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Book Manuscript in Progress
The Autocratic Citizen: Partisanship and Electoral Behavior under Dictatorship
Citizens living in autocratic regimes such as Cameroon face considerably more constrained choices when it comes to participating in political life than citizens of democracies. Given the danger of supporting the opposition and the unlikelihood of its success, why would an ordinary citizen ever choose to join the opposition? Inversely, given that democracy is a near-universal value and autocratic regimes face harsh criticisms about corruption and repression, why would a citizen choose to support the ruling party? In other words, under what conditions do citizens of authoritarian regimes participate in politics, and why do some become active in the opposition, while others actively support the regime?
The book project seeks to challenge traditional assumptions of political science in order to better understand the different ways in which Cameroonian citizens form their preferences for the regime in power, why they sometimes act on these preferences (either in support or defection), and the effect this collective behavior may have on the regime in power. More precisely, I argue that instead of focusing primarily on regime tactics such as patronage and repression, we must instead understand the social networks in which people are embedded, as well as processes of life-long political socialization in order to best understand why some people support the regime in power while others support the opposition.
The Autocratic Citizen: Partisanship and Electoral Behavior under Dictatorship
Citizens living in autocratic regimes such as Cameroon face considerably more constrained choices when it comes to participating in political life than citizens of democracies. Given the danger of supporting the opposition and the unlikelihood of its success, why would an ordinary citizen ever choose to join the opposition? Inversely, given that democracy is a near-universal value and autocratic regimes face harsh criticisms about corruption and repression, why would a citizen choose to support the ruling party? In other words, under what conditions do citizens of authoritarian regimes participate in politics, and why do some become active in the opposition, while others actively support the regime?
The book project seeks to challenge traditional assumptions of political science in order to better understand the different ways in which Cameroonian citizens form their preferences for the regime in power, why they sometimes act on these preferences (either in support or defection), and the effect this collective behavior may have on the regime in power. More precisely, I argue that instead of focusing primarily on regime tactics such as patronage and repression, we must instead understand the social networks in which people are embedded, as well as processes of life-long political socialization in order to best understand why some people support the regime in power while others support the opposition.
