to other backsliding cases along three dimensions. What are they?

Focus, rapidity, and severity

Carrier & Carothers' overall finding on the severity of U.S. democratic backsliding (so far) is that it is:

Less severe than most peer cases — the erosion is largely normative (executive orders, personnel changes, intimidation) rather than institutionalized through constitutional amendments or major legislation

Why, according to Carrier & Carothers, has the Trump administration relied so heavily on executive orders and personnel changes rather than legislation or constitutional amendments?

U.S. constitutional and institutional guardrails — narrow congressional majorities, the filibuster, and the difficulty of amending the Constitution — make legislative and structural change largely unfeasible, leaving executive tools as the available pathway

Carrier & Carothers argue that, despite rapid backsliding, U.S. democracy still has meaningful constraints that pro-democracy actors can leverage. Which best captures these?

Internal executive-branch accountability mechanisms, the difficulty of constitutional change, a legislature with many veto points, and a well-resourced private sector, independent media, and nonprofit sector

What is the central comparison the ProPublica investigation draws between 2020 and the conditions facing the 2026 midterms?

The institutional guardrails that held in 2020 are largely gone; career officials who resisted have been replaced

The ProPublica investigation reports that approximately 75 career officials with election-related roles have been replaced. By whom?

Roughly two dozen Trump appointees, ten of whom worked to reverse the 2020 vote

What does the ProPublica investigation identify as the significance of "Team America," the small group of political appointees convening at DHS?

The election denial movement merging with federal government, implementing Trump's election orders

The ProPublica investigation describes the FBI's January 2026 raid on Fulton County. What was the role of DOJ's dismantled Public Integrity Section in enabling that raid?

Multiple former lawyers said they likely would have blocked the investigation as politically slanted and lacking strong evidence

The ProPublica investigation describes a recurring pattern in which career officials who decline to carry out politically directed actions are:

Replaced by officials willing to comply, with additional steps taken to route around remaining institutional resistance

What does the ProPublica investigation identify as the consequence of the breakdown in trust between state secretaries of state and federal officials?

Information channels and Election Day command posts that coordinated threat detection have been dismantled

What is Cope & Versteeg's central argument about American democracy under Trump's second term?

Real threats exist, but six exceptional features make U.S. democracy harder to subjugate than recently-eroded counterparts

Cope & Versteeg argue that the structure of the U.S. judicial system makes capture more difficult than abroad. Why?

U.S. judicial review is decentralized across hundreds of lifetime-tenured judges, while elsewhere it is concentrated in a single court

How do Cope & Versteeg interpret Trump's heavy reliance on more than 150 executive orders?

Constitutional resilience — major change requires legislation or amendment, so EO-based policies can be reversed by a successor

Why is American press freedom more resilient against capture than in countries like Putin's Russia, according to Cope & Versteeg?

U.S. media organizations are sufficiently numerous and varied that capturing them all would be nearly impossible

Cope & Versteeg argue that federalism plays a particular role in democratic resilience. What is it?

States can frustrate federal enforcement, and citizens retain rights under state law when federal rights are diminished

According to Cope & Versteeg, why is American defamation law a meaningful structural protection for democracy?

Public officials face substantial hurdles in suing or prosecuting critics — Palin, Nunes, and Trump have learned this

How do Cope & Versteeg position their argument relative to alarm about American democracy?

The threats are real but the structural features described make U.S. democracy easier to defend than foreign counterparts

Carothers identifies two general dynamics that explain the ouster of entrenched dominant-party regimes. What are they?

The incumbent's accumulated missteps combined with the opposition's scrappy resourcefulness

What pattern, according to Carothers, produced the "widespread socioeconomic decay" that hollowed out Fidesz's support?

Years of economic mismanagement, deteriorating public services, and endemic corruption that compounded over time

Carothers writes that Fidesz, "unable to campaign on improving Hungarians' quality of life," fell back on a particular strategy. What was it, and why did it eventually backfire?

Fearmongering centered largely on Ukraine, which exhausted moderates and paralleled Bolsonaro's 2022 defeat

Carothers notes that Orban's frequent claims of protecting Hungary's sovereignty rang increasingly hollow. Why?

Hungary had grown economically dependent on Russia and China while invoking sovereignty rhetoric

What does Carothers identify as the first key element of Magyar's playbook?

Eschewing culture-war combat and reclaiming patriotism as inclusive while hammering on corruption

Carothers identifies a strategic move by Magyar that broke from the traditional opposition pattern in Hungary. What was it?

Campaigning extensively outside Budapest, including a march to Romania, breaking from the urban-educated focus

What lesson does Carothers draw for Trump's MAGA movement from Fidesz's defeat?

Culture-war messaging cannot substitute for tangible governance, and family corruption is politically toxic