Most Americans lack the time to look beyond what the national media are covering. David Pepper’s book Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the Lines focuses on the statehouses, revealing how much Americans are missing in local politics and state government, and how these matters influence national trends.
The book starts by explaining the famous phrase “laboratories of democracy,” coined by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. It was meant to express an optimistic view of federalism: one state might try out a new public policy, and other states could assess its results and decide whether to do the same. But Pepper flips this notion on its head, showing how the laboratories can lead to bad experiments – especially when corrupt and problematic local figures pursue harmful ideas that affect national policies.
