Democracy and Autocracy: Theories and Empirical Findings

This course is part of the IPSAMOOC project, a joint venture Federica Weblearning – IPSA, the International Political Science AssociationDemocracy and Autocracy are core concepts of Political Science but they are also contested concepts. It is important, therefore, to understand the basic theories underpinning these two types of regime. The last few decades have seen regime change become one of the main topics in democracy studies. The aim of this course is to analyze why and how democratic regimes emerge from autocratic regimes, as well as why and how democratic regression or democratic breakdown takes place. As evidenced by events of the last few decades, we also need to subdivide these root concepts into subtypes that reflect deficient forms of democracy or moderate forms of autocracy. From 1990 onwards, in particular, we can see that democratization and autocratization have taken diverse pathways, and we have witnessed progress and regression in the worldwide development of democracy; often with a considerable variety of democratic or autocratic subtypes. This course explores these developments.