What Star Wars can teach us about the decline of democracy

By David Kenny, Associate Professor of Law and Fellow, Trinity College Dublin
Conor Casey, Lecturer in Law, School of Law & Social Justice, University of Liverpool

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away… democracy was in danger. Our current political environment is filled with threats to democracy, from the rise of authoritarian populism around the world, to the massive expansion of state power during the COVID-19 pandemic that may never fully be undone.

As constitutional law researchers, we are interested in how these threats emerge and what can be done about them. We argue in a recent paper, that several useful lessons can be drawn from…

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