What role did ordinary people play through voting and taking col-lective action when democracies fell on hard times, asks NancyBermeo in her latest book. Basing her argument on evidence ofseventeen countries in Europe and Latin America where democ-racy broke down, she shows that the vast mass of the populationcontinued supporting pro-democratic parties during times of crisis,and that mass defections to extremist parties were rare. Professorof Politics at Princeton University and senior editor of World Poli-tics, Nancy Bermeo is one of the leading scholars of studies ofregime changes and democracy in the field of comparative politics.In the present book she urges us to rethink the causes of demo-cratic breakdown and stability, and develops a theoretical synthesisof the literature on polarization, civil society, democracy, and po-litical parties. While the empirical scope of the work is on twenti-eth century Europe and Latin America, its findings are an importantcontribution towards understanding current processes of polariza-tion and democratic consolidation in the whole world.