Authoritarianism and Democracy - Einzelansicht

This seminar aims to discuss both the characteristics and dynamics of authoritarian regimes and sources of authoritarianism in the modern world from a comparative perspective. Therefore, rather than analyzing authoritarianism solely as a form of regime, it also targets to enlarge the discussion to current state and problems of modern democracies so as to shed light on different sources of the recent escalation of authoritarian politics. It will also review and discuss the literature on authoritarianism in pursuit of finding the answers to the following questions: What makes authoritarian politics sustainable or fragile? What are the sources of authoritarian politics in the modern world? What are the political strategies, followed by authoritarian leaders? How and why authoritarian parties get the support of masses in the contemporary world? How authoritarian regimes transforms democracies institutionally, legally and politically after getting power? In that context, varieties of authoritarian regimes, sustenance, durability, and resilience of authoritarian politics in the modern world will be discussed with a reference to theories of democracy, populism and contemporary classifications of authoritarian regimes, such as competitive authoritarianism, electoral authoritarianism, hybrid regimes, and non-democratic regimes, etc. Meanwhile, contemporary authoritarian tendencies and country cases will also be analyzed with close scrutiny to underline their differences and commonalities.