Authoritarian Regimes - University of Chicago

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.
April 3: Class Introduction
Course Schedule
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Agency in Indonesia,” Unpublished Manuscript, pp. 1-36.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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