Distinguished Professor Ali Riaz and Department of Politics and Government alum Md. Sohel Rana, M.S. ‘21, have published the book How Autocrats Rise: Sequences of Democratic Backsliding.
The book examines the processes of democratic backsliding in four countries—Bangladesh, Bolivia, Hungary, and Turkey—and demonstrates that political developments in these countries have followed a similar, specific pattern resulting in various shades of autocracy.
Dr. Riaz and Rana challenge the existential institution-focused analysis of democratic erosion and offer an institutional-ideological approach to understand the phenomenon. The book discusses the steps of emergent autocrats and analyzes the methods of legitimizing their rules.
This theoretically enriched and empirically grounded study offers insights on how to forestall an autocratic era. The book is published by Palgrave Macmillan.
