[Citizen College Season 4] #8 Elections and Authoritarianism

On November 6, 2020, the eighth lecture of Citizen College Season 4 < Citizen and Participation: How do citizens become owner of politics? > , co-hosted by the Seongbuk-gu Office and the Peace and Democracy Institute, was conducted using ZOOM. The sixth lecture was given by professor Nam Kyu KIM of the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Korea University.

The lecture, titled “Elections and Authoritarianism,” examines various conditions for democracy and highlights that elements of democracy in general elections are also found in many authoritarian countries. Contrary to the general common sense that elections are the exclusive property of democracy, many dictators were adopting elections for reasons such as pressure from abroad, efforts by Western democracies to spread democracy, and overseas aid. In addition, elections within authoritarian regimes were used as a means to justify the regime, to recruit and reward local elites, to show off the power of the regime and to understand the level of public support. And at the same time, these elections in authoritarian regimes have always been ambivalent about promoting democracy, suggesting the possibility of a dictator’s defeat in regular and repetitive elections. The lecturer used various statistics and examples to show the spread of elections among authoritarian states, highlighting the role and meaning of elections within authoritarian regimes