Despite the general narrative that the world is in a period of democratic decline, there have
been surprisingly few empirical studies that assess whether this is systematically true. Most …

Is support for democracy in the United States robust enough to deter undemocratic behavior
by elected politicians? We develop a model of the public as a democratic check and …

Why do voters vote for undemocratic politicians in a democracy? My chief contention is that
affective polarization has become a primary factor driving support for undemocratic …

When can we realistically expect ordinary people to check the authoritarian ambitions of
elected politicians? An answer to this question is key to understanding the most prominent …

We review recent contributions to the modeling of democratic backsliding. We organize
these theories according to (a) the source of constraints on the executive (vertical or …

Scholars and pundits fear that the American public's commitment to democracy is declining
and that citizens are willing to embrace candidates who would trample democratic …

Despite the general narrative that we are in a period of global democratic decline, there
have been surprisingly few empirical studies to assess whether this is systematically true …

Is American democracy under threat? The question is more prominent in political debate
now than at any time in recent memory. However, it is also too blunt; there is widespread …

Why do voters support executive aggrandizement? One possible answer is that they do so
because they think this will ease their preferred leader's hand in putting their partisan vision …

Incumbents often seek to wield power in ways that are formally legal but informally
proscribed. Why do voters endorse these power grabs? Prior literature focuses on …