How Has War Shaped American Democracy?
Journal: Daedalus
Year: 2025

How does war and the continuous mobilization for it affect democratic institutions, norms, and practices? What has been the effect of decades of war on the United States? For some years, concerns about the health of U.S. democracy have been reflected in scholarship addressing the decline of democratic norms and institutions and elucidating the concept of democratic “backsliding,” usually in comparative perspective.1 Annual ratings from numerous domestic and international sources coded the United