Book 

Why do millions of people living under dictatorships join political parties, show up at the polls, and even proudly defend authoritarian rulers—or, by contrast, risk their safety to back the opposition? The Autocratic Voter tackles this puzzle head-on, arguing that the key to understanding politics in today’s most common regime type—electoral autocracies—lies not in material payoffs, but in our social worlds. Drawing on rich fieldwork in Cameroon, including life histories of ordinary citizens, full social-network interviews, and original survey data, The Autocratic Voter shows how partisanship in authoritarian systems is built and sustained through families, friendships, neighborhoods, and villages. People become ruling-party loyalists or opposition diehards not simply because they are paid, threatened, or targeted with propaganda, but because they are socialized into partisan identities by the people they care about most. These identities—especially the starkly different ways ruling-party and opposition supporters see “democracy” and the regime’s legitimacy—then ripple outward, shaping beliefs, turnout, protest, and the prospects for regime change. 

Moving beyond the standard focus on elites, repression, and vote-buying, The Autocratic Voter offers a bottom-up theory of authoritarian politics that explains why autocrats endure, why opposition sometimes persists against the odds, and how the social geography of “party strongholds” can either entrench dictatorship or open space for democratic futures. It is essential reading for anyone interested in authoritarianism, democratization, African politics, and the power of everyday social life in shaping the fate of regimes. 

Listen to a discussion about the book on The Democracy Paradox.