A Country in Crisis: How Existential Threats Limit Democratic Freedom (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798190222951)

When a democracy faces war, terrorism, economic collapse, public health emergencies, or political violence, demands for decisive action can quickly overwhelm the institutions designed to restrain power. Measures introduced as temporary necessities often expand surveillance, suppress dissent, weaken due process, and remain in place long after the immediate danger has passed.

A Country in Crisis examines how real and manufactured existential threats reshape democratic government. Zoë Roberts traces the ways fear is converted into obedience, emergency authority becomes permanent, and political leaders use insecurity to narrow the boundaries of acceptable speech, movement, association, and resistance. The book also confronts the central democratic dilemma of crisis: how can a society protect itself without surrendering the freedom that makes it worth protecting?

A democracy is not saved merely because it survives. It is saved only when liberty survives with it.