Political systems relying on authoritarianism have long prevailed
throughout history.  One can also observe a wide variety of
authoritarian regimes across time and space.   How are authoritarian
regimes different from democracies?  What different types of
authoritarian regimes are there?  This seminar analyzes a combination
of theoretical and empirical readings on political institutions and
government behavior in authoritarian regimes, with the goal of
uncovering a common logic in the exercise of authoritarian
government.  We address two main sets of questions:  (1) how can
authoritarian regimes gather political support while simultaneously
limiting political freedom? Who supports repressive governments?  (2)
How can authoritarian regimes promote economic development in the
absence of political institutions to constrain abuse of government
authority?  Can authoritarian governments be trusted?  In order to
answer these questions we will read and discuss the work of political
scientists, economists, and historians.  The first section of the
course focuses on recent theoretical approaches for the study of
authoritarian governments.  The second section of the course focuses
on a series of selected case studies of long-lived authoritarian
regimes.