According to the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Science at Vanderbilt University - Larry Bartels a seeming explosion of support for right-wing populist parties has triggered widespread fears that liberal democracy is facing its worst crisis since the 1930s. In his latest book Democracy Erodes from the Top - Bartels suggest that the real crisis stems not from an increasingly populist public but from political leaders who exploit or mismanage the chronic vulnerabilities of democracy.

Europe’s most sobering examples of democratic backsliding―in Hungary and Poland―occurred not because voters wanted authoritarianism but because conventional conservative parties, once elected, seized opportunities to entrench themselves in power.

Join us when author Larry M Bartels examines the inadequacy of conventional bottom-up interpretations of Europe’s political crisis, on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large.