Andrea Cassani
Following years of uncertainty, Senegal’s President Macky Sall has announced he will not run for a third term in 2024. Andrea Cassani, Tiziana Corda, and Giovanni Carbone consider Sall's decision less unexpected than it would have been some years ago. They discuss how term-limit politics could influence democracy and development across Africa Read more
Anthoula Malkopoulou
Anthoula Malkopoulou warns against conflating populism with authoritarianism and thus over-reacting and supporting repression. But treating populists as regular political opponents may lead to the opposite: under-reacting to the risks posed by some populist parties and individuals Read more
Tejendra Pratap Gautam
The recent victory of the Congress party in the southern state of Karnataka is a step towards the reversal of India's democratic backsliding, writes Tejendra Pratap Gautam Read more
Massimo D'Angelo
In the Turkish presidential elections of 14 May, no candidate secured 50% of the vote to secure outright victory. The election now goes to a runoff later this month. Massimo D’Angelo assesses whether a united opposition can, in the second round, defeat the incumbent President Erdoğan, who is seeking his third re-election Read more
Elin Bjarnegård
Gender and authoritarianism are interconnected – but in different and unexpected ways. Elin Bjarnegård and Pär Zetterberg think the relationship between them deserves more attention in political science. Here, they expose the relationship in terms of two autocrat strategies: genderwashing and genderbashing Read more
Mattia Zulianello
Mattia Zulianello and Petra Guasti explore and rebut three die-hard myths about populism. This, they argue, on the one hand guards against overestimating populism as a phenomenon. On the other, it warns that we must not underestimate the political strength of the so-called populist radical right Read more
Abbey Heffer
Authoritarian regimes are not centralised monoliths. In China, authoritarian responses to protest can differ dramatically across localities. Abbey Heffer argues that research on regime-level authoritarianism often overlooks decentralisation. Studying aspects of authoritarianism, such as protest repression and concessions, requires a practice-based approach that reconciles national and localised authoritarianism Read more
Thareeat Laohabut
The fashion for seeing all authoritarian regimes through the lens of ‘democratic backsliding’ or ‘autocratisation’ has overshadowed our understanding of the strategies of classic authoritarians. Thareerat Laohabut uses the case of Thailand to illustrate this problem, showing how civil-millitary relations supporting the regime have been inadequately understood Read more
