Democracy Paradox
Democracy Paradox
Justin Kempf
Dan Slater Says Authoritarian Ideologies Still Matter
47 minutes Posted Jun 10, 2026 at 6:00 am.
Introduction
Why Scholars Stopped Taking Ideology Seriously
The Difference Between Authoritarian Left and Right
Why the Third Wave Narrative Gets the History Wrong
Can Democracy Survive Ideological Extremes
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We think of World War II as this global democratizing event, but what it really did was strengthen left-wing authoritarianism. Dan Slater Dan Slater is the James Orin Murfin Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Center of Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan. He is the coauthor (with Joseph Wong) of the book From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia. More recently, he authored the article "The Authoritarian Origins of the Third Wave" in t...