DWA 353 Junior Seminar: Comparative Authoritarianism
The course will investigate authoritarian regimes from a comparative perspective. We will first examine the conceptual foundations of the study of authoritarianism and democracy to establish how autocracies differ from democracies and among themselves. We will then examine a variety of topics in the study of comparative authoritarianism, including origins and durability of authoritarian rule, authoritarian institutions, and the varieties of resistance to autocratic rule. In addition, we will examine several aspects of the political economy of authoritarianism, such as corruption, redistribution, and the dynamics of integration into the global economy. The course will introduce students to scholarly debates concerning authoritarian regimes, and it will offer them a comparative view of contemporary global politics of authoritarianism. Only open to junior DWA majors.