Learning to Love Democracy: Electoral Accountability, Government Performance, and the Consolidation of Democracy

Milan Svolik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago in 2006.

His current research is in two main areas: i) the politics of authoritarian regimes and ii) the politics of democratic transitions and consolidation. His broader research interests are in comparative and international politics, particularly the political economy of institutions, formal political theory, and statistical methodology.

His research on the politics of authoritarian regimes consists of a series of papers that investigate power-sharing, institutions, leader survival, and accountability in authoritarian regimes. He has also collected original data on leadership change in authoritarian regimes and data on coups d'état across regime types. He is currently incorporating this research into a book manuscript, provisionally entitled The Politics of Authoritarian Rule.

CO-SPONSORED BY COMPARATIVE POLITICS