Natalie Letsa — The Autocratic Voter: Partisanship and Political Socialization under Dictatorship
Natalie Letsa — The Autocratic Voter: Partisanship and Political Socialization under Dictatorship
Thursday, February 5, 202612:00 PM - 1:15 PM (Pacific)
Virtual to Public. If prompted for a password, use: 123456
Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E-008 Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.
Why do citizens in electoral autocracies choose to participate in politics and support political parties? With electoral autocracies becoming the most common type of regime in the modern world, Natalie Letsa's The Autocratic Voter challenges the dominant materialist framework for understanding political behavior and presents an alternative view of partisanship as a social identity. It argues that despite the irrationality and obstacles to participating in autocratic politics, people are socialized into becoming partisans by their partisan friends and family. This socialization process has a cascading effect that can either facilitate support for regime change and democracy or sustain the status quo. By delving into the social identity of partisanship, The Autocratic Voter offers a new perspective on political behavior in electoral autocracies that has the potential to shape the future of these regimes.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Natalie Letsa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. Previously, she was the Wick Cary Assistant Professor of Political Economy in the Department of International and Area Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the Director of OU's African Studies Institute. Letsa received her Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University in 2017, and in 2018-19 she was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.
Letsa studies public opinion and political behavior in autocratic regimes, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. Her book, The Autocratic Voter: Partisanship and Political Socialization under Dictatorship, presents an argument about the meaning of partisanship in electoral autocracies. Using the framework of social identity theory, it provides an answer to the question of why some people living in such regimes choose to support the ruling party, while others support the opposition, and others, still, stay out of politics altogether. Her other work has been published at the American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Politics, and Public Opinion Quarterly, amongst others.