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Autocracy

How international aid inadvertently props up autocratic regimes

September 8, 2025

♟️Autocracies are giving more women political power, but that isn't necessarily good news for democracy

December 3, 2024

Donald Trump’s Machiavellian philosophy

December 2, 2024

♟️ Autocracies need better adjectives; try using 'rule-compliant' 

October 7, 2024

♟️Pakistan elections: perpetual instability in a military-controlled democracy

May 20, 2024
May 13, 2024

♟️ Russia’s mercenaries are bolstering autocratic regimes in the Sahel

Marcel Plichta The spate of coups in the Sahel has been advantageous for Russia. Marcel Plichta and Christopher Faulkner argue that Moscow's mercenaries in the Sahel aren't to blame for the democratic retrenchment, but their presence is insulating and emboldening military dictators on their path to autocratic consolidation. Read more
April 9, 2024

Young democracy clashed with authoritarian legacies in Indonesia – and it lost

Iqra Anugrah In Indonesia's most recent presidential elections, voters elected an authoritarian strongman. Iqra Anugrah explains that the recent illiberal direction of Indonesian democracy has its roots in the authoritarian legacy of a political figure from the last century: the charismatic, Machiavellian and hugely influential Ali Moertopo Read more
March 4, 2024

🌈 The insidious link between autocratisation and gender-based violence

Andrea Krizsán Women and sexual minorities are facing unprecedented levels of targeted political violence. Andrea Krizsan and Conny Roggeband argue that gender-based violence has become a tool for right-wing populist parties and governments to promote and sustain an exclusionary ideal of the nation and the ‘people’ as white, patriarchal, and heteronormative Read more
February 21, 2024

‘Democratic’ governments exploit protests to increase attacks on citizens' right to resist

Joseph Ward The rise of authoritarian politics in ‘formal democracies’ across Europe has been met with various forms of protest. Some of these movements have achieved partial success. But evidence from the UK and France suggests that neoliberal governments are harnessing such resistance to accelerate authoritarianism and hostility towards marginalised people, write Joseph Ward and Thomas Da Costa Vieira Read more
February 15, 2024

♟ The EU didn’t foresee autocratisation in Central and Eastern Europe – neither did political science

James Dawson The EU did not foresee how autocratisation would unfold in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). But political scientists failed to raise the alarm, too. Lise Herman, James Dawson and Aurelia Ananda show that optimistic assumptions about democratisation misled policy makers and researchers alike Read more

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Advancing Political Science
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