Democracy: Breakthroughs and Breakdowns

Harvard Extension School

GOVT E-1135

Section 1

CRN 27047

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What gives rise to democracy? What leads it to die? This course has a broad comparative and global sweep, seeking to answer these questions by analyzing the development of democracy in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. The course introduces students to competing conceptions of democracy, competing theories of when democracy is created and barriers to democratic survival, and analyzes major episodes of democratic breakthrough and breakdown ranging from the fall of the Berlin wall to the rise of Nazism and the collapse of democracy in cold war Latin America.

Registration Closes: January 22, 2026
Credits: 4

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Term

Spring Term 2026

Part of Term

Full Term

Format

Online

Credit Status

Graduate, Noncredit, Undergraduate

Section Status

Open

Instructor Info

Daniel Ziblatt, PhD

Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, Harvard University


Meeting Info

1/26 to 5/16

Participation Option: Online Asynchronous

In online asynchronous courses, you are not required to attend class at a particular time. Instead you can complete the course work on your own schedule each week.

Deadlines

Last day to register: January 22, 2026

Additional Time Commitments

Optional sections to be arranged.

Notes

The recorded lectures are from the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences companion course Government 1204. Registered students can ordinarily live stream the lectures Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12-1:15 pm starting January 27 or they can watch them on demand. The recorded sessions are typically available within a few hours of the end of class and no later than the following business day. Class sessions for this course may include students enrolled in the FAS companion course. Accordingly, when you participate in live class sessions, you will do so alongside both Division of Continuing Education (DCE) and FAS students. If you participate in a way that causes you to appear in recordings of the class, those recordings may be shown to DCE students enrolled in this course or FAS students enrolled in the companion course, according to the policies of the two schools on accessing recordings of class sessions.

Tuition

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All Sections of this Course

CRN Section # Participation Option(s) Instructor Section Status Meets Term Dates
27047 1 Online Asynchronous Daniel Ziblatt Open Jan 26 to May 16

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