2022-2023 Academic Catalog

May 13, 2024

2022-2023 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

PSCI 112 - Democracy in Distress?

As has become clear over the past year, particularly since the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, democracy in the United States cannot be taken for granted. IDEA has added the United States for the first time to its list of “backsliding democracies.” Furthermore, in 2022 Freedom House, an organization that rates people’s access to political rights and civil liberties in 210 countries and measures the level of democratic governance in 29 countries, issued a report on the US highlighting that the country’s “democratic institutions have suffered erosion, as reflected in rising political polarization and extremism, partisan pressure on the electoral process, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system, harmful policies on immigration and asylum seekers, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence.” As a result, the United States has slid down on its ranking of global freedom score: it is now ranked 83 (on a scale of 100), below Argentina and Mongolia. Indeed, it is not an overstatement to claim that democracy in the United States is in crises. But this is not merely a US phenomenon as many other democratic countries face similar challenges and Freedom House shows that between 2020-21 most countries are “less free.”

Anticipated Terms Offered: OCCASSIONALLY