A New York Times article highlighted key takeaways from a recent lecture on campus discussing the future of American democracy from a comparative government standpoint.
the Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies and professor of government, specializes in the rise and fall of democractic systems in America and international countries. Bunce told her fellow social scientists that she is seeing something seemed reminiscent of the fall of Communism in the last century.
鈥淲e were looking at this in the 1980s 鈥 and if you said then the Soviet Union would break up, people didn鈥檛 believe you,鈥 Bunce told two colleagues, who responded with an uneasy laugh. 鈥淚鈥檓 just trying to give you an idea of the kind of things that can happen here.鈥
The field of comparative politics compares and contrasts the formation and fall of political systems.
鈥淭he consensus among the scholars is that modern America has never produced a president like Mr. Trump, but that other countries have," Bunce writes. "Hugo Ch谩vez in Venezuela pioneered using Twitter to attack his enemies and hosted a TV show called 'Alo, Presidente.' Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey鈥檚 current strongman, used the term 'deep state' decades before Mr. Trump did.鈥
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