Protest, Democratization, and Democratic Backsliding

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Regimes across the developing world are in flux. Over the past decade, some countries have seen their autocrats overthrown, others have seen their revolutions succeed and democracy thrive only to later see the reestablishment of autocracy, and still others exist in a murky middle ground between autocracy and democracy. The papers in this panel examine the conditions under which autocrats are overthrown and democracy thrives, while fundamentally interrogating our very definitions of regime type to help us better define regime change in the first place. Together, the papers on this panel promise to further our understanding of autocracy, democratization, and democratic backsliding across the developing world.

Sub Unit

• Division 44: Democracy and Autocracy

Individual Presentations

• Power on the Margins: Chinese and Egyptian Lumpenproletarians - Killian Clarke, Georgetown University; Manfred Elfstrom, University of British Columbia, Okanagan

• Movement Resilience in Sudan’s Popular Uprising - Mai Omer Hassan, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Ahmed Kodouda, The George Washington University

• Why Stealth Authoritarianism is Harder Than It Looks - Jason Brownlee, University of Texas, Austin

• Highway Through the Danger Zone: Thresholds of Democratic Survival & Breakdown - Jonathan Kropko; Benjamin Clay Helms, University of Virginia; Anne Meng, University of Virginia; David Leblang, University of Virginia

Chair

• Philip Roessler College of William & Mary

Discussants

• Ashley Anderson

• Philip Roessler College of William & Mary