The Deconsolidation of Democracy: Is It New and What Can Be Done About It?
| Author | Jack Corbett |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929919864785 |
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929919864785
Political Studies Review
2020, Vol. 18(2) 178 –188
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929919864785
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The Deconsolidation of
Democracy: Is It New and
What Can Be Done About It?
Jack Corbett
Abstract
Democracy in the United States and Europe is said to be at the crossroads. I review five recent
books that seek to diagnose and cure this ‘crisis’. Explanations range from institutional dysfunction
and elite maleficence to technological change and rising economic inequality. Remedies include
everything from institutional engineering to moral persuasion. Collectively, the books raise two
important questions: is this really a crisis and if it is, can democratisation theory, the branch of
political science dedicated to explaining why regimes rise and fall, tell us why? I conclude that if we
are to explain the deconsolidation of well-established democracies in which all of the usual pre-
conditions had been met, then we must first question the linear narrative about democracy being
a naturally legitimate form of regime.
Keywords
democracy, democratisation, transitions, pre-conditions, deconsolidation, crisis
Accepted: 5 March 2019
Dasandi N (2018) Is Democracy Failing?: A Primer for the 21st Century. London: Thames &
Hudson.
Grayling AC (2017) Democracy and Its Crisis. London: Oneworld Publications.
Levitsky S and Ziblatt D (2018) How Democracies Die. New York: Crown.
Mounk Y (2018) The People Vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save
It. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.
Runciman D (2018) How Democracy Ends. New York: Basic Books.
For most of human history, democracy has been viewed as an inherently unstable regime
whose propensity to collapse rendered it an undesirable form of government. But since
Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Corresponding author:
Jack Corbett, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton , University Road,
Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
Email: j.corbett@soton.ac.uk
864785PSW0010.1177/1478929919864785Political Studies ReviewCorbett
research-article2019
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