By Justin Kempf Over the past year I have tried my best to keep up with the latest trends on democracy and political science. It's not easy, because amazing writers and scholars publish so many outstanding books every year. So, it's only natural that I have missed out on a number of titles. In fact,... Continue Reading →
Lucan Way is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto and Co-Director of the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine. Steven Levitsky is the David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, professor of government, and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. They are... Continue Reading →
Become a Patron! Preorder Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way's Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism here. Revolutions and Durable Authoritarianism Revolutionary governments capture the imagination. Their origins have mythic qualities. Those involved become heroes and villains of epic proportions. Moreover, the regimes they establish frequently survive for generations. Indeed, most of the revolutionary... Continue Reading →
What is Institutional Weakness? Over the past few years political science has woken up to the importance of state capacity in the construction of stable governments. Unfortunately, scholars have not paid the same level of attention to the strength of institutions. It’s easy to take for granted that improvements in state capacity will naturally... Continue Reading →
There is no more important work in comparative politics in the last ten years than Competitive Authoritarianism. Its ideas completely disrupted conceptual expectations about democracy. Some of the intellectual currents existed before its publication. Indeed, Levitsky and Way had published an article which outlined their ideas as early as 2002 in the Journal of Democracy.... Continue Reading →
I will admit the title is a bit of a hyperbole. It grabs the reader’s attention, but it loses some credibility among intellectual readers. Fortunately, underneath the cover is a significant work of political thought. Steven Levitsky is a giant of political science who defined a new form of political regime along with Lucan Way... Continue Reading →
