, Columnist
Democracy Will Die, Maybe in Its Sleep
A Q&A with political scientist David Runciman.
More than intimations of mortality.
Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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David Runciman, a professor of politics at Cambridge University, is one of the more compelling analysts in the expanding field of democratic decline. His last book, “The Confidence Trap,” which was published in 2013, took the measure of democracy as overconfident and underprepared. His new book, “How Democracy Ends,” depicts what the title suggests, but perhaps not in the way many might expect. Instead of cataclysm, Runciman envisions political senescence.
What follows is a lightly edited Q&A that I conducted with Runciman, via email, over several days in May.