How Republics Die : Creeping Authoritarianism in Ancient Rome and Beyond

Abstract

Authoritarianism is everywhere on the advance democracies seem fragile and threatened. This book responds to current political science scholarship on democratic breakdown by bringing the history back in. It primarily focuses on the Roman Republic: the only enduring electoral Republic to die from internal causes, with chapters that address other examples, showing how such political systems have historically fallen prey to autocrats.