{"id":311222,"date":"2018-04-11T16:44:21","date_gmt":"2018-04-11T20:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=311222"},"modified":"2018-04-26T12:09:23","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T16:09:23","slug":"political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222\/","title":{"rendered":"Political scientists monitor threats to US democratic institutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOne of the greatest threats to democracy is the idea that it is unassailable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the tagline of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/brightlinewatch.org\/\">Bright Line Watch<\/a>, which neatly sums up the group\u2019s motivation. Made up of four political scientists\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gretchenhelmke.com\/\">Gretchen Helmke<\/a>\u00a0of the University of Rochester,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dartmouth.edu\/~nyhan\/\">Brendan Nyhan<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.dartmouth.edu\/jcarey\/\">John Carey<\/a>\u00a0of Dartmouth College, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/politicalscience.yale.edu\/people\/susan-stokes\">Susan Stokes<\/a>\u00a0of Yale University\u2014the non-partisan initiative set out to monitor democratic practices in the United States and potential threats to those practices.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"embed-container-quadcast\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/6470913\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/autoplay\/no\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/87A93A\/\" width=\"100%\" height=\"90\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/quadcast-transcript-political-scientists-monitor-threats-to-us-democractic-instituions\/\">Read the transcript<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The group focuses on democratic institutions such as free and fair elections, checks and balances, and freedom of the press. In their <a href=\"http:\/\/brightlinewatch.org\/wave4\/\">latest quarterly survey<\/a> of political science scholars and the general public, they\u2019ve discovered reason to be concerned.<\/p>\n<p>Born in late 2016, Bright Line Watch found its raison d&#8217;\u00eatre in the widespread concern over the possible erosion of those institutions in this country, says Helmke.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur goal was to bring what we know as academics\u2014what we\u2019ve learned from our scholarly work\u2014and bring that perspective to public debates about the quality of democracy in the United States, its vulnerabilities as well as its sources of resilience,\u201d says Helmke.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>\u2018Sobering results\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>There are several factors that the scholarship indicates would protect American democracy, says Helmke, adding that the chances of a complete breakdown of democracy in the US\u2014the kind that occurred in the 20<span style=\"font-size: small;\">th\u00a0<\/span>century in parts of Latin America, for example\u2014are slim.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA military coup style breakdown is highly unlikely,\u201d she notes. Scholars who have studied the statistical likelihood of that type of breakdown look at such factors as the relationship between levels of wealth in the US\u2014where wealth is comparatively high\u2014and also the age of this country\u2019s democracy. Research shows that the age of a given democracy serves to protect it.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, the longer\u2014the stronger.<\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t exhale quite yet, cautions Helmke who notes the group\u2019s concern about the gradual and slow erosion of democracy in this country. \u201cThat process\u2014where it\u2019s a slow kind of piecemeal challenging of different institutions that support democracy\u2014is something that we see in several parts of the world, and something that we are now seeing in the United States today. It\u2019s very early on so I don\u2019t know what the long-term prospects are, but yes, I think there are reasons to be concerned,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Explaining their impetus to be watchful, the scholars write that \u201cat a time of potential danger to American\u00a0democratic norms and institutions, it is more urgent than ever for scholars to highlight the risks to our system of government.\u201d That\u2019s why together they compile quarterly reports, based on careful scientific polling of more than 1,000 political experts and a nationally representative sample of 2,000 members of the public.<\/p>\n<p>The results are \u201csobering,\u201d says the team, sounding nuanced alarm bells.<\/p>\n<p>While the public assesses the state of American democracy more negatively than the polled experts, both groups agree that the performance of US democracy has declined since President Trump took office just over a year ago, the quartet concludes in its latest report.<\/p>\n<p>At the core of their regular surveys is a battery of 27 measures, ranging from free speech and an unimpeded press, to constitutional limits on executive powers, to vote representation, and the independence of the judiciary. On 21 of these 27 democratic principles, the survey finds that the experts\u2019 rating has declined over time.<\/p>\n<p>For example, <a href=\"http:\/\/brightlinewatch.org\/wave4\/\">the latest survey<\/a>\u00a0finds that more than 80 percent of the polled experts rate US elections free of overt fraud. Yet, fewer than 15 percent of the expert believe that political leaders generally share a common understanding of relevant facts, or think that elected official try to compromise with their political opponents.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pullquote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/brightlinewatch.org\/wave4\/\">Read the findings<\/a> from the latest Bright Line Watch survey.<\/div>\n<p>The only principle on which the team saw substantial improvement is that \u201claw enforcement investigations of public officials or their associates are free from political influence or interference.\u201d\u00a0That statement was first included in Bright Line Watch\u2019s May 2017 survey, which took place soon after President Trump had fired FBI director James Comey\u2014prompting a very low initial rating on the principle, the group reasoned. However, the evaluations improved in the third survey. The team ascribes the rising evaluation to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, before again declining somewhat to the present level in the fourth survey. The quartet writes that the survival and independence of the Mueller investigation remains precarious, citing President Trump\u2019s attempted firing of Mueller in June 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, the political experts rated 13 democratic principles significantly lower, all of them related to institutional checks and balances.\u00a0Bright Line Watch found that the expert judgment in the ability of Congress, the courts, or the Constitution to reign in the power of the executive all eroded by 8 to 10 percentage points. The polled experts\u2019 confidence in judicial independence from the elected branches plummeted by 16 percentage points. Results from the general public survey were even more consistently negative.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Why does it matter what the public <em>believes <\/em>about the state of our democracy?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>While experts may have a more acute understanding of certain violations, and conversely, of built-in checks and balances, the public\u2019s view remains essential.<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can define democracy in a lot of different ways, but all of those involve a connection between the public and the government,\u201d says Mitch Sanders, who received his PhD in political science from the University in 1997 and now manages the survey methodology for Bright Line Watch. \u201cSo, understanding what the public sees as important for democracy, understanding what the public perceives as the extent to which the United States is fulfilling or not fulfilling certain standards\u2014I think that\u2019s a vital part of understanding democracy today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The weakening of democracy, Sanders argues, would be recognized by the public.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the survey results have not fallen on deaf ears. National media outlets from the <em>New York Times<\/em>, and <em>Washington Post<\/em>, to the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>, <em>Vox<\/em>, and <em>Politico\u00a0<\/em>have taken notice, following the group\u2019s reports closely.<\/p>\n<p>Helmke says her work made her think of a sentence uttered by President Abraham Lincoln in one of his first speeches, given roughly thirty years before the Civil War. At the time, the 16<span style=\"font-size: small;\">th\u00a0<\/span>President talked about threats to the rule of law and political institutions in the US:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe hope all dangers may be overcome, but to conclude that no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely dangerous.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOne of the greatest threats to democracy is the idea that it is unassailable.\u201d That\u2019s the tagline of\u00a0Bright Line Watch, which neatly sums up the group\u2019s motivation. Made up of four political scientists including University of Rochester professor Gretchen Helmke, the non-partisan initiative has set out to monitor democratic institutions in the United States and potential threats to those practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":942,"featured_media":311252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[456],"tags":[21462,29502,29492,16072],"class_list":["post-311222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-culture","tag-department-of-political-science","tag-featured-post-side","tag-gretchen-helmke","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Political scientists monitor threats to US democratic institutions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"University of Rochester professor Gretchen Helmke and the non-partisan Bright Line Watch have set out to monitor democratic institutions in the United States.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Political scientists monitor threats to US democratic institutions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"University of Rochester professor Gretchen Helmke and the non-partisan Bright Line Watch have set out to monitor democratic institutions in the United States.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"News Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-11T20:44:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-26T16:09:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/fea-democratic-institutions-bright-line-watch.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sandra Knispel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sandra Knispel\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sandra Knispel\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/48a5dd20d1ade85ff52a0babb9a550a5\"},\"headline\":\"Political scientists monitor threats to US democratic institutions\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-04-11T20:44:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-26T16:09:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1085,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/political-scientists-monitor-threats-us-democratic-institutions-311222\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.rochester.edu\\\/newscenter\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2018\\\/04\\\/fea-democratic-institutions-bright-line-watch.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Department of Political Science\",\"featured-post-side\",\"Gretchen Helmke\",\"School of Arts and Sciences\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Society &amp; 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