Some ideologies look like populisms, but aren’t, writes Dan Paget. Instead, like populisms, these distinctive authoritarian ideologies envisage struggles of 'the people' against 'the corrupt'. Yet unlike them, they envisage 'the leaders' not as embodiments of the people’s will but as guardians of their interests. He calls this 'elitist plebeianism'
He completed a doctorate in politics at the University of Oxford in 2018.
He studies contemporary democratic and authoritarian ideologies, analysing how democracy and autocracy are envisages, critiqued and legitimised in the imaginaries articulated today, and he focuses on this ideational contestation in contemporary authoritarian regimes.
Dan also studies political communication. In particular, he does research on the enormous importance which the mass rally assumes in political communication assumes, especially in much of Africa.
These studies are situated in his ongoing analysis of the political struggles for and against democracy in electoral-authoritarian regimes.
He studies the dynamics of opposition party organising, ruling party repression and political contestation through those struggles are carried out.
Through all of this research, his principal site of research is, and has been, Tanzania.
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