2024 APSA Annual Meeting: Democracy: Retrenchment, Renovation, & Reimagination

Democratic citizens tend to enjoy more of the benefits offered by healthy societies: equality, rights, security, health, education, scope for life choices, as well as cultures of reciprocity and creativity. These desiderata constitute the aspirational promises of democracy. However, the institutions and cultures that make good on these promises tend to surge back and forth. This year’s conference theme focuses on the perils and promises of the democratic project over time: how to understand backsliding, defining and meeting threats, renovating institutions and practices, and imagining new ones.