A Crisis in Democracy? Lessons from the Past and Present

This set of 4 lectures examines one of the central concerns of many Americans

today: are we living through a crisis in our basic democratic system of

government? We will be exploring this question through two historical cases and

an examination of contemporary developments here in the 21st century. We will

examine the origins of the world’s first democracy in Athens in the 5th century

BCE and the reasons for its decline. We will then examine the rise and fall of the

democratic government of Weimar Germany between 1918 and 1933. We will

also give close attention to the rise of “illiberal democracy” since 1991 and how

most democracies today are experiencing flirtations with authoritarianism,

neofascism, and other severe challenges to essential checks and balances of a

democratic state