Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky
Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky
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Tyranny of the Minority
Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

Bestseller

Author: Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Unabridged: 8 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/12/2023

Synopsis

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A call to reform our antiquated political institutions before it’s too late—from the authors of How Democracies Die

“[Levitsky and Ziblatt] write with terrifying clarity about how the forces of the right have co-opted the enshrined rules to exert their tyranny.”—The Washington Post

ONE OF THE CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS’ TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A NEWSWEEK BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

America is undergoing a massive experiment: It is moving, in fits and starts, toward a multiracial democracy, something few societies have ever done. But the prospect of change has sparked an authoritarian backlash that threatens the very foundations of our political system. Why is democracy under assault here, and not in other wealthy, diversifying nations? And what can we do to save it?

With the clarity and brilliance that made their first book, How Democracies Die, a global bestseller, Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt offer a coherent framework for understanding these volatile times. They draw on a wealth of examples—from 1930s France to present-day Thailand—to explain why and how political parties turn against democracy. They then show how our Constitution makes us uniquely vulnerable to attacks from within: It is a pernicious enabler of minority rule, allowing partisan minorities to consistently thwart and even rule over popular majorities. Most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand—have eliminated outdated institutions like elite upper chambers, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges. The United States lags dangerously behind.

In this revelatory book, Levitsky and Ziblatt issue an urgent call to reform our politics. It’s a daunting task, but we have remade our country before—most notably, after the Civil War and during the Progressive Era. And now we are at a crossroads: America will either become a multiracial democracy or cease to be a democracy at all.

About Steven Levitsky

Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American studies, professor of government, and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. His books include How Democracies Die and Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tim on November 22, 2024

"We stand at a crossroads: either America will be a multiracial democracy or it will not be a democracy at all." Levitsky and Ziblatt made 15 recommendations to strengthen the American democracy. TO ENCOURAGE VOTING 1. Make voting a constitutional right with a constitutional amendment. 2. Automatic r......more

Goodreads review by David on April 03, 2025

"Loving America with a broken heart means recognizing our own country's failure to live up to its stated democratic ideals--its failure, for too long, to provide liberty and justice for all. It means committing ourselves to achieving those ideals, by building an inclusive, multiracial democracy t......more

Goodreads review by Colleen on October 27, 2023

The two men who authored this book also wrote the book 'How Democracies Die" and are speaking to the same issue here. One route away from democracy is when the minority hold sway over the majority. Although there were those who opposed the areas where the minority was given the power to overwhelm th......more

Goodreads review by Arianne on February 08, 2024

The Republican Party no Longer Exists The Republican Party no longer exists. It has gone the way of the Wigs of the 1850s. That which is still referred to as the Republican Party is a new political party altogether. What was the Republican Party was replaced by the MAGA Party in 2016 just as the Repu......more

Goodreads review by Kenny on October 29, 2023

This book reads like two ivory tower liberal professors are upset that conservatives have a say in government and are seeking to dismantle everything that makes that possible (e.g. eliminating the Electoral College, the Senate Filibuster, lifetime tenure of Supreme Court justices—very clear the auth......more

Quotes

“A minority of voters can now inflict a legislative wallop of racism, sexism, nativism, homophobia, transphobia, and economic misery on the rest of us—and never have to pay for it at the polls. This is the ‘tyranny of the minority’ that Levitsky and Ziblatt rightly fear. No lawless strongman or populist autocracy, it’s a product of the very Constitution that we have been taught to admire.”—The New Yorker

“Why has American democracy come so close to a breaking point while other Western democracies appear more stable? In this sobering study, Levitsky and Ziblatt blame the United States’ eighteenth-century constitutional order for its modern democratic woes.”—Foreign Affairs

“[Daniel] Ziblatt and [Steven] Levitsky are two of America’s very best comparative political scientists, with expertise that makes them uniquely well-equipped for the subject they’re examining. . . . Tyranny of the Minority is one of the best guides out there to the crisis of American democracy.”—Vox

“Excellent . . . Levitsky and Ziblatt distinguish themselves by the clarity and scope of their account. For a one-stop-shop foray into the problem of America’s outlier status among democratic systems and the challenges of reform, Tyranny of the Minority cannot be beat.”—The New Republic
 
“In their exceptionally perceptive and wide-ranging new book, Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt document the rapid unravelling of democracy in nations from Peru to Thailand, Third Republic France to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.”—The Times Literary Supplement
 
“In their must-read book, Tyranny of the Minority, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt cogently explain that Republicans, unable to appeal to a broader share of the electorate beyond diminishing numbers of White, rural Christians, have found ways to exploit, abuse and, indeed, break majority governance.”—Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post

“Crisply argued.”—The American Prospect

“Concise, readable, and convincing.”—Anne Applebaum, author of Twilight of Democracy

“Levitsky and Ziblatt’s research shows with bleak clarity that the only thing standing between America and autocracy is the moral conscience and democratic ideals of the Republican partners of this government.”—New York magazine

“Eye-opening.”—Newsweek

“Old democracies tend to last, and so do rich democracies, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt point out in this searing, unsettling, and essential new book, but American democracy, which is both old and rich, is dying.”—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths
 
“To their credit, they offer no easy solutions, but Levitsky and Ziblatt challenge us to use our voices and our votes to push back against these inherently antidemocratic features of our endangered republic.”—Laurence H. Tribe, University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus, Harvard

“This eye-opening study, filled with analysis of analogous historical moments from around the world, is an essential primer in the struggle for democracy this century.”—Rep. Jamie Raskin, author of Unthinkable

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