How Democracies Die
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skip the “invisible primary”: For a detailed explanation of why this was the case, see Cohen, Karol, Noel, and Zaller, The Party Decides.
Las Vegas bookmakers: James Ceaser, Andrew Busch, and John Pitney Jr., Defying the Odds: The 2016 Elections and American Politics (Washington, DC: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), p. 69.
“considerably less than 20 percent”: Nate Silver, “Dear Media: Stop Freaking Out About Donald Trump’s Polls,” FiveThirtyEight, November 23, 2015, http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dear-media-stop-freaking-out-about-donald-trumps-polls/.
Citizens United ruling: Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller, “Party Versus Faction in the Reformed Presidential Nominating System, PS (October 2016), pp. 704–5; Theda Skocpol and Alex Hertel-Fernandez, “The Koch Network and Republican Party Extremism,” Perspectives on Politics 14, no. 3 (2016), pp. 681–99.
explosion of alternative media: Ibid., p. 705.
Whereas the path to national name recognition: Ibid., pp. 703–4.
“conservative entertainment complex”: David Frum, “The Great Republican Revolt,” The Atlantic, September 9, 2015.
radicalized conservative voters: See Matthew Levendusky, How Partisan Media Polarize America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013); Cass R. Sunstein, #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017).
Although many factors contributed: See John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).
more endorsements than Trump: “The Endorsement Primary,” FiveThirtyEight, June 7, 2016, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/.
did not yet have a single endorsement: Ibid.
When the primary season ended: Ibid.
Trump had the sympathy: Among Republicans, more than twice as many Trump supporters as supporters of rival Republican candidates listed Breitbart News as their main news source. See Pew Research Center, “Trump, Clinton Voters Divided in Their Main Source for Election News,” January 18, 2017, pp. 3, 5.
new ways to use old media: See Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck, Identity Crisis, Chapter 4.
“uniquely tailored to the digital age”: Nathaniel Persily, “The 2016 U.S. Election: Can Democracy Survive the Internet?,” Journal of Democracy, April 2017, p. 67.
$2 billion in free media coverage: Ibid., p. 67.
“magnificent chaos”: “Why the Never Trump Movement Failed at the Republican National Convention,” ABCNews.com, July 20, 2016.
Levels of voter fraud: On electoral fraud in the United States in general, see Richard L. Hasen, The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), and Lorraine C. Minnite, The Myth of Voter Fraud (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010). On the absence of fraud in the 2016 election, see Jessica Huseman and Scott Klein, “There’s No Evidence Our Election Was Rigged,” ProPublica, November 28, 2016.
immigrants and dead people: Darren Samuelsohn, “A Guide to Donald Trump’s ‘Rigged’ Election,” Politico, October 25, 2016.
“Help Me Stop Crooked Hillary”: Ibid.
“We’d better be careful”: Jeremy Diamond, “Trump: ‘I’m Afraid the Election’s Going to Be Rigged,’ ” CNN.com, August 2, 2016.
“Of course there is large scale voter fraud”: “U.S. Election 2016: Trump Says Election ‘Rigged at Polling Places,’ ” BBC.com, October 17, 2016.
“topple the apple cart”: “Donald Trump, Slipping in Polls, Warns of ‘Stolen Election,” New York Times, October 14, 2016.
the election could be stolen: “Poll: 41 Percent of Voters Say Election Could Be Stolen from Trump,” Politico, October 17, 2016.
“birther”: “14 of Trump’s Most Outrageous Birther Claims—Half from After 2011,” CNN.com, September 16, 2016.
“has to go to jail”: Lisa Hagen, “Trump: Clinton ‘Has to Go to Jail,’ ” The Hill, October 12, 2016.
offered to pay the legal fees: “Donald Trump Says He May Pay Legal Fees of Accused Attacker from Rally,” New York Times, March 13, 2016.
Here are a few examples: “Don’t Believe Donald Trump Has Incited Violence at Rallies? Watch This Video,” Vox, March 12, 2016, https://www.vox.com/2016/3/12/11211846/donald-trump-violence-rallies.
“the Second Amendment people”: “Donald Trump Suggests ‘Second Amendment People’ Could Act Against Hillary Clinton,” New York Times, August 9, 2016.
special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton: “Trump: Clinton ‘Has to Go to Jail,’ ” CNN.com, October 13, 2016.
“If I become president”: “Donald Trump Threatens to Rewrite Libel Laws to Make It Easier to Sue the Media,” Business Insider, February 26, 2016.
“open up our libel laws”: Ibid.
“ideological collusion”: This definition of “collective abdication” and the discussion that follows builds on sociologist Ivan Ermakoff’s important study of interwar Germany and France, titled Ruling Oneself Out: A Theory of Collective Abdications (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008).
when faced with a would-be authoritarian: Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes, p. 37.
right-wing politicians endorsed ideological rivals: For electoral data that supports this point on the French 2017 presidential election, see “French Election Results: Macron’s Victory in Charts,” Financial Times, May 9, 2017. See https://www.ft.com/content/62d782d6-31a7-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a.
Republican 1: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/briefing/updates/2016/09/29/number-of-prominent-republicans-and-independents-backing-hillary-clinton-grows/, accessed May 20, 2017.
Republican 2: Ibid.
Republican 3: Ibid.
William Pierce: Ibid.
Republicans who publicly endorsed Clinton: “78 Republican Politicians, Donors, and Officials Who Are Supporting Hillary Clinton,” Washington Post, November 7, 2016.
In France, it is estimated that half: “French Election Results: Macron’s Victory in Charts,” Financial Times, May 9, 2017 [see figure: “How Allegiances Shifted from the First to the Second Round of Voting in the French Presidential Election”].
increasingly sorted into Republicans and Democrats: Alan Abramowitz, The Polarized Public? Why American Government Is So Dysfunctional (New York: Pearson, 2012); “Partisanship and Political Animosity in 2016,” Pew Research Center, June 22, 2016, http://www.people-press.org/2016/06/22/partisanship-and-political-animosity-in-2016/.
predicting a close race: John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck, “The 2016 U.S. Election: How Trump Lost and Won,” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 2 (April 2017), pp. 36–37; Sides, Tessler, and Vavreck, Identity Crisis, Chapter 2.
CHAPTER 4: SUBVERTING DEMOCRACY
nominated himself: Gregory Schmidt, “Fujimori’s 1990 Upset Victory in Peru: Rules, Contingencies, and Adaptive Strategies,” Comparative Politics 28, no. 3 (1990), pp. 321–55.
Short of funds: Luis Jochamowitz, Ciudadano Fujimori: La Construcción de un Político (Lima: Peisa, 1993), pp. 259–63.
But he had only a vague idea: Charles Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), pp. 126–27; also Susan C. Stokes, Mandates and Democracy: Neoliberalism by Surprise in Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 69–71.
Fujimori had been unsparing: See Kenneth Roberts, “Neoliberalism and the Transformation of Populism in Latin America,” World Politics 48, no. 1 (January 1995), pp. 82–116.
Congress failed to pass any legislation: Gregory Schmidt, “Presidential Usurpation or Congressional Preference? The Evolution of Executive Decree Authority in Peru,” in Executive Decree Authority, eds. John M. Carey and Matthew S. Shugart (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 124; Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of D
emocracy in Latin America, pp. 131–32.
he also lacked the patience: Yusuke Murakami, Peru en la era del Chino: La política no institucionalizada y el pueblo en busca de un salvador (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2012), p. 282; Maxwell A. Cameron, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Alberto Fujimori,” in The Peruvian Labyrinth: Polity, Society, Economy, eds. Maxwell Cameron and Philip Mauceri (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), pp. 54–58; Cynthia McClintock, “La Voluntad Política Presidencial y la Ruptura Constitucional,” in Los Enigmas Del Podre: Fujimori 1990–1996, ed. Fernando Tuesta (Lima: Fundación Friedrich Ebert, 1996).
“inviting the President of the Senate”: McClintock, “La Voluntad Política Presidencial y la Ruptura Constitucional,” p. 65.
“unproductive charlatans”: Catherine Conaghan, Fujimori’s Peru: Deception in the Public Sphere (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005), p. 30.
“jackals” and “scoundrels”: Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America, p. 132.
he began to bypass congress: Schmidt, “Presidential Usurpation or Congressional Preference?,” pp. 118–19.
“rigid” and “confining”: Cameron, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Alberto Fujimori,” p. 55.
“We are a country”: Conaghan, Fujimori’s Peru, p. 30.
a Japanese emperor: McClintock, “La Voluntad Política Presidencial y la Ruptura Constitucional,” p. 65.
“Could Fujimori be deposed?”: Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America, p. 146.
“the President would kill the Congress”: Cameron, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Alberto Fujimori,” p. 55; Kenney, Fujimori’s Coup and the Breakdown of Democracy in Latin America, pp. 56–57, 172–76, 186.
“rancid pigs” and “squalid oligarchs”: Jones, Hugo!, p. 1.
“enemies” and “traitors”: Kirk Hawkins, Venezuela’s Chavismo and Populism in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 61.
judges who ruled against him as “communist”: “Silvio Berlusconi Says Communist Judges Out to Destroy Him,” Reuters, October 20, 2009.
called the media a “grave political enemy”: “Assaults on Media Make Ecuador an Odd Refuge,” The Age, June 21, 2012, http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/assaults-on-media-make-ecuador-an-odd-refuge-20120620-20okw.html?deviceType=text.
accused journalists of propagating “terrorism”: Ahmet Sik, “Journalism Under Siege,” EnglishPen, 2016, https://www.englishpen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/JournalismUnderSiege_FINAL.pdf.
“opposition, obstruction, and provocation”: Joseph Page, Perón (New York: Random House, 1983), pp. 162–65.
“mental incapacity”: Jones, Hugo!, p. 309.
Orbán packed the nominally independent: János Kornai, “Hungary’s U-Turn: Retreating from Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 43 (July 2015), p. 35.
videotaped hundreds of opposition politicians: Maxwell A. Cameron, “Endogenous Regime Breakdown: The Vladivideo and the Fall of Peru’s Fujimori,” in The Fujimori Legacy: The Rise of Electoral Authoritarianism in Peru, ed. Julio F. Carrión (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006).
delivering monthly cash payments: Conaghan, Fujimori’s Peru, p. 167; and Cameron, “Endogenous Regime Breakdown,” p. 180.
had called him a fascist: Page, Perón, p. 165.
on the grounds of malfeasance: Gretchen Helmke, Courts Under Constraints: Judges, Generals, and Presidents in Argentina (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 64.
Péron then appointed four loyalists: Page, Perón, p. 165; Helmke, Courts Under Constraints, p. 64.
evade constitutional term limits “unconstitutional”: Conaghan, Fujimori’s Peru, pp. 126–31.
Fidesz loyalists: Bojan Bugaric and Tom Ginsburg, “The Assault on Postcommunist Courts,” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 3 (July 2016), p. 73.
In a dubiously constitutional move: Ibid., pp. 73–74.
veto power within the tribunal: Joanna Fomina and Jacek Kucharczyk, “Populism and Protest in Poland,” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 4 (October 2016), pp. 62–63. The Tribunal declared the repair bill unconstitutional in early 2016, but the government ignored the ruling, with Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczy´nski declaring that his party would “not permit anarchy in Poland, even if it is promoted by the courts.” (Bugaric and Ginsburg, “The Assault on Postcommunist Courts,” p. 74.)
Fearing for its survival: Allan R. Brewer-Carías, Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela: The Chávez Authoritarian Experiment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 58–59; Jones, Hugo!, pp. 241–42.
“It is dead”: Jones, Hugo!, p. 242.
Two months later: Brewer-Carías, Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela, p. 59.
“revolutionary” loyalists: Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chávez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2011), p. 27; and Brewer-Carías, Dismantling Democracy in Venezuela, pp. 236–38.
not a single Supreme Tribunal ruling: “El chavismo nunca pierde en el Supremo Venezolano,” El País, December 12, 2014, http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/12/12/actualidad/1418373177_159073.html; also Javier Corrales, “Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2 (April 2015), p. 44.
control over the channel’s news programming: Conaghan, Fujimori’s Peru, pp. 154–62.
“we plan the evening news”: Ibid.
stay home for “personal reasons”: Ibid., p. 137.
he stood no chance: Helmke, Courts Under Constraints, p. 64.
on sodomy charges: Dan Slater, “Iron Cage in an Iron Fist: Authoritarian Institutions and the Personalization of Power in Malaysia,” Comparative Politics 36, no. 1 (October 2003), pp. 94–95. Anwar’s conviction was overturned in 2004, a year after Mahathir Mohamad had left office.
it had been “subliminal”: Corrales, “Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela,” pp. 44–45; “Venezuelan Opposition Leader Leopoldo López Sentenced to Prison Over Protest,” New York Times, September 10, 2015.
chilling effect on the press: “El Universo Verdict Bad Precedent for Free Press in America,” Committee to Protect Journalists Alert, February 16, 2012, https://cpj.org/2012/02/el-universo-sentence-a-dark-precedent-for-free-pre.php.
purchased by progovernment businessmen: Soner Cagaptay, The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017), p. 124; also Svante E. Cornell, “As Dogan Yields, Turkish Media Freedom Plummets,” Turkey Analyst, January 18, 2010, https://www.turkeyanalyst.org/publications/turkey-analyst-articles/item/196-as-dogan-yields-turkish-media-freedom-plummets.html.
“pain in the neck”: Marshall Goldman, PetroState: Putin, Power, and the New Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 102.
“straight out of a bad Mafia movie”: Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of the Revolution, Revised Edition (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2007), p. 83.
He took the deal: Ibid., p. 482.
Under intense financial pressure: “Venden TV Venezolana Globovisón y Anuncian Nueva Linea Editorial de ‘Centro,’ ” El Nuevo Herald, May 13, 2013, http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article2023054.html.
Once considered a pro-opposition network: “Media Mogul Learns to Live with Chávez,” New York Times, July 5, 2007.
only if they stayed out of politics: Baker and Glasser, Kremlin Rising, pp. 86–87; Goldman, PetroState, p. 102.
Putin had Khodorkovsky arrested: Goldman, PetroState, pp. 103, 106, 113–16. Also Baker and Glasser, Kremlin Rising, pp. 286–92.
Starved of resources: Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism, p. 198.
emerged as a serious rival: “Rakibimiz Uzan,” Sabah, June 4, 2003, http://arsiv.sabah.com
.tr/2003/06/04/p01.html.
tax officials audited several Koc companies: Svante E. Cornell, “Erdogan Versus Koc Holding: Turkey’s New Witch Hunt,” Turkey Analyst, October 9, 2013, http://www.turkeyanalyst.org/publications/turkey-analyst-articles/item/64-erdogan-vs-ko.
“inspectorship of poultry and rabbits”: Edwin Williamson, Borges: A Life (New York: Penguin, 2004), pp. 292–95.
El Sistema received increased government funding: Gustavo Dudamel, “Why I Don’t Talk Venezuelan Politics,” Los Angeles Times, September 29, 2015.
slide into dictatorship: Gustavo Dudamel, “A Better Way for Venezuela,” New York Times, July 19, 2017.
He paid a price: “Venezuela Cancels Gustavo Dudamel Tour After His Criticisms,” New York Times, August 21, 2017.
parliamentary districts were gerrymandered: Harold Crouch, Government and Society in Malaysia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 58–59, 74.
reduced the number of parliamentary seats: William Case, “New Uncertainties for an Old Pseudo-Democracy: The Case of Malaysia,” Comparative Politics 37, no. 1 (October 2004), p. 101.
it banned campaign advertising: Kim Lane Scheppele, “Understanding Hungary’s Constitutional Revolution,” in Constitutional Crisis in the European Constitutional Area, eds. Armin von Bogdandy and Pal Sonnevend (London: Hart/Beck, 2015), pp. 120–21; and Gabor Toka, “Constitutional Principles and Electoral Democracy in Hungary,” in Constitution Building in Consolidated Democracies: A New Beginning or Decay of a Political System?, eds. Ellen Bos and Kálmán Pocza (Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlag, 2014).
preserve its two-thirds majority: Cas Mudde, “The 2014 Hungarian Parliamentary Elections, or How to Craft a Constitutional Majority,” Washington Post, April 14, 2014.
emergence of authoritarian single-party regimes: See V. O. Key Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984); and Robert Mickey, Paths out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South, 1944–1972 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015).