| Kommentar |
This course examines the politics of authoritarian regimes in Latin America in a comparative perspective.
The seminar will be divided in the following parts. First, we will explore categories and concepts of autocracy. Second, we will discuss historical experiences of autocracy in Latin America, such as the personalist dictatorships under José Vicente Gómez in Venezuela, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua or Porfirio Diaz in Mexico, the military dictatorships in the 1960s and 1970s in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay or Brazil, and the PRI-regime in Mexico. Third, current autocracies such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela will be analyzed.
By the end of this class, students should be able to provide logical and well-informed opinions on questions such as: What types of autocracies exist and how do they differ from each other? Which autocracies are more stable and why and when do they collapse? |
| Literatur |
• Geddes, Barbara; Frantz, Erica; Wright, Joseph George (2018): How dictatorships work. Power, personalization, and collapse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Gandhi, Jennifer (2008): Political Institutions under Dictatorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Svolik, Milan (2010): The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Brownlee, Jason (2007): Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization, Cambridge University Press.
• Klein, Harvey, Christine Wade and Howard Wiarda (editors). (2017). Latin American Politics and Development. NY. West View Press.
• Mainwaring, Scott; Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal (2013): Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall, Cambridge University Press. |
