Politics 378 - Backsliding and Resilience in U.S. Democracy

American democracy is in trouble. But when has it not been? Since the election of Donald Trump, observers have increasingly begun to question basic assumptions about the apparent stability of the American constitutional regime. Yet critical observers, activists, and political movements across the past two centuries have persistently called attention to the deficits of U.S. democracy and sought to rectify them. Is America presently at risk of "democratic backsliding"? Or will U.S. democracy prove resilient? This course puts the current distemper of U.S. democracy in historical perspective by examining the complex and contradictory patterns of democratic development from the Founding to the present.

Prereq: 8 credits in the department and POLIT-104.