Law & Rights in Authoritarian States
This course investigates the logic and lived reality of authoritarian law, with the goal of complicating the popular notion that authoritarian law is simply an instrument of state repression. We will mix more theoretical readings on approaches to law and the logic of courts with empirical studies of how law works in two historical settings (Nazi Germany and East Germany) and two contemporary cases (China and Russia). Part of our focus will be on elite politics, particularly the reasons leaders devolve power to courts and the control strategies they deploy to keep judges, lawyers and plaintiffs in check. At the same time, we will pay close attention to everyday law and how ordinary people experience the legal system.
Topics
- Gain a solid understanding of different theoretical frameworks used to think about the origins of authoritarianism, the relationship between authoritarian law and politics, and authoritarian backsliding. This course should make it easier for you to read the newspaper and think critically about current events. Learn how law and politics intersected in five case studies critical to understanding modern authoritarianism: Nazi Germany, East Germany, China, Russia and the United States. Strengthen your critical-thinking skills. Students will learn to identify the causal claims of authors and to challenge their approaches and assumptions. These are skills you will bring to your other courses, and to your life after college. Learn to think comparatively, a mode of analysis in political science premised on the idea that the act of comparing two or more cases can help us wrestle with important questions about political phenomena. Rather than viewing the United States as sui generis, the comparative method will help us understand how our politics fit into global trends, and challenge (or support) what social scientists know about modern authoritarianism.
Official catalogue course objectives and student learning outcomes
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027