Interrogating Democracy under Threat through Multi-Method Research
Saturday, September 5, 8:00 am to 9:30 am
2026 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition — Boston, MA | Register here
Co-sponsored by Division 46: Qualitative Methods
In-person | Created Panel
Participants:
- (Chair) Güneş Murat Tezcür, Arizona State University
- (Discussant) Bhanu Joshi, Brown University
Session Description:
What is democratic satisfaction? How is democracy unmade from within? What is the foundation for the defense of academic freedom in the context of democratic backsliding? This panel brings together scholars of public opinion, comparative politics, and international relations to interrogate these questions in the context of the United States and emerging democracies. The papers shed new light on major concepts used to understand democracy under threat by bringing diverse methodological approaches to the debates on these concepts. Drawing on interpretation of in-person interviews with 100 respondents, Stiles uncovers what democratic satisfaction means to citizens, with implications for how citizens evaluate their state’s democratic government. Souilmi proposes a layered multi actor balance of power framework to explain democratic backsliding in Tunisia based on ethnographic fieldwork, elite interviews, process tracing, and social network analysis, capturing not only ordinary citizens but also civil society and media, elites, and other actors at different sociopolitical levels. Elman, Veramendi Garcia and Montgomery compare occupational, epistemic and critical approaches to identify a robust foundation for defense when academic freedom is under attack. Combined, the papers help better understand these concepts, reimagine them in light of new evidence in diverse contexts, and protect their foundations.
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