Show notes
Join the editors for the first episode of our newest series, on dictatorship, democracy, and development! As an introduction, we discuss political scientist Mancur Olson's paper of the same name. Americans are increasingly wondering just how democratic their country is, and whether dictatorship might be a better fit.Next week, we'll be looking more closely at the case of dictatorship in Portugal, so stay tuned for some interesting history and political analysis!--Visit our website and subscribe to our newsletter!To comment on this episode, click here!To listen to written articles from Spectacles read aloud, click here!Follow us on Twitter!--Further Reading"Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," by Mancur Olson, in The American Political Science Review."Democratic Theory: What You Need to Know," by Spectacles.Table of Contents00:00 - Intro & Housekeeping00:33 - The Italian Village Monarchist01:13 - Today's topic04:07 - Upcoming episodes in series05:00 - Why dictatorship?14:54 - Does dictatorship actually "work"?18:17 - How does dictatorship fall short?24:50 - How does democracy fix these problems?28:08 - Some problems with Olson's argument32:28 - A recap of findings34:39 - Signing off
