Political regimes: the end of democratisation?

Module Title: Political regimes: the end of democratisation?

Module Leader: Dr Pieter van Houten 

Module Description:  

How are states (the main ‘units’ of politics in recent centuries) governed, and what determines  whether they are democratic, autocratic or something in between? How do we account for  movements from authoritarian to democratic regimes? What factors influence the stability of  democratic regimes or the resilience of authoritarian regimes? What explains the alleged  ‘democratic backsliding’ in various countries in recent years? These questions are both among  the perennial questions addressed in the study of politics and of crucial importance in  contemporary political debates.

This module focuses on how these questions have been addressed in the comparative politics  literature, with a main emphasis on recent contributions (although we will also refer to older traditions in the study of political regimes). There is a very large literature on political regimes,  and this module can only scratch the surface of it. However, the topics and readings have been  chosen to provide students with a good sense of contemporary contributions to the study of  political regimes, and of the theoretical, methodological and geographical breadth of this field of  study. The module will give students a good basis to study or research specific aspects of political  regimes (in the module essay, other MPhil modules, the MPhil dissertation, or future  study/research). In addition, it will help students to develop a deeper appreciation of the more  general field of comparative politics and some of its main approaches and methods.

The first three seminars of the module focus on three forms of political regime dynamics:  democratisation (for long the primary focus of the comparative politics literature on political  regimes), the functioning and stability of autocratic regimes (which has received increasing  attention in recent years), and democratic erosion or backsliding (a strong focus of the current  literature on political regimes). The next three seminars focus on themes that, in various ways,  play a role in all regime types and regime dynamics: elections, repression, and popular/civil  society mobilisation. The final seminar looks at the case of the contemporary United States and  the extent to which democratic backsliding is occurring there, and reflects briefly on the future  prospects of democracy in the world.