In the United States, today’s Republican Party is what political scientists call “personalist.” Power is concentrated with one individual, and other party elites don’t have much ability—or willingness—to oppose that leader. In other countries around the world, when personalist parties have won control of national government, the result has been democratic backsliding and growing authoritarianism. Understanding why this is a problem for the future of democracy can also help us understand what to do about it. Erica Frantz studies authoritarian politics, with a focus on democratization, democratic backsliding, conflict, and development. She is an associate professor of political science at Michigan State University and a research fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
Erica Frantz:
Today, we see a Republican Party that is basically synonymous with Trump, and as things move forward, they're unlikely to do much when he breaks with traditional democratic norms.
Alex Lovit:
There's a lot about Donald Trump that feels unique. He's the only American president elected without any prior experience in politics, national administration, or the military. After he lost the 2020 election, he attempted to block the transfer of power in ways no previous president had done. And now in his second term, he's claimed unprecedented powers for the presidency.
But political scientists say that, on a global scale, Donald Trump isn't unique. There have been political leaders like him all over the world. Actually, his style of politics has become more and more common in recent years. They also say that, most of the time, leaders like Trump have led to democratic backsliding and growing authoritarianism. So, what can this tell us about how to avoid the outright collapse of democracy in the US?
You are listening to The Context. It's a show from the Charles F. Kettering Foundation about how to get democracy to work for everyone and why that's so hard to do. I'm your host, Alex Lovit. My guest today is Erica Frantz. She teaches political science at Michigan State University, and she's a research fellow here at the Kettering Foundation. Erica is an expert on authoritarianism, specifically what happens when leaders dominate political parties. She'll tell us what causes these so-called personalist parties to arise, and what, if anything, can stop them from dismantling democracy.
Erica Frantz, welcome to The Context.
Erica Frantz:
Thanks for having me.
Alex Lovit:
Let's start with a softball. Nice easy question. You're an expert in democracy and authoritarianism. How would you rate the United States right now in those terms?
Erica Frantz:
We are experiencing a time of distress. There have been multiple events in the last 10 years or so where observers have raised the alarm bell that US democracy was experiencing troubles, but a lot of that was an overreaction. Now, since the new Trump administration, we've seen a number of actions to diminish executive constraints that most democracy experts think of as troubling. The consensus among most experts is that the US is entering a period of democratic backsliding.
Alex Lovit:
What does that mean? What is democratic backsliding?
Erica Frantz:
There are a variety of ways that we can talk about democracy. The critical core component of a democracy is that there are free and fair elections, but that's like the lowest bar for a country to have a democracy. Beyond that, you want to see respect for civil liberties, you want to see active political participation in contestation, and then you also want to see executive constraints.
We know from the research that it is pretty imperative that there are ways to limit executive power, because once leaders get a lot of power, they ultimately tend to fiddle with elections in ways that make them not free and not fair. Increasingly, almost always it's the case that democracies today fall apart because a leader, who was elected in a free and fair race, so in a democracy, that they slowly chip away at constraints to their rule across the legislature, the judiciary, the bureaucracy. They start to target the media and their opponents, and then ultimately they fiddle with the electoral process. But that's basically the playbook and it is fairly standard even in really diverse contexts.
Alex Lovit:
I want to ask about a concept that you've written about that I think is related to this idea of democratic backsliding, which is personalism, and you're arguing that that increases risks of authoritarianism. First of all, can you just give me a brief definition of what is personalism?
Erica Frantz:
Personalism, in the academic sense, is when the leader has disproportionate political influence vis-a-vis other political actors. When you have lower levels of personalism, there are constraints. There are other actors that are involved in bargaining, that are involved in discussions that could push back against things. It's more of a collegial sort of political system. To be clear, in nearly every political system in the world, leaders tend to have more influence than other elites. We might say that Barack Obama had a lot of power when he was President of the United States, but that pales in comparison to the political power that Vladimir Putin has in Russia, which is a really highly concentrated political system, where Putin pretty much determines all decisions.
Alex Lovit:
In a democracy, what's the difference between personalism and just political charisma?
Erica Frantz:
We see personalism more as a feature of a political party rather than a characteristic of any single individual. You could see charismatic politicians arise in traditional parties, but in personalist parties, it's really top-heavy, and we can observe that the party itself looks a lot different. The composition of the party elite is different. The ways in which the party engages with local organizations is different, how nominations work is different.
It's very tempting to talk about charisma or specific personality type, but a charismatic politician on their own can't just single-handedly destroy democracy. There have been many questions that, oh, it's just because Trump has this specific personality, he's able to connect with voters in a different way. That's why he's been able to consolidate more control in the US. But the evidence really shows that it's these features of the party and the leader's relationship with their party that are ultimately consequential for what happens with democracy.
Alex Lovit:
Okay, so when we're talking about political parties, I think a lot of Americans are pretty cynical and disillusioned with the two major political parties right now. As a political scientist, can you tell me, what's the point of political parties? What purpose do they serve? If I'm designing a democracy, why should I have political parties in the picture?
Erica Frantz:
That's a great question, because one of the messages of our research is that personalist parties are bad for democracy, and that's a boring finding in some ways. Who cares about political parties? One of the messages that comes out of this is that, oh, we actually should care a lot about political parties and what they look like and what makes them healthy.
Political parties provide important shortcuts for voters so that voters know what sorts of policies politicians are likely to support. A conservative political party would have clear conservative ideas that it supports. Liberal party would have the same, things like that. That is very different than a personalist political party because those parties really are about supporting the leader's career. They are less likely to have clear policies. They can be all over the ideological spectrum. They can shift at a moment's notice, and that is very different than how we have traditionally thought of political parties.
Alex Lovit:
You already mentioned this a little bit, but apply this concept of personalism to the United States right now. How personalist are our politics? How personalist are our two major political parties?
Erica Frantz:
Parties can vary a lot in terms of the ways in which they're organized, and our two political parties have indeed changed quite a bit over time. The big difference today is that the Republican Party looks very different than it did before Trump. In the past, the Republican Party was more of a traditional conservative party. You had some sense of where the party was going to stand on specific issues, wanting lower taxes, less government intervention, less government welfare spending, things like that.
Well, today's Republican Party is really dominated by what Trump wants. So rather than the party and its platform driving the sorts of policies that he proposes, we're instead seeing the situation where people don't know what is going to happen next, what policy Trump's going to support next. He often even changes his mind, which is unusual when we think about traditional parties.
Trump won office with the Republican Party in 2016, but had not fully personalized the Republican Party at that moment. There were still Republican elites who would stand up to Trump. He was not the dominant figure to the same degree that he is now. After 2020, after he left power, and after the insurrection of the Capitol, he was able to substantially increase his own personal influence over the Republican Party. Today, we see a Republican Party that is basically synonymous with Trump, where, if you want to get the party's nomination, you need to stay in his good favor. Where there are statues of Trump at different conservative organization meetings. This is a very different landscape than what the Republican Party has traditionally looked like from most of recent history.
Alex Lovit:
Not every authoritarian regime is personalist, and not every personalist movement in a democracy leads to authoritarianism, but it often does, so tell me a story of what that looks like. Give me an example of a country where, in a democracy, a personalist leader was elected and that led to democratic backsliding, ultimately democratic collapse.
Erica Frantz:
Yeah. In fact, the cases of this not happening are pretty rare, where a leader backed by a personalist party does not destroy democracy. Or does not erode it, at least. The most notable example is France with Macron and his previously En Marche party, where we haven't seen democracy deteriorate in France, even though that is a personalist party. Elsewhere, however, there is just one case after the next of this happening.
An example that I often give, because it really illustrates the entire arc of how this transpires, is El Salvador with Nayib Bukele, who, up until 2025, most people hadn't really heard of but now is in the news quite a bit. Bukele created his own movement, Nuevas Ideas, in 2017, I think, and this was really just a way for him to try to win office. His childhood friend was the head of the party. His cousin, I believe, is now the head of the party. There's all sorts of overlap where this party is really about Bukele.
In 2019, even though Bukele did not have much political experience, he was able to win the presidency. Initially, most observers didn't think that anything was wrong. In fact, there was some commentary that, oh, this is going to be healthy, that we finally see a shift in El Salvador, and we finally have somebody new who can really fix our problems. Sure enough, however, two years later, Bukele wins legislative elections big, and Nueva Ideas basically has all sorts of political power in the legislature.
He almost immediately afterwards seeks to change the judiciary to be more supportive of him. He changes the rules, things like shifting the retirement ages for judges, so that many judges who were opposing him were forced into retirement, then he can just replace them with his allies. He also basically started to go after his opponents, targeting individuals who he saw as threatening. We now would not consider El Salvador to be a democracy anymore, because it is the case where Bukele's group has disproportionate influence over the political process, and opposition candidates don't have a meaningful chance of winning elections.
Alex Lovit:
That's a story of personalism leading to authoritarianism, and that's a story that you're saying is happening all over the world. Talk to me about the how. Do you have a big picture answer for, what are the mechanics of this?
Erica Frantz:
I do. What we have observed is that because these parties are really different in that their elite tend to be friends and family members of the leader... I already mentioned that the leaders control nominations. They fund these parties, they have all sorts of power. Elites tend to get in line behind the leader, regardless of what the leader does. In a more traditional party, party elites might be more concerned about the reputation of the party, should the leader do things that are somewhat unwise. But with these personalist parties, leaders have pretty much free rein to do what they want because their elites depend on them for their careers.
Bukele, again, is a great example here, where Nuevas Ideas is a lot of his friends and family members, and we're not going to see his cousins standing up to him when he talks about extending term limits and things like that. These party elites tend to have very little governing or political experience prior to being part of this party. They know that if the leader leaves power, they have no future, so they have no incentive to say, "Hey, this is not a very good idea. This is harmful for democracy. This is unwise," because they're fearful of what could happen to them, and leaders do a variety of things to maintain that fear of disloyalty.
These party elites and personalist parties also lack capacity. Again, they don't have experience in politics, so they don't know how to act as a collective. These parties also tend to be really top-heavy with very little local presence, so there's no opportunities for a local party or organizations to push back against what the leader might be doing.
Alex Lovit:
You're telling a story there of the structure of the party and how power is shared within the party. What about among a more rank and file support base? Is there a story to be told there about how personalism changes how a politician relates to voters who might not have a lot of power to influence the party individually, but may identify with it, may consistently vote for it?
Erica Frantz:
Yeah, so there's a lot to say there. We do think that the new media environment has made personalist parties more viable. We've seen personalist parties increase globally, and one reason we think is because of the changing media environment, where you no longer need a grassroots effort that has spent years of investing in local actors to gain office. Now, you can simply go to social media, do a couple of entertaining things, gain a following, and win power. On top of this, once these parties win office, because their elite basically get in line behind everything that they say, these elites send very important cues to ordinary voters about what's normal.
This matters because when these leaders do things that are harmful for democracy, from the perspective of most experts, like when they pack the courts with their loyalists, or try to censor media outlets, rather than their party elite saying anything about this, they instead reinforce what the leader's done as normal. There's a lot of research that shows that the actions of these leaders and the ways in which party elites get in line behind it and say, "Hey, everything's fine," that actually shifts what ordinary people think of in terms of what's normal in a democracy. It shifts their understanding of traditional democratic norms in ways that ultimately enable the leader to get away with it without any accountability.
Alex Lovit:
You're arguing that personalism leads to authoritarianism, and in my mind, that's bad enough. We don't really need to go any further than that. But you do say there's some other bad outcomes that come out of personalism. So besides it leading to authoritarianism, what are the other negative consequences?
Erica Frantz:
As I mentioned, personalism shifts what ordinary voters think of as normal in a democracy. Even voters who didn't support political violence in the past, once they gain affiliation with these personalist parties, they're more likely in surveys to report support for political violence. So that's troubling. We also know that personalist politics and the actions of these leaders and the elites that get behind them, and what they do, is polarizing. There are plenty of good reasons to expect that polarization can be harmful for democracies. But what we also find is that personalism and these leaders themselves are increasing polarization.
So when leaders do things like vilify their opponents and say they want to imprison their opponents, or if they actually do imprison their opponents, those actions themselves actually intensify the divide amongst society in ways that are harmful and are difficult to recover from. Even when these leaders of personalist parties eventually lose power, it's not that democracy is just super healthy afterwards. It's a really long-lasting impact that can be difficult for society to overcome. And I didn't even get into all of the harmful policies that can come out of these personalist leaders, particularly with respect to just making poor choices.
Alex Lovit:
What do you mean by that? Spell that out a little bit.
Erica Frantz:
In the authoritarian world, this has all played out very well with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Most people thought that when Putin decided to go to war with Ukraine, that was a really foolish decision. That he didn't need to do this. What was he thinking? Evidence has mounted that he did not have very good information about that choice, that he overestimated Russian capabilities. Putin has effectively narrowed his inner circle so that he's just surrounded by a bunch of yes men, and individuals are fearful of telling Putin things that he doesn't want to hear because they're afraid they're going to lose a seat at the table. So Putin has become very isolated, lives in a really small world, and it's very difficult to have accurate information flows in that context.
People are flattering the leader, they're lying to the leader, and as a result, particularly when it comes to foreign policy choices, they're not operating with very good information, and they can make some dramatic and deadly mistakes. We have context when power concentrates like this, where leaders, they end up being more paranoid, they don't know who they can trust. There's a really famous image of Putin at the head of a table after the war with Ukraine started. It's a really long table. He's at one end and there's two or three military officers at the end. That is personalist politics decision-making at its core, and it can lead to all sorts of unpredictable, often unwise policy choices.
Alex Lovit:
You've just said, and not necessarily in this order, but number one, the United States right now is being led by an increasingly personalist party and leader. Number two, that that trend internationally tends to lead to authoritarianism. And number three, that you're seeing troubling signs of growing authoritarianism in the United States. When you think about this picture, what worries you?
Erica Frantz:
I want to emphasize that I think there was an overreaction during Trump's first term about threats to democracy, because besides the fact that he maybe said or floated policy ideas that were somewhat disconcerting, he didn't actually do very many things that, according to most democracy indicators, are harmful. However, things have shifted since Trump's first term, and the biggest shift has been his full control over the Republican Party now. There are no longer Republican elites who stand up to him, and this really played out with a number of his cabinet confirmations, where there were individuals who he nominated for key cabinet positions that lacked the relevant experience. At the time, I remember saying, "Okay, this is a big litmus test for whether the Republican Party leader are going to stand up to this." They didn't, and this signals a Republican Party elite that is fully folded and is now beholden to Trump.
Now, that matters because the party has a majority, and as things move forward, they're unlikely to do much when he breaks with traditional democratic norms. Trump mentioned, or has floated the idea, of staying in office for a third term and has tried to justify that there's a legal way that he could do this. Rather than reacting in outrage, a number of Republican officials actually got behind this idea and suggested that this was good. Now, from the perspective of a democracy expert, that's a red flag. The fact that we would be completely ignoring term limits, which are a hallmark of democratic rule in the US that we see turnover in power, that's troubling.
We're not in a place like El Salvador. We still do have reasonably free and fair elections that have taken place. Trump won in a free and fair race. The question mark is going to be the degree to which that deteriorates in the years to come, whether it's through gerrymandering, there are efforts to disenfranchise voters in ways that hurt the Democrats and so on and so on. The US is certainly still a democracy right now, but the chance of it backsliding in the years to come is dramatically higher than it would've been under Trump's first term.
Alex Lovit:
You were talking earlier about Trump's threats/promises to run for a third term, which is pretty clearly prohibited in the Constitution. Do you think we should take that seriously? I mean, do you think there's a real chance that that might happen?
Erica Frantz:
I gave an interview with a reporter right after Trump got elected, and they said, "Well, how do you think he might autocratize the country?" I said, "Well, he might stay in office for another term." And they said, "Oh, that is absurd. How could you even float that idea?" I said, "He'll try to float that idea." And he did float this idea.
What you can see happening in other cases is the leaders start to float these ideas, see what the reaction is, and then they slowly increase the amount of times that they talk about this sort of thing and try to gauge public sentiment. And then, eventually, they come up with loopholes. Bukele is not supposed to still be in office. He still is. They can get creative in how they interpret the law. They can, in more serious instances, amend the constitution so that they can stay in office longer. And if the leader doesn't gauge public sentiment correctly, we can see really, really massive protests erupt, and that can actually be something that unifies both the supporters of the leader and their opponents to push back against that sort of action.
Alex Lovit:
Personalism as a concept, it's about a person. There's a person at the center of it, which, in this case, we're talking about Donald Trump. There is going to be a future of the United States without Donald Trump, and presumably a future of the Republican Party without Donald Trump. What happens to personalist movements when the person is no longer on the scene?
Erica Frantz:
In authoritarian contexts, most of the time that the leader of a personalist movement dies or leaves power, they do have a successor in place. The chance of the regime being disrupted goes up a little bit, but the majority of the time we see politics as usual. Often we see that the regime persists afterwards. An example that might be more familiar to people would be Chavez in Venezuela, where he died and Maduro took over. Granted that Maduro has faced greater challenges with legitimacy governing there than Chavez did, he's been in power for a lot longer than people would have anticipated, particularly given the severity of the economic crisis there. But usually we see politics as usual or the political system continue as usual in aftermath of those sorts of events.
Alex Lovit:
What about in a democracy? What does it look like for a personalist party to win power, to maybe cause some democratic backsliding and then lose power?
Erica Frantz:
A good example of this is Brazil with Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro did a number of things that sounded alarm bells for democracy experts while he was president, and he ultimately left power having lost presidential elections. But the harm that has been done to Brazilian democracy has been fairly long-lasting, where most indicators suggest that Brazil is still a really deeply polarized society in the aftermath of Bolsonaro's time in office. So it is difficult to mount an effective response against the strong men, but the case also illustrates that it's not impossible.
There was a broad-based coalition of opponents to Bolsonaro that stood up to some of his policy proposals and so forth, and so there were a number of protests that occurred in the latter part of his term. Importantly, the courts also stood up to Bolsonaro, and he lost in free and fair elections after just one term. The challenge is that Bolsonaro's still in the news today, so it's not like he's gone away, even though he's barred from running again. And it's not like Brazilian society has fully healed from his time in office.
Alex Lovit:
If somebody's listening to this and they're worried about authoritarianism and the threat of authoritarianism in this country, does this concept of personalism give tools to fight against that? Does it help us understand what to do?
Erica Frantz:
I would hope so, because in my view, a first step to understanding what to do is understanding what happened. Most people in all different parts of the world tend to think of their country as unique, that there's something unique about what has happened in their country or about who their political leaders are. Instead, what we're seeing is that no, this is a common pattern. When you see this sort of development with personalist leaders, you're likely to see X, Y, and Z transpire afterwards. If anything, we should not be surprised that we are observing these developments in the US. This is the playbook. There is not much that is unique about what is happening here.
And so, once you understand, okay, well, these are some of the red flags, this is the typical playbook, this is likely to be what happens next, I think it makes it easier to determine, okay, well, how do we levy an effective response? How do pro-democracy advocates deal with this? We know that these leaders intentionally try to divide their opposition. They're trying to make it difficult for their opponents to levy a concerted response. This is something that we know, so we should be prepared that it's going to be difficult to unite.
There isn't a ton of research on how to protect democracies from backsliding, but we do know that you do need broad-based coalitions. Broad-based coalitions that integrate multiple parts of society tend to be more effective in pushing back against backsliding than piecemeal groupings. However, it's difficult for broad-based coalitions to maintain unity in the face of what these leaders are doing. Also, being wise to the fact that people often say, "Well, it could never happen here. We would never see authoritarianism here." Being attuned to the fact that it is happening in surprising places today is also somewhat important.
Alex Lovit:
Something I worry about here is if we're trying to create a broad movement that includes as big a tent as possible to push back against authoritarianism, there might be some vulnerable groups that it would be politically expedient to push outside of that tent. If the authoritarian is really scapegoating LGBTQ+ people, for example, there might be opportunities where that's actually fairly politically popular, and standing up in defense of queer rights is politically difficult. Do you have any thoughts on how to address that kind of challenge?
Erica Frantz:
I don't. But that actually gets at, it sounds simple, develop a broad-based coalition and that will be an effective way of pushing back against backsliding. But that comment gets at how difficult this can be to ensure that these coalitions maintain steam and that they don't get sidelined by, let's say, even, we didn't mention, extremist voices within the coalition. So there are a lot of challenges. There's some evidence, too, that new media is making these movements fizzle out quicker. It's easier to get a protest going today than it used to be because you can broadcast it on social media. But there's also some evidence that those protests are less likely to be successful because they lack that organizational depth that protests of the past required to actually gain momentum.
Alex Lovit:
There's a few different ways I can imagine a personalist regime coming to an end. One, in a democracy, it might just be defeated by another party. It could be limited by term limits. The leader could lose the faith of the base supporters. The elites of the party might rise up and revolt. Do you have thoughts on which of those pathways seem the most likely to you? Which of them maybe should take the most energy?
Erica Frantz:
This would be purely speculative.
Alex Lovit:
Well, speculate for me.
Erica Frantz:
There are a variety of ways out, and scholars are scrambling to catch up to what's expired globally and gain a better sense of, well, what are the cases where democracy's rebound? One study found that only one in five cases of backsliding rebounds. So, really slim odds of recovery. We know the quicker that you push back against these leaders, the better your odds, because once their power grab gains momentum, it tends to lead to more power. Power begets more power.
That said, continued momentum on the ground is pretty critical. Sometimes what can provide the impetus for a really large protest movement is some sort of corruption scandal. In Guatemala, for example, recently, it was experiencing backsliding, where a corrupt elite had basically taken control and were doing everything they could to maintain power ahead of their 2023 elections. But a little known anti-corruption candidate gained a lot of popularity because the citizens there were so fed up with corruption. It led to lots of anti-corruption protests, and he ended up winning power.
That's a recent success story, 2023, where corruption, which is an issue that most people... Ordinary people really don't like stories of corruption. And most of these personalist leaders, we didn't even get into it, they tend to be corrupt. They use corruption to fuel the support of their narrow base of supporters. Should a widespread corruption scandal erupt, that could be enough to unify opposition groups. Occasionally, these leaders I mentioned make mistakes, and we could see something like a huge economic policy disaster that affects the pockets of supporters of the leader. That is within the realm of possibility in the US with some of the ideas that Trump has floated that most economists think will lead to duress for ordinary people.
I mentioned that the number of years matters. That once these processes gain momentum, it's difficult to reverse. The upcoming electoral cycles are going to be very critical in the US, the degree to which we still have electoral integrity, and there still is the potential for alternation in office here, given that we're still only in Trump's first term. Granted it of his second term, but the first few years of this second, more personalized term.
Alex Lovit:
You said that upcoming election cycles are going to be really important. What should people be watching out for? What would be signs of trouble? What would be signs of hope?
Erica Frantz:
Signs of trouble are when the opposition does not have a reasonable shot of winning the election because the state is abusing resources. That can come in the form of campaigning, where one group has disproportionate ability to campaign. It can come in the form of gerrymandering. We can see the electoral rules shifted to benefit the governing party. That was Orban's strategy in Hungary. Change electoral rules and suddenly Fidesz is winning the majority in more places than before. Also important is how the opposition is treated. Are we seeing people who speak out, candidates who speak out against Trump, either arrested or targeted with libel suits or whatever? Those sorts of things all accumulate to a situation where you no longer have democracy because it wasn't, in reality, a free and fair contest, where all political opponents had a reasonable chance of winning.
Alex Lovit:
On the hope side, what would be a sign that things are maybe going to be all right?
Erica Frantz:
On the hope side, there have been recent cases of democratic rebounding that I've mentioned, so Brazil. Bolsonaro lost. Poland, the Law and Justice party lost in 2023, and they had done more harm to Polish democracy than Trump has thus far in the United States. There are examples where these leaders do not win reelection that should give some cause for optimism.
In the end, though, what we really want come the next electoral cycle are elections that... I've said it before, but free and fair. We want to make sure that voting rights are respected and that districts are drawn in ways that don't favor only one party and that opponents can speak freely without having some sort of retribution. Those are all really key components to making sure that it is a fair race. I'd be hopeful if there was good reason to expect that the contest were going to be as they have in the past, which all experts have assessed are of high quality, where there's electoral integrity.
Alex Lovit:
Let's say we course correct and get back towards democratic rule. Regardless of which party is in power, but a party that supports democratic norms, that still leaves us with this problem of this is a thing that can happen. Personalism and authoritarianism are on the rise all over the world as your research demonstrates. Is there anything we can do to protect against this threat in future?
Erica Frantz:
That's the million-dollar question, to be honest, and it's something that colleagues and I are thinking about critically. I mean, we don't have very good answers at this juncture. We know a lot about we what's happening, why it's happening, what the red flags are and so forth, but we know far less about what to do about it. That said, we do know that both sides tend to live in different media environments and that can make agreement on facts very difficult. So to the degree that ordinary people have greater media literacy and are better able to disentangle fact from fiction, I think that that would be a helpful first step. We also could use some more investment, and, this is super boring, but party building.
Alex Lovit:
Well, it's important.
Erica Frantz:
Making sure that we have healthy parties to the degree that we can have more fair party building and campaign financing rules. I think that would also be helpful. I also think there's space for building stronger connections between local groups and the party, and strengthening local connections in general.
There's been a decline, for example, in local media, and there's some evidence that that's been harmful for ordinary people and how they engage with their local communities and what's happening at the national level as well. I have some ideas for what I think could be helpful moving forward. It is a critical juncture in a number of countries around the world, including the United States, in that we have a leader in power who, regardless of your ideological persuasion, there have been changes in terms of executive constraints here that fall out of line with what we would like to see in a healthy democracy, and the moment is ripe for starting to think about how to respond.
Alex Lovit:
It's a pretty big problem. It's a global problem, it's a national problem. It's scary, and that can feel pretty disempowering. Do you have any advice for someone listening to this who is not a party elite? Is there anything that we can do as individuals that can help solve this crisis?
Erica Frantz:
I have a couple things to say there. One thing is that it's important to differentiate policies that you don't like, whether it's on immigration, or abortion rights, or what have you, versus policies that are harmful for democracy. Step one, let's be clear what the focal point is and understand that it's healthy for countries to have political debates over policies. It's unhealthy when we have leaders pursue power grabs. Another thing to note is that, in the end, I can't think of a case of democratic rebounding where there was not popular mobilization. Popular action is very much a critical component.
And then, the last thing that I would mention is that despite the fact that a number of people might float ideas in the media that voters are demanding authoritarianism, there really isn't any evidence that supports that. Survey after survey around the world suggests that the voters might not necessarily know what democracy is, that's the political system that they want. Something like 90% of citizens surveyed worldwide would prefer democracy as their form of government. So there is demand for democracy. It's just a matter of political leads delivering.
Alex Lovit:
Well, Erica Franz, you scared me a little bit today, but-
Erica Frantz:
Sorry.
Alex Lovit:
... thank you for giving us your wisdom and your advice, and thank you for joining me on The Context.
Erica Frantz:
Thanks so much for having me.
Alex Lovit:
The Context is a production of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Our producers are George Drake Jr. and Emily Vaughn. Melinda Gilmore is our director of communications. The rest of our team includes Jamaal Bell, Tayo Clyburn, Jasmine Olaore, and Darla Minnick. We'll be back in two weeks with another conversation about democracy. In the meantime, visit our website Kettering.org to learn more about the foundation or to sign up for our newsletter.
If you have comments for the show, you can reach us at TheContext@kettering.org. If you like the show, leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts, or just tell a friend about us. I'm Alex Lovit. I'm a senior program officer and historian here at Kettering. Thanks for listening.
The views expressed during this program are critical to us having a productive dialogue, but they do not reflect the views or opinions of the Kettering Foundation. The Foundation's broadcast and related promotional activities should not be construed as an endorsement of its content. The Foundation hereby disclaims liability to any party for direct, indirect, implied, punitive, special, incidental, or other consequential damages that may arise in connection with this broadcast, which is provided as is and without warranties.
Speaker 3:
This podcast is part of The Democracy Group.
Lee Drutman:
American politics feels broken, but the real problem isn't just the headlines, it's the system itself. I'm Lee Drutman, and on Politics In Question, I team up with James Wallner to dig into the roots of our political dysfunction. We ask the big questions. Why was our democracy built this way? What's gone wrong, and how can we fix it?
The show isn't about the latest scandal or who's up in the polls. It's about the structures that shape everything, from the Senate filibuster to how we vote. We don't always agree, but that's the point. We challenge each other. We rethink old assumptions, and we imagine what a better democracy could actually look like. So, if you're tired of surface-level takes and ready to think deeper, Politics In Question is for you. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.