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Daniel Ziblatt

Resident Faculty & Seminar Co-chair

Daniel Ziblatt

Resident Faculty & Seminar Co-chair

Biography

Daniel Ziblatt

Daniel Ziblatt is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University and resident faculty at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES). At CES, he co-chairs the Seminar on Democracy – Past, Present, Future.

Ziblatt specializes in the study of European politics, state-building, democratization and historical political economy. His latest book How Democracies Die (co-authored with Steven Levitsky) was on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 22 languages. His second book Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (2017) offers a new interpretation of the historical democratization of Europe, drawing lessons for new and old democracies under siege today. His book Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism (2006) draws lessons from nineteenth century experiences of state-building in Italy and Germany.

Affiliations

  • Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, Harvard University
  • Unit Director, Transformations of Democracy, WZB Berlin Social Science Center
  • Resident Faculty & Seminar Co-chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University

For media inquiries and interview requests in North America, please contact Gila Naderi, Communications Manager.


Books

  • Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York, NY: Penguin books, 2018.
  • Ziblatt, Daniel. Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  • Ziblatt, Daniel. Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2008.

Select Articles

The following articles focus on Ziblatt's research for his book on conservative parties and the lessons of the political history of Europe's democratization for contemporary democracies:

  • Dasgupta, Aditya, and Daniel Foran Ziblatt. “Capital Meets Democracy: Representative Institutions and the Rise of Mass Suffrage in Sovereign Bond Markets.” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2768848.
  • Dasgupta, Aditya, and Daniel Ziblatt. “How Did Britain Democratize? Views from the Sovereign Bond Market.” The Journal of Economic History 75, no. 1 (2015): 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050715000017.
  • Capoccia, Giovanni, and Daniel Ziblatt. “The Historical Turn in Democratization Studies: A New Research Agenda for Europe and Beyond.” Comparative Political Studies 43, no. 8-9 (2010): 931–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414010370431.
  • Ziblatt, Daniel. “Shaping Democratic Practice and the Causes of Electoral Fraud: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Germany.” American Political Science Review 103, no. 01 (2009): 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055409090042.
  • Ziblatt, Daniel. “Does Landholding Inequality Block Democratization?: A Test of the ‘Bread and Democracy’ Thesis and the Case of Prussia.” World Politics 60, no. 4 (2008): 610–41. https://doi.org/10.1353/wp.0.0021.

Recent Awards

In 2018, Daniel Ziblatt received the following awards for his book Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracies:

  • Woodrow Wilson award by the American Political Science Association (APSA)
  • Best Book prize in the category Comparative Democratization (APSA)
  • Book Book prize in the category European Politics and Society (APSA)
  • Barrington Moore Prize for best book in comparative and historical sociology awarded by the American Sociological Association

Other Affiliations

  • Faculty Associate, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
  • Faculty Associate, Institute of Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University

Event Recording - Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy

 
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