September 3-6, 2026
Boston, MA

“Democracy under Threat: How to Understand, Protect, and Rebuild”

APSA President-Elect: Susan Stokes, University of Chicago

Conference Program Co-Chairs: Ellen Lust, Cornell University; Laura Gamboa, University of Notre Dame; and Jamila Michener, Cornell University

Would-be autocrats target journalists, movement organizers, researchers, civil society leaders, and political leaders, among others, muzzling, defunding, and, in extreme cases, prosecuting and silencing them in an attempt to establish authoritarian rule. Yet legislators, judges, whistle-blowers, military leaders, broadcasters, activists, and voters also resist these efforts. The 2026 APSA meetings, organized under the theme Democracy Under Threat: How to Understand, Protect, and Rebuild invites scholars in all areas of political science to explore the crisis of democracy by focusing on three fundamental questions: How do we understand the global crisis of democracy we face today? How do societies claw back democratic rights and practices when these come under assault? And how should we rebuild democratic institutions, norms, and practices?

Understanding the Crisis of Democracy. Concerns over democratic backsliding have been present in several of the program themes of APSA meetings in the past decade, and in many respects our profession has risen to the challenge of exploring and explaining the crisis of democracy. Yet changes in the world around us bring us back to these concerns with growing urgency. Some of the concerns are global – how are we to tackle crucial issues of climate change if international efforts have been stifled by leaders, some of them hostile to science? Some are distinctly close to home – what room is there for the goals and values embedded in higher education when students, colleagues, and leaders are under threat? We invite scholars to examine such attacks on democracy, exploring (potential) resistance to threats and their implications.

Protecting Democracy. Analysis – explanation – is critical; we can offer nothing if our explanations lack rigor. Yet the world wants answers. Now more than ever, our later generations will assess our professional contributions by how useful they are to the forces that seek to preserve and expand our democracies. Thus, we encourage scholars explore prescriptive questions as well: Which are the key actors to bolster democracy, and what strategies are most efficacious?

Reimagining Democracy. Finally, the global crisis of democracy begs questions over the future nature of democracy. Scholars and practitioners have experimented with ways to reinforce democracy, particularly by bolstering participation and strengthening accountability. And comparative and historical experiences – both within and outside the state — show the possibility of more fundamental transformations of democratic practices. Does the need to reclaim democracy both require and provide opportunities for a more fundamental reimagining of democratic institutions and practices, and if so, what should future democracy look like?