James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington

Democracy

What Is Illiberal Democracy?

Scholars discuss Trump, Modi, and Erdoğan

February 20, 2025 • by Senem Aydin-Düzgit, Mark Frazier, Jeffrey C. Isaac and Pratap Bhanu Mehta

In November 2024, the India China Institute at The New School hosted the online panel "Trajectories of Authoritarianism in Democratic Regimes," which featured scholars Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Senem Aydin-Düzgit, and Jeffrey C. Isaac in conversation with moderator Mark W. Frazier about patterns of takeover, decay, and distrust of political institutions ...

Activism

Voting While Uncommitted

Sustained collective action is not incompatible with the singular act of voting

October 31, 2024 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I have never subscribed to the idea that citizens who refuse to vote for a Democratic candidate in a tight race are somehow morally responsible for the election of a Republican, however bad that Republican might be. If we are serious about liberal democracy, then we must recognize that every citizen ...

Activism

Reflections on the War between Israel and Hamas

Voices of sanity are in danger of being drowned out by the rhetoricians of all-out war

October 16, 2023 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

For a long time many civilians, Israeli and Palestinian, have suffered, as their leaders have failed to bring about a civil, peaceful, and at least modestly just end to a long and violent conflict. I feel for them all, and particularly for the children who have grown up knowing nothing ...

Reflections on the War between Israel and Hamas

A Scholar for Our Times

Friendship and the substance of hope

July 7, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

_____ “’two going together’ are better able both to think and to act.” —Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Chapter I, on friendship. I was just starting to wind down my tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives on Politics when I had my first actual conversation with Jeff Goldfarb. I had just published a lead ...

Democracy

Putting Liberal Democracy First Has Never Been More Important

It is hard to see how our current injustices can be repaired without working through and then “democratizing” these liberal democratic institutions.

May 5, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

During the four years of the Trump administration, I was one of those people, derisively labeled "tyrannophobes" by some on the left, who focused on Trump's assaults on democracy and argued for putting the defense of liberal democracy first. Most of those who criticized us surely recognized Trump's many objectionable features. They simply ...

Democracy

Citizens Defending Democracy Are Being Shot on the Streets of Myanmar.

We should support them

March 29, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

By all accounts the situation in Myanmar is grave, as citizens struggle non-violently to defend democracy, and as the military massacres them. As always, behind this violent military coup is a complicated political situation. Here is an extensive account published in today’s New York Times. Here is a recent Times piece on the ...

Democracy

Can The Republican Party Successfully Orbanify the U.S.?

Some comparative reflections on the exceptional vulnerability of American democracy

March 23, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

This past year the U.S. experienced a transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. It was not a peaceful transfer of power. On January 6, a large and angry mob descended on the U.S. Capitol to “Stop the Steal” by obstructing the constitutionally mandated certification by Congress of the ...

Democracy

Confronting the World Wide Threat of Right Wing Authoritarianism

If we don’t hang together, we will surely hang separately

February 3, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Our effort to create and nourish a “world-wide committee of democratic correspondence” began long before the coronavirus laid waste to our world. And as a world-wide network, our efforts have always involved a strong online component. For the web affords our far-flung group many opportunities for the sharing of ideas ...

Confronting the World Wide Threat of Right Wing Authoritarianism

Democracy

The Day After?

We have much work yet to do

November 9, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The votes have been counted, and Joe Biden is now the President-elect. On Saturday night, he gave a Victory Speech, following a speech by his running-mate, Kamala Harris. I have been very cautious, very concerned that Trump might obstruct the electoral process and cling to power. I remain concerned, about the ...

Democracy

We Will Be Lucky if Biden Actually Becomes the President-Elect

But this election is not over, and even the best case scenario is pretty dismal

November 4, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

I have never thought this would be easy. I always knew that this was not a normal election, and that it would be deeply contentious during and after “Election Day.” The day before Election Day, i.e., two days ago, I published a piece articulating what I have been saying for some ...

We Will Be Lucky if Biden Actually Becomes the President-Elect

Democracy

Now Is Not the Time to Polemicize Against A Broad Anti-Trump Coalition

August 21, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

The next three months will be crucial for the fate of democracy in the U.S. And the outcome of the November election will determine whether the American system of government can furnish even minimally decent and effective responses to the pressing challenges of COVID-19 and racial and economic injustice. As more ...

Democracy

Is Some Version of Our Future Now Playing Out on the Streets of Minsk?

August 17, 2020 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

A contest over the legitimacy of an election and the illegitimacy of an autocrat is currently playing out on the streets of Minsk and throughout Belarus. I have no particular expertise about Belarus and nothing profound to say about this conflict. Belarus’s longtime President Alexander Lukashenko is a dictator who rose to ...