How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Crown, 2018.
If you’re like me, you assumed that democracy to dictatorship would be some sort of guns-in-the-streets scenarios. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that it’s not necessarily that way, that often it’s a more subtle tipping-point process: two sides stop cooperating and a divide opens up; the usual norms get violated; the sides polarize so it’s not a bell curve but more of a U-shape with a hollowed-out middle; until one side thinks they can do in the other side, and do. I was especially struck by how much broken norms destroy social capital. They provide multiple examples, relate their thesis to American politics, and note the extent to America’s racial issues affect its politics. I found it straightforward to read and thought-provoking.