Is U.S. Democracy Really at Risk? A Framework for Assessing Threats

Is U.S. Democracy Really at Risk? A Framework for Assessing Threats

Is American democracy at risk? What are the most important threats to democratic norms and institutions in the U.S. today, and how serious are those threats? With partisan divides and a flood of new policies almost daily, it’s hard to tell which actions threaten democratic norms—and which simply reflect political disagreement.

Drawing on their expertise documenting democratic erosion around the world, the Democratic Erosion Consortium (DEC) will present its new framework for identifying and interpreting possible threats to U.S. democracy today. The DEC categorizes potential risks based on who or what is being targeted and how different political sides interpret the events. Because understanding of democratic erosion in the U.S. is often divided along partisan lines, we document these distinct partisan arguments to mitigate researcher bias and to inform the ultimate interpretation of the event. The DEC approach also emphasizes analysis of historical precedents and pushes for moving beyond the focus on illegality of a given action to consider instead the impact of the event on democracy.

The presentation will also highlight important international comparisons using our Democratic Erosion Event Dataset (DEED) to understand how the U.S. trajectory compares to contemporary global backsliding trends. Using examples from recent events—paired with historical and international comparisons—this presentation will equip civil society leaders, journalists, and funders with a clear, rigorous, and non-partisan approach for understanding democratic risks in real time.

About the DEC: The Democratic Erosion Consortium (DEC) is a nonpartisan research, teaching, and policy collaboration dedicated to addressing the threat of democratic erosion in the U.S. and around the world.

Co-Hosted by: Trust, Accountability, and Inclusion Collaborative - Funders for Participatory Governance (TAI) and American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies (CCPS)