DPI-307: Threats and Challenges Facing American Democracy – in Historical Perspective

Democracy in the United States is currently encountering significant challenges, with some observers maintaining that the US is already on a path toward becoming an authoritarian state. This course will examine some of those challenges and their historical sources.   Among the subjects to be explored:  vulnerabilities in the constitutional design of American governance; conflicts over the right to vote and election processes; the erosion of non-constitutional norms; the roles of race and immigration?in fostering social and political divisions; widening economic inequality; the links between religion and political partisanship; and the fragmentation of sources of news and information.   Some attention will also be paid to strategies for reversing “democratic backsliding.”