American Democracy Under Threat

Taught by Professor Jamie Settle

• 3 Credits
• COLL 350
• GOVT 391
• REQUIRED Pre-meeting on the evenings of:
  • November 11, 7:00-9:00 pm
  • Week of November 17 TBD
  • December 2, 7:00-9:00 pm

Course Description:

Pundits and scholars alike are concerned that democracy is eroding in the United States. These concerns are supported empirically. For example, according to V-DEM, the United States is close to losing its status as a liberal democracy: its score on the Liberal Democracy Index decreased to 0.72 in 2020 after reaching a high of 0.85 in the period 2008-2015. This erased nearly 50 years of slow but generally steady gains. This short course will explore contemporary threats to American democracy by contextualizing them against the long history of the way that democracy has developed and been under attack in the U.S.

We will then focus on the tensions between how Americans perceive their democracy and how it actually has functioned over time. Americans in fact perceive that democracy is changing. In summarizing its most recent polling effort in the summer of 2023, Bright Line Watch reports that while its expert sample rated U.S. democracy above 70/100 for the first time since the study began in 2017, the public’s assessment has decreased and that people are pessimistic about the future of American democracy, anticipating further declines in democratic performance. The Pew Research Center found that 58% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in America (Schaeffer 2022). Yet, while Americans agree that democracy in the United States is under threat, they disagree on the nature and severity of that threat. A recent poll showing that 20% of Americans report the top problem the country faces is a threat to democracy found that 29% of Democrats provided this answer but only 12% of Republicans did, and each group provided very different descriptions of the problem in open-ended responses (Bowman 2022).

Finally, we explore the consequences of democratic erosion. Threats to democracy change the incentives and thus the behavior and interactions of various actors in the political system: elected officials, bureaucrats, political parties, interest groups, the media, and voters. We will explore the impacts of democratic erosion in America—considering how it manifests in electoral politics, policy debates, media coverage, and interpersonal interactions—to discuss the longer-term effects on our political system and culture.

What sets this institute apart from similar coursework you could take on campus is that you will hear directly from the policymakers and opinion leaders about their experiences with democracy under threat. There is significant dispute over what constitutes threat and how we should address it. By bringing in a range of individuals and exposing you to relevant arguments, you will be encouraged to come to your own conclusions about the phenomenon.