Event | A Book Talk and Discussion on The Social Roots of Authoritarianism Email from IERES, GW Elliott School A Book Talk and Discussion on The Social Roots of Authoritarianism with author Natalia Forrat moderated by David Szakonyi Wednesday, April 22, 2026 3:00-4:00pm Ell

Register here: campaignlp.constantcontact.com/em/111034763...

@ieres-gwu.bsky.social

because different types of authoritarianism lack different elements of democracy, support efforts may need to set different goals and target different institutions depending on the kind of authoritarian society they are engaging with."

and the conflict between this ideal and the reality of a repressive state. For democracy practitioners, the book carries an important implication:

She shows that when a group bond between citizens and the state is present, state-society relations are driven not by competition among different groups seeking to use state resources to their advantage but by the collective pursuit of a just state

Forrat’s theory challenges the use of conventional categories of competitive politics to understand authoritarianism.

These aren't just different flavors of the same thing — they produce fundamentally different political machines, electoral control patterns, and implications for what democratization would require.

Where people see the state as their collective team leader, regimes consolidate through social conformity and solidarity. Where they see it as an outsider, regimes rely on clientelist bargains and transactional loyalty.

Drawing on fieldwork across four Russian regions, she identifies two distinct models of authoritarianism rooted in how societies view the state.

In The Social Roots of Authoritarianism (Oxford University Press, 2024), Natalia Forrat offers a new framework for understanding how authoritarian power works at the grassroots level.

DC friends and colleagues! Join me in two weeks, on Wednesday, April 22, for my book talk at GWU! Registration link in the first comment.

"Why do citizens cooperate with a state that mistreats them? And why does that cooperation look so different from one place to the next?

Russia’s War in Ukraine: The Next Chapter Russia’s war in Ukraine has persisted for over three years. Despite U.S. mediation attempts, from Saudi talks to a Trump-Putin summit in Anchorage, and European debates on peacekeepers, Russia continu...

On the different scenarios of how the war in Ukraine may develop. Includes an analysis of Russia's capacity to continue the war. The most realistic scenario - a prolonged conflict of low intensity.
www.csis.org/analysis/rus...

In turn, a 64 percent majority of Republicans now say immigration is a good thing for the country, up from 39 percent last year."

whose support for lowering immigration rates plummeted to 48 percent, from 88 percent just one year ago. Although a plurality still want immigration to decrease, an increasing share expressed a desire to keep immigration at current levels.

Support for Immigration Rebounds as Trump Cracks Down on It, Poll Finds

Wow. I don't remember if I ever saw that big of a shift in public opinion in just one year.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/u...

"The recent shift in attitudes about immigration has been driven primarily by Republicans,

The embassy never responded. Cristosal’s U.S.A.I.D. funding has since been canceled; the head of its anticorruption unit, Ruth López, was arrested last month, and is still in prison."

When Cristosal’s director, Noah Bullock, heard Mr. Rubio would visit the country, he asked the embassy if the secretary would make time to meet with representatives from civil society groups like his, as had often been the case for such visits around the world.

One of the groups that U.S.A.I.D. funded in El Salvador, Cristosal, is a human rights group that investigates corruption by the country’s government.

Now, Mr. Rubio was meeting with Mr. Bukele, who has called himself the world’s “coolest dictator,” to discuss sending undocumented migrants from the United States to a notorious Salvadoran prison.

The agency spent more than $50 million on human rights and other pro-democracy programs in El Salvador last year, according to federal data.

Missteps, Confusion and ‘Viral Waste’: The 14 Days That Doomed U.S.A.I.D.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/22/u...
"That Mr. Rubio was in El Salvador on the day of U.S.A.I.D.’s demise carried a particular resonance.

A line chart with a blue line showing a large growth of protest events from Jan 20 - May 31, 2025, and a green line showing the relatively modest growth of protest events during the same period in 2017.

My team and I at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman@bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) have a new piece out: wagingnonviolence.org/2025/06/amer.... In it, we show that through May 2025, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests have dwarfed those in 2017. 🧵

Unity, Division, and the Grassroots Architecture of Authoritarian Rule Dr. Natalia Forrat, a comparative political sociologist and lecturer at the University of Michigan’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, explores how authoritarian regimes are mai...

The TLDR version of the talk:
cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/news/unity-d...

For those who did not make it to my book talk on April 1st, I will be doing it again tomorrow at the Stanford's CDDRL @ noon Pacific Time.
Stanford people - see you in person; everyone else can join via Zoom. @stanfordcddrl.bsky.social

cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/events/socia...

DHS threatens to revoke Harvard’s eligibility to host international students unless it turns over disciplinary records | CNN Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is threatening to strip Harvard University of its ability to enroll international students if it doesn’t turn over records on international studen...

I'm far from saying that the US is like Russia, but it seems that in all countries, government funds and accreditation/certification are the sticks used by autocrats to tame universities. Kudos to Harvard for standing up to this. Universities have the power!
edition.cnn.com/2025/04/16/u...

Ask Trump whether he's still convinced Pu wants peace.

Another year of programming to be proud of @umichDemocracy!

ii.umich.edu/emerging-dem...

Any institution that stands up to Mr. Trump should be prepared to make sacrifices. ... One mistake that the submissive law firms made was imagining they had any chance of emerging unscathed once Mr. Trump targeted them."

"A crucial fact about these agreements is that they include no binding promises from the White House. ... The university did not even win the restoration of that funding when it agreed to his demands; it won merely permission to begin negotiating with the administration.

Opinion | A Playbook for Law Firms and Colleges to Stand Up to President Trump Law firms and universities do not need to capitulate. Here’s how they can fight back.

"The playbook begins with a recognition that capitulation is doomed."
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/06/o...