September 18, 2025. 12 PM EST
The Backsliders: Exploring Patterns in the Fall of Democracy
In the last session of the summer, Rory will be joined by Adam Przeworski and Susan Stokes, two of the field's leading scholars of democracy, authoritarianism and democratic backsliding. Adam and Sue will discuss patterns in democratic collapse throughout the world, drawing on insights from Sue's new book, The Backsliders. They will take stock of the state of American democracy under Donald Trump.
Adam Przeworski
Carroll and Milton Professor Emeritus of Politics and (by courtesy) Economics, New York University
Susan Stokes
Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago
Meet the Speakers
Adam Przeworski is the Carroll and Milton Professor Emeritus of Politics and (by courtesy) Economics at New York University. Previously he taught at the University of Chicago and held visiting appointments in India, Chile, France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1991, he is the recipient of the 1985 Socialist Review Book Award, the 1998 Gregory M. Luebbert Article Award, the 2001 Woodrow Wilson Prize, the 2010 Lawrence Longley Article Award, the 2018 Sakip Sabanci International Award, and the 2018 Juan Linz Prize. In 2010, he received the Johan Skytte Prize. He recently published Why Bother with Elections? (Polity Press 2018) and Crises of Democracy (Cambridge University Press 2019). Adam Przeworski has studied political regimes, democracy, autocracy, and their intermediate forms, the conditions under which regimes survive and change, as well as their consequences for economic development and income equality. His focus is on the role of elections as a mechanism of managing societal conflicts. His current projects concern the phenomenon of "democratic backsliding," the historical evolution of constitutional rules for electing chief executives, and the policies adopted by different regimes in response to the Covid19 pandemic.
Susan Stokes is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy. She has written or coauthored six books on topics including democratic theory, distributive politics and clientelism, political behavior and participation, democratic erosion, and Latin American politics. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts Sciences, past chair of APSA’s Comparative Politics and Democracy and Autocracy Sections, past chair of the Yale Political Science Department, and a founding member of Bright Line Watch. Her latest book, forthcoming in 2025, is entitled The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies. It offers an explanation for the wave of democratic erosion or backsliding that has affected many countries in the early 21st century, including the United States, several European countries, and others in the Global South.