In this enlightening study, which has experienced immense success and sparked a storm of discussions and publications in both the international and Greek press, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, political scientists and professors at Harvard University, enumerate and analyze the key signs that emerge whenever a democracy is on the verge of collapse, while also discussing the means that can suspend the disease of democratic governance, emphasizing that democracies will survive only if they decide to defend their principles and ideals.

The grim dictatorships, whether military, fascist, or communist, are now few, at least in large parts of humanity. Military coups and other forms of violent power grabs are becoming increasingly rare. However, democracies are still being dismantled, "dying," but in a different way. Since the end of the Cold War, it is not the military that plays a leading role in the dismantling of democracy, but the elected leaders themselves.

This is the case not only in Venezuela with Chávez but also in countries such as Georgia, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey, Peru, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The decline, the “stripping” of democracy today begins at the ballot box.

Among other things, the book notes that one of the fundamental conditions for the survival of Democracy is the institutional self-restraint that the current governing figures (must) show. In other words, it is not only the formal rules that those in power are obliged to respect, but also the unwritten ones.

These are implicit or customary rules that have been established over decades or even centuries of institutional functioning of a Democracy, which bind a politician as much as formal rules do, dictating what they should avoid saying or doing, regardless of whether no established law formally prohibits this.

This is the first time in our days - with the striking exception of the interwar period and the rise of totalitarianism - that the primary danger to Democracies does not stem from some failure of formal rules but from the way the very bearers of power perceive the limits set by these rules.

Dimitris P. Sotiriopoulos, series coordinator
“Awakening and Warning: a clear picture of reality beyond the chaos of everyday life.” Timothy Snyder, author
“We owe gratitude to the authors of this book who have offered us their deep understanding of the central political issue of our time.” Francis Fukuyama, author
“Chilling... A provocative analysis of the similarities between the rise of Donald Trump and the fall of other democracies.” Kirkus Reviews