Steven Levitsky

Why did some Latin American labor-based parties adapt successfully to the contemporary challenges of neoliberalism and working class decline while others did not? Drawing on a detailed study of the Argentine Peronism, as well as a broader comparative analysis, this book develops an organizational approach to party change. Levitsky’s study breaks new ground in its focus on informal and weakly institutionalized party structures. It argues that loosely structured party organizations, such as those found in many populist labor-based parties, are often better equipped to adapt to rapid environmental change than are more bureaucratic labor-based parties. The argument is illustrated in the case of Peronism, a mass labor-based party with a highly fluid internal structure. The book shows how this weakly routinized structure allowed party reformers to undertake a set of far-reached coalitional and programmatic changes that enabled Peronism to survive, and even thrive, in the neoliberal era.

Donald Trumps presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought wed be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bangin a revolution or military coupbut with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms. The good news is that there are several exit ramps on the road to authoritarianism. The bad news is that, by electing Trump, we have already passed the first one.Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela, to the American South during Jim Crow, Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies dieand how ours can be saved.