Books
Ziblatt's first book, Structuring the State: the Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism ( Princeton University Press, 2006), is a comparative historical analysis of two pivotal episodes in European state-building. It explores why federal political institutions emerged in 19th-century Germany but failed to take root in 19th-century Italy. Offering a new theory of institutional development, the book sheds light on the deeper historical roots of federalism and state formation.
His second book, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2017) traces the rise and fall of democracy in Europe from 1830s Great Britain to Adolf Hitler's 1933 seizure of power in Weimar Germany. The book spans Europe across two centuries. It challenge conventional accounts that exclusively credit democracy's emergence to socioeconomic change or bottom-up popular movements. Instead, Ziblatt argues that the survival of democracy has depended crucially on how conservative political parties—long the defenders of privilege and hierarchy—adapted to the demands of mass politics and whether they resisted or embraced the radical right.
His third book How Democracies Die (Crown, 2018) (co-authored with Steven Levitsky), a New York Times and international best-seller, examines how elected leaders can gradually undermine democratic institutions from within. Drawing on a wide array of historical and global examples—from interwar Europe to contemporary Venezuela, Hungary, and the United States—the book underscores the importance of democratic norms and the role of political parties as crucial "guardrails" for democracy.
His most recent book (co-authored with Steven Levitsky, Tyranny of the Minority (Crown, 2023), also a New York Times best seller, is a sweeping comparative analysis of why American democracy appears increasingly fragile. Whereas in the 20th century, most modern democracies—from Germany and Sweden to Argentina and New Zealand— reformed or eliminated outdated institutions (e.g. elite upper chambers, first-past the post election systems, indirect elections, and lifetime tenure for judges, etc) the United States' institutional reform agenda has lagged dangerously behind, endangering the promise of representative government