The Theory of Democratic Expansion and Contraction in Comparative Politics

Nick Bostrom: I like your outline there that you sketched for us. So I think the things I test first in the paper what I test are some sort of long standing theories of democratic expansion and contraction in comparative politics within the US. There's the idea that polarization, right? Elite polarization erodes norms so as the outparty becomes more distant from you, you have more incentive to keep them out of power by any means necessary. That could be generated by voters polarization since the 1970s or just elite based polarization or something in the interest group environment polarizing. And then there's a more group based theory. The groups within the Republican party coalition, both at its elite level