Authoritarian Regimes - Personal Websites

Political Science 44410
Authoritarian Regimes

Spring 2008
Thursdays 1 – 4pm

Pick 506

Dan Slater
Pick 507
Phone: 773-702-2941
E-Mail: [email protected]
Website: http://home.uchicago.edu/~slater
Office Hours: Wednesday 3-5pm

Course Overview

The surprising persistence of authoritarian regimes since the end of the Cold War has
inspired a major new literature in comparative politics on how non-democracy works.
This graduate seminar considers some conceptual and theoretical issues and debates in
this new wave of research, such as: How should authoritarian regimes, including so-
called “hybrid regimes,” best be classified? What kind of institutions makes
authoritarianism more or less stable and durable? How do these regimes try to generate
compliance and support? Why do so many of them hold elections and convene
parliaments? And what economic factors tend to bolster or undermine dictatorship?

It is worth stressing at the outset that this is not primarily a course on democratization, or
regime change. Our primary purpose is to understand the variety of ways in which
authoritarian regimes operate, not how they collapse. Courses on democracy need not
include a section on democratic breakdown to be complete. The same is true of a seminar
on authoritarianism.

Readings, Assignments, and Grades

The following books are available for purchase at the Seminary Co-Op and on reserve at
Regenstein Library. (Article- and chapter-length readings can be accessed through the
course Chalk site, under “Library Course Reserves” and “Course Documents.”)

• Daniel Chirot, Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age
(Princeton 1994)

• Andreas Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree
Competition (Lynne Rienner 2006)

• Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (Yale 1968)
• Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in

Contemporary Syria (Chicago 1999)
• Jason Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization (Cambridge

2007)

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Grades in this seminar will be based on three dimensions of course performance. First,
each student is required to write three short (about 3-4 page) response papers to the
weekly readings over the course of the quarter. These are worth 10% of your grade each,
for a total of 30%. Which week these essays are written is at the student’s discretion, with
one exception: everyone must contribute an essay on the readings in Week 3 (April 17th).
Please e-mail me a copy of your essay by noon on the day of class, and hand in a hard
copy of your essay at the beginning of seminar.

Another 30% of your final grade will be based on class participation. Consistent
attendance and engagement with the readings and in-class discussions are expected. The
remaining 40% of your grade will be based on a take-home final examination,
formatted loosely on the template of a qualifying Ph.D. exam.

Course Schedule

April 3: Class Introduction

April 10: Totalitarianism as a Template
• Daniel Chirot, Modern Tyrants, all.

April 17: Problems of Classification

• Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and
Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1996), pp. 39-54.

• Barbara Geddes, “Authoritarian Breakdown: Empirical Test of a Game Theoretic
Argument,” paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Political
Science Association, Atlanta (1999), pp. 1-33 + appendix.

• Axel Hadenius and Jan Teorell, “Authoritarian Regimes: Stability, Change, and
Pathways to Democracy, 1972-2003,” Working Paper, Lund University
(November 2006), pp. 1-24 + Appendix B.

• Gerardo L. Munck, “Drawing Boundaries: How to Craft Intermediate Regime
Categories,” in Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism, pp. 27-40.

• Richard Snyder, “Beyond Electoral Authoritarianism: The Spectrum of Non-
Democratic Regimes,” in Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism, pp. 219-231.

• Dan Slater, “Altering Authoritarianism: Institutional Complexity and Autocratic
Agency in Indonesia,” Unpublished Manuscript, pp. 1-36.

• Lisa Wedeen, “Concepts and Commitments in the Study of Democracy,” in Ian
Shapiro et. al. (eds.), Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics, New York:
Cambridge University Press (2004), pp. 274-306.

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April 24: Order, Domination, and Compliance
• Huntington, Political Order, pp. 1-92 and 140-191.
• Gregory Kasza, The Conscription Society: Administered Mass Organizations,
New Haven: Yale University Press (1995), pp. 7-25, 51-71, and 188-192.
• Karen Stenner, The Authoritarian Dynamic, New York: Cambridge University
Press (2005), pp. 13-36.
• John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an
Appalachian Valley, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, pp. 1-32.
• Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, all.

May 1: Party Hegemony and Regime Stability
• Huntington, Political Order, pp. 397-461.
• Aristide Zolberg, Creating Political Order: The Party-States of West Africa,
Chicago: Rand McNally, pp. 9-36.
• Benjamin Smith, “Life of the Party: The Origins of Regime Breakdown and
Persistence under Single-Party Rule,” World Politics 57:3 (Spring 2005), pp. 421-
451.
• Kellee S. Tsai, “Adaptive Informal Institutions and Endogenous Institutional
Change in China,” World Politics 59 (October 2006), pp. 116-141.
• Joy Langston, “Elite Ruptures: When Do Ruling Parties Split?” In Schedler (ed.),
Electoral Authoritarianism, pp. 57-75.
• Beatriz Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and Its
Demise in Mexico (2006), New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-43.
• Kenneth Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico’s Democratization in
Comparative Perspective (2007), New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-
47.

May 8: Durable Authoritarianism in the Muslim World
• Michael Ross, “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?” World Politics 53 (April 2001),
pp. 325-361.
• Alfred Stepan and Graeme Robertson, “An ‘Arab’ More than a ‘Muslim’
Electoral Gap,” Journal of Democracy 14:3 (July 2003), pp. 30-44.
• Eva Bellin, “Coercive Institutions and Coercive Leaders,” in Marsha Pripstein
Posusney and Michelle Penner Angrist (eds.), Authoritarianism in the Middle
East: Regimes and Resistance, Boulder: Lynne Rienner (2005), pp. 21-41.
• Michelle Penner Angrist, “Party Systems and Regime Formation: Turkish
Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective,” in Posusney and Angrist (eds.), pp.
119-141.
• Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization, pp. 1-152.

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May 15: Military Regimes
• Huntington, Political Order, pp. 192-263.
• Morris Janowitz, Military Institutions and Coercion in the Developing Nations,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1977), pp. 77-116.
• Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone,
Princeton: Princeton University Press (1988), pp. 3-29.
• Kirk S. Bowman, Militarization, Democracy, and Development: The Perils of
Praetorianism in Latin America, University Park: Penn State University Press
(2002), pp. 19-41.
• Dan Slater and Christopher Haid, “The Worst Kind of War: Regional Rebellions
and Political Militarization in the Post-Colonial World,” Unpublished Manuscript,
pp. 1-34.
• Steven A. Cook, Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political
Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press (2007), pp. 1-31.
• Babar Sattar, “Pakistan: Return to Praetorianism,” in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.),
Coercion and Governance: The Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia,
Stanford: Stanford University Press (2001), pp. 385-412.

May 22: Coalitional Foundations of Authoritarianism
• Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and
Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, Boston: Beacon (1966), pp. 433-
452.
• Gregory M. Luebbert, “Social Foundations of Political Order in Interwar Europe,”
World Politics 39:4 (July 1987), pp. 449-478.
• David Waldner, “Democracy and Dictatorship in the Post-Colonial World,”
Unpublished Manuscript, pp. 1-35.
• David Waldner, “Democracy and Dictatorship in Southeast Asia: The Origins of
the Indonesian New Order and the Thai Non-Order,” Unpublished Manuscript,
pp. 1-42.
• Thomas Pepinsky, “Coalitions and Crises: Authoritarianism, Adjustment, and
Transitions in Emerging Markets, Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University (2007), pp.
16-29, 68-119, and 246-357.
• Dan Slater, “Ordering Power: Contentious Politics, State-Building, and
Authoritarian Durability in Southeast Asia,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Emory University
(2005), pp. 1-27, 78-94, 263-350, 365-385, and 422-447.

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May 29: Political Economy Approaches
• Ronald Wintrobe, The Political Economy of Dictatorship, New York: Cambridge
University Press (1998), pp. 127-162.
• Carles Boix, Democracy and Redistribution, New York: Cambridge University
Press (2003), pp. 1-43.
• Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and
Democracy, New York: Cambridge University Press (2006), pp. 1-47.
• Eva Bellin, “Contingent Democrats: Industrialists, Labor, and Democratization in
Late-Developing Countries,” World Politics 52:1 (January 2000), pp. 175-205.
• Kellee S. Tsai, “Capitalists Without a Class: Political Diversity Among Private
Entrepreneurs in China,” Comparative Political Studies 38:9 (November 2005),
pp. 1130-1158.
• Mick Moore, “Death Without Taxes: Democracy, State Capacity, and Aid
Dependence in the Fourth World,” in Mark Robinson and Gordon White (eds.),
The Democratic Development State: Politics and Institutional Design, Oxford:
Oxford University Press (1998), pp. 84-121.
• Kevin Morrison, “Non-Tax Revenue and the Redistributional Foundations of
Regime Stability,” Unpublished Manuscript, pp. 1-32.

June 5: Hybrid Regimes, Elections, and Parliaments
• Schedler, Electoral Authoritarianism, chs. 1, 6-7, and 10-12.
• Jennifer Gandhi and Adam Przeworski, “Authoritarian Institutions and the
Survival of Autocrats,” Comparative Political Studies 40:11 (November 2007),
pp. 1279-1301.
• Gary Cox, “Authoritarian Elections and Leadership Succession,” Working Paper,
pp. 3-17.
• Ellen Lust-Okar, “Elections Under Authoritarianism: Preliminary Lessons from
Jordan,” Democratization 13:3 (June 2006), pp. 456-471.
• Benedict Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia,
and the World, New York: Verso (1998), pp. 265-284.

* FINAL TAKE-HOME EXAMS DISTRIBUTED AT 8AM TUESDAY, JUNE 10TH;
HARD COPIES DUE IN MY BOX IN PICK 401 BY 4:30PM THAT SAME DAY *

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