Steven Levitsky’s research while affiliated with Harvard University and other places

... In the legislative arena, affective polarization thus hinders cooperation, negotiation, deliberation, decision-making, and legislating. The basic premise of representative parliamentary democracy is not only minority protection but also the majority's ability to govern (Ferreira da Silva & Garzia, 2024; Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2025). Thus, a high degree of polarization undermines the ability to govern (Sartori, 2005). ...

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Polarization and Democracy in Central Europe

... Demokrasi di Jerman, pemimpin terpilih memperoleh legitimasi melalui proses pemilihan yang sah (Schmidt, 2013). Sistem hukum Amerika Serikat, yang mengatur bahwa kekuasaan presiden hanya sah jika didasarkan pada konstitusi dan proses pemilihan yang adil (Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018). ...

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ANTROPOLOGI SOSIAL

... Many researchers who emphasize the pluralist notion of democracy (Müller, 2021;Levitsky & Ziblatt, 2018) view right-wing populist movements as a threat to democracy. While political theorists have pointed to conceptual and methodological problems in measuring democratic trends and highlighted the resilience of democratic institutions (Levitsky & Way, 2024;Weyland, 2024), the general agreement is that democracy is globally in decline (Angiolillo & al, 2024). Empirical research also shows that today's main threat to democracy comes from democratically elected rulers who reject pluralism and gradually erode democratic norms once in power (Lührmann et al., 2021). ...

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Antipluralistiska partier i nordiska klassrumAnti-pluralist parties in Nordic classrooms: förhandlingar kring oss och dem i undervisning i samhällskunskapnegotiating the boundaries between us and them in social studies education

... Mutual toleration refers to the acceptance of political opponents as legitimate rivals, while institutional forbearance is the restraint from exploiting legal prerogatives for partisan gain. When these norms are disregarded, democracies become vulnerable to authoritarian drift, even if elections continue to occur (Levitsky & Way, 2023). O'Donnell (1994) introduced the concept of "delegative democracy," where elected leaders bypass institutional checks in the name of efficiency or popular mandate. ...

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Beyond the Ballot Box: The Institutional Cracks That Precede Democratic Collapse

... The greater the power of the executive, the greater the probability of democratic decline, either because state resources are used in a patrimonial or clientelist manner by a charismatic leader and his administrative cadre Kaufman, 2016b, 2016a;Mazzuca, 2012;Haggard and Kaufman, 2012), or because the national elite accumulates unequally distributed resources while repressing the opposition and population to maintain power (Gerschewski, 2023a(Gerschewski, , 2023b(Gerschewski, , 2013Tanneberg, 2020;Coppedge, 2017). Both dynamics have been described in two studies on how democratic regimes sustain themselves, transform themselves into a hybrid form of democracy, or definitively transform into an autocratic regime (Hellmeier et al., 2021;Maerz et al., 2023;Levitsky, 2004). ...

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Protocol for public opinion survey, Ecuador 2025

... Aunque las oleadas reformistas que las impulsan suelen durar solo unos pocos años, sus efectos antiestatistas pueden perdurar por décadas. Esto porque la intensidad de dichas luchas imprime en las organizaciones políticas formas de ver el mundo que se vuelven esenciales para su identidad y, por lo tanto, altamente resistentes al cambio (Stinchcombe, 1965;Pierson, 2000;Levitsky et al., 2016). Los actores que luchan contra la expropiación y otras agresiones estatistas adquieren prestigio social y un sentido de propósito asociado con esa lucha. ...

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Amenazas redistributivas, modelos de desarrollo y tributación en América Latina

... Third, my examination of political loyalty goes beyond the extant literature, which has focused on the material sources of loyalty, including patronage networks (Blaydes 2011;Gandhi and Przeworski 2007;Wintrobe 2000), economic performance (Reuter and Gandhi 2011;Shih 2020), and power-sharing arrangements (Meng 2020;Svolik 2012). Scholarship on the role of nonmaterial ties and threat perceptions in generating loyalty tends to be elite-and state-centric (Levitsky and Way 2022;Slater 2010). By contrast, I examine ethnic loyalty and threat perceptions at the group level, thereby highlighting the role of societal mechanisms that underpin regime survival. ...

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Unconditional Loyalty: The Survival of Minority Autocracies

... Ukraine's pattern of elections, successions, and street protests has implications for the rest of the region. A significant literature found that the "colored revolutions" were a case of "contagion," with models, inspirations, and tactics spreading from one polity to another (Bunce and Wolchik 2006;Jacoby 2006;Levitsky and Way 2006;Beissinger 2007). Russia and other autocratic regimes responded with an array of tactics intended to forestall such developments in their own countries, and so far, most have succeeded, though Belarus has paid a high price, with the government accepting increasing Russian influence in return for support against protesters of a rigged election. ...

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Elections, Succession, and Legitimacy in Ukraine

... naturales en América Latina (Kapiszewski et al., 2021). Sacco & Sacco (2020), advierten que, la volatilidad de los ingresos petroleros ha generado ciclos de auge y crisis en la región, dificultando la estabilidad económica. ...

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La paradoja de la abundancia en países de América Latina: caso Ecuador y Venezuela

... We begin by noting that students of social revolution (which includes revolutionary civil wars) have pointed to a link between successful revolutionaries' organizational capacity and regime durability (Tilly 1993). More recently, Clarke (2023), Levitsky and Way (2022), Meng and Paine (2022), and Lachapelle et al. (2020) have linked the durability and resilience of revolutionary regimes (compared to all other autocratic regimes) with the characteristics of the organizations that fought revolutionary wars and won. As Lachapelle et al. (2020) document, autocracies emerging out of violent social revolutions were able to develop cohesive ruling parties and powerful and loyal security apparatuses, leading to unusually long-lasting regimes. ...

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Ideology and Revolution in Civil Wars: The "Marxist Paradox"