democracy
Definition
Democracy refers to a system of governance whose stability and reach have been unevenly distributed across populations, particularly along racial lines. In the United States, the canonical narrative of democracy as secure and universally available obscures a long tradition of authoritarian governance when viewed from the perspectives of people of color, sustained by legitimizing myths, Jim Crow disenfranchisement, and colorblind collective memory that misrepresents racist histories. Scholars have further argued that labels such as 'democratic decline' or 'democratic backsliding' impose a linear, progress-oriented trajectory on what is better understood as the continual, non-linear evolution of interconnected political, cultural, and psychological systems. Framing the present moment as democratic regression assumes a prior period of genuine democratic achievement against which current movements are measured, an assumption that chosen time frames and preferred directions produce rather than discover.
Sources: Perez et al. (2026), Leach et al. (2026)
Related Terms
- authoritarianism (2 shared articles)
- racism (2 shared articles)
- colorblindness (1 shared article)
- critical history (1 shared article)
- polarization (1 shared article)
- societal change (1 shared article)
- social movements (1 shared article)
- systems (1 shared article)
Applications
Democracy and Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is characterized by obedience to authority, concentration of political power, and suppression of civil liberties among marginalized groups, features that have operated within U.S. governance throughout its history rather than appearing only as a recent external threat. Across both political parties, White majoritarian coalitions have deployed racially authoritarian policies such as Jim Crow Laws, which stripped Black Americans of voting rights and consolidated power through racial threat narratives, while legitimizing myths framed these arrangements as consistent with democratic principles. The appeal of authoritarian leadership is not a regression to old politics but a persistent and continually remade feature of political life, one that dynamic systems thinking captures better than linear narratives of democratic decline or backsliding.
Sources: Perez et al. (2026), Leach et al. (2026)
Democracy and Collective Memory
Colorblind collective memory selectively omits histories of racial violence and exclusion, producing a cultural perception of U.S. democracy as infallible and stable. This selective remembering creates the conditions under which authoritarian rhetoric gains traction, because publics who are unaware of how democracy was historically withheld from people of color are poorly positioned to recognize authoritarian patterns when they recur. Critical racial histories that center the perspectives of marginalized groups can disrupt this process, reframing those groups as contributors and victims of exclusion rather than threats, and generating resistance grounded in a more accurate account of what democracy has and has not delivered.
Sources: Perez et al. (2026)
Democracy and Colorblindness
Colorblind ideology sustains the perception that U.S. democracy is racially neutral by rendering invisible the structural racism embedded in its legal and political institutions. Research linking authoritarian personality with endorsement of colorblindness shows that this ideology is not merely an absence of racial awareness but an active psychological orientation that makes publics more receptive to authoritarian scapegoating of minority groups. A color-conscious democracy, grounded in knowledge of racial history, is offered as an alternative framework for reconceptualizing democratic participation from the standpoint of those historically excluded from it.
Sources: Perez et al. (2026)
