Sheri Berman
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Political Science
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Sheri Berman is a professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her research interests include European history and politics; the development of democracy; populism and fascism; and the history of the left. She has written about these topics for a wide variety of scholarly and non-scholarly publications, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and VOX. She currently serves on the boards of the Journal of Democracy and Political Science Quarterly. Her last book was Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Regime to the Present Day (Oxford University Press 2019). Her most recent book, The Political Consequences of Economic Ideas: Neoliberalism, the Left, and the Fate of Democracy is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
- M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University, Government
- B.A., Yale University, Political Science (magna cum laude; Distinction in the Major)
- Comparative political development
- European politics and political history
- Democracy and democratization
- Globalization
- The history of the Left
- POLS V 3401 Democracy & Dictatorship in Europe
- Cross-listed by the European Studies and the Human Rights Programs
- POLS BC 3505 Colloquium on Making Democracy Work
- Cross-listed by the European Studies and the Human Rights Programs
- POLS 3540 Constructing and Deconstructing States and Nations
- The American Political Science Association
- Council on European Studies
Why Democracies Fail--and That's OK
How U.S. and European Populisms Differ. Frankly Fukuyama Podcast.
Can Democracy Save the World Again? The Liberal Patriot Podcast
The Renaissance of Populism and the Decline of Social Democracy/ Progressive Post Podcast
How Did Right-Wing Populists Win the Immigration Debate and What Can be Done About it? Review of Democracy Podcast
Where America's Election Will Be Won and Lost. New Lines Podcast
Germany's Surging Far-Right and the Future of Populism. Chicago Council on Global Affairs Podcast
The State of Global Democracy. Center for a New American Security Podcast.
Interview about how to think about new democracies. Central European University.
Publications
The Political Consequences of Economic Ideas: Neoliberalism, the Left and the Fate of Democracy. (Forthcoming, Oxford University Press)
Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2019).
The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Ideological Dynamics of the Twentieth Century (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
The Social Democratic Moment: Ideas and Politics in the Making of Interwar Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
Democracy and Diversity in Western Europe. Journal of Democracy, Oct. 2024.
The Causes of Populism in the West. Annual Review of Political Science 2021.
Mainstream Parties in Crisis. The Cost of Convergence. Journal of Democracy, Jan. 2021.
Populism and the Decline of Social Democracy. Journal of Democracy. Jan 2019.
“Can Democracy Survive in a Political Environment Where Institutions are Treated as Disposible?” Le Monde, February 2025.
“The EU Elections Teach a Powerful Lesson,” Journal of Democracy, online, Oct 2024.
“Europe’s Center is Losing on Immigration,” Persuasion, October 2024.
”How Serious is Europe’s Democratic Threat,” Project Syndicate, June 10, 2024.
“The Representation Gap,” Persuasion, April 24, 2024.
"Titans of Industry," Foreign Affairs, April 2024
"Why Some Revolutions Fail to Make History," Foreign Policy, Feb. 2024
“Warum man der AfD einen Anreiz bieten muss, sich zu mäßigen,” Der Spiegel, November 1, 2023.
”How Europe’s Far Right Moderated,” Persuasion, July 6, 2023.
“Why the U.S. Right Doesn’t Like Free Markets Anymore,” Foreign Policy, April 3, 2023.
“Manche sehen überall Faschisten lauern. Das is eine Fehleinschätzung, die sich rächen Könnte,” Neue Züricher Zeitung, January 1, 2023.
“Schön brav, oder ihr fliegt raus! Wieso die europäischen Rechtspopulisten sich mässigten. Under was der amerikanischen Demokratie blüht,” Neue Züricher Zeitung, November 29, 2022.
"How Democracy Can Win," Foreign Affairs, November 2022.
"Revisiting Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic," Hist. Phil, May 2021.