Essential Reading from University Presses
2024 has been a big year for democratic elections around the world, as more than 3 billion people in 72 countries have gone to the polls. Robust elections definitely contribute to healthy democracies but what else is required, outside the voting booth, for democracy to flourish?
“Resilient democracies require good governance, which cannot be created overnight but is built on accountable social and political institutions, with norms, values and a culture based on respect for human rights.”
– Marcos Neto, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the UN Development Programme Bureau for Policy and Programme Support
Association of University Presses members around the world have long published scholarly works that contribute to understanding even the most complex systems and contentious current events. Here are selected books, journal articles, reading lists, and commentary from our member presses and their expert authors in a wide range of fields, offering essential reading to all who seek to understand and nurture democracy.
Reading lists
University of Akron Press: the Bliss Institute Series
University of Alabama Press: Books on Democracy and Politics
Amherst College Press Open Access Books for a Democratic Future
Bristol University Press Democracy, Power and Governance
University of British Columbia Press: Books about Democracy
University of California Press: Democracy and Its Threats, Essential Reads for Navigating an Uncertain Future
Columbia University Press, Fourteen Books for Understanding Challenges to Freedom and Democracy
Cornell University Press: Books on Democracy
Duke University Press
- Elections in Global History reading list
- Political Protests reading list
University Press of Florida: Democracy: A Reading List
Fordham University Press: Safeguarding Democracy: Navigating Post-Election Challenges
University of Georgia Press: History in the Headlines series
Harvard Education Press
- Democracy in education reading list
- Election cycle resources for students, teachers, and school leaders
University of Illinois Press: Democracy and Threats to It Reading List
Indiana University Press: Elections and Democracy Reading List
Johns Hopkins University Press: Featured Readings on Democracy
University Press of Kansas: Books to Help Understand the 2024 Election
Leuven University Press: Democracy and Threats
Manchester University Press: Democracy: Power, Threats, and Failures
University of Michigan Press: Dialogues in Democracy
University of Minnesota Press: Democracy and Citizenship
University Press of Mississippi: Race, Rhetoric, and Media Series
University of New South Wales Press: AusPol Reading List
University of North Carolina Press: Struggles of Democracy: A Reading List
University of Notre Dame Press: America and Democracy: Past, Present, and Future
Ohio University Press: Democracy, Elections, and Justice
Ohio State University Press: Books for Understanding Our Current Moment
University of Oklahoma Press: Democracy
Oxford University Press: 7 books to understand the US election
University of Pennsylvania Press: American Democracy: Past, Present, and Future
Penn State University Press: A Reading List for Democracy
Rutgers University Press: Democracy
University of South Carolina Press: Civil Rights
Stanford University Press: Democracy and its Threats
SUNY Press: Democracy
Teachers College Press: Teaching About Democracy
University of Virginia Press: Books on Democracy and Threats to It
(also includes distributed titles from George Mason University Press)
Washington State University Press: American Democracy Today
Yale University Press: “With Fear for Our Democracy, I Dissent”
Individual works
Aarhus University Press (copublished in the US by Johns Hopkins University Press)
Abilene Christian University Press
- Set Free: Restoring Religious Freedom for All
- American Christianity Today: Establishment, Decline, and Revival
Brandeis University Press
Georgetown University Press
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Princeton University Press
- Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos
- The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley
RIT Press
Temple University Press
- “Practicing Intersectional Activism,” a blog post by Wendy Sarvasy, author of Refounding Democracy through Intersectional Activism: How Progressive Era Feminists Redefined Who We Are, and What It Means Today
University of Tennessee Press
- American Global Leadership: Ailing US Diplomacy and Solutions for the Twenty-First Century
- Panic Now? Tools for Humanizing
TCU Press
Vanderbilt University Press
University of Wisconsin Press