More than 100 NYU students are gearing up for this year’s election by taking a course exclusive to this semester that covers the state of democracy and potential strategies to strengthen it.

The Office of the Provost announced the one-credit course, titled “Democracy: Past, Present and Future,” in an Aug. 12 email to students. The syllabus, obtained by WSN, outlines lesson plans on topics such as the democratic characteristics of ancient societies, the spread of suffrage in the United States and the factors contributing to the modern “decline of democracy.” 

David Stasavage, a politics professor at NYU who is teaching the class, said in an interview with WSN that the one-month course — which has no prerequisites and is pass-fail — was designed to be accessible for all undergraduate students. 

“Irrespective of which party or which candidate you decide to support in an election, it’s better for people to know something about how our system works and how it evolved,” Stasavage said. “There’s a lot of worries about democracy today and about people feeling distrustful of the government, and wondering about whether our democratic system is working.”

NYU Votes, an initiative that aims to increase student voter registration, also promoted the course in an August email. This semester, the organization has widely distributed voting resources for the 2024 presidential election, with information such as how to request an absentee ballot and polling site locations.

CAS junior Ambrose Lo, a student in the class, said they find it helpful to learn the arguments for and against democracy, especially as an international student who cannot vote in U.S. elections.  

“I’m more interested in contextualizing democracy in terms of history and the background,” Lo said. “That has been very, very useful. It’s also definitely given insights into how the American people think about democracy and why we’ve gotten to where we are at this point.”

Bailey Hunt, another CAS junior, said that in class, Stasavage leads discussions about the importance of democracy in successful nations, but not without critique.

“A lot of people who are taking this course are not skeptical of democracy, but critical of ours,” Hunt said. “I really like that we’re allowed to talk about the things that aren’t perfect about our democracy in this class.”

Contact Sydney Chan at [email protected].