Political scientist gains international renown for his research on authoritarianism within democratic states

Northwestern Now: Summaries

Authoritarianism and DemocracyPolitical scientist Edward Gibson gains international renown for his research on authoritarianism within democratic statesJuly 12, 2017By Daniel P. SmithThe coincidence was not lost on Edward Gibson.
At the same time that the Northwestern political scientist was in Veracruz, Mexico to receive an award for his research on authoritarianism in democracies, human rights groups discovered mass graves in the same Mexican state.
The finding served as a stark and sobering footnote to Gibson’s acceptance of the Medal of Merit from the National University of Veracruz. Gibson’s work includes Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies, a prize-winning 2013 book that argues that local authoritarianism in states and provinces is a regular feature of political life in national democracies.
“Veracruz is a state that’s experienced violent and repressive government for some time, and it is a prime example of how local authoritarian regimes endure in democratic nations,” says Gibson, who joined Northwestern in 1994 and is now the College’s associate dean for faculty affairs.
Gibson, who has devoted much of his scholarly life to studying the problems of democracy, discusses the personal experiences that have fueled his research, the continued reign of authoritarian governments and what might be done to ensure that democracy prevails.
How did you get interested in authoritarianism?
I grew up in Latin America, and spent much of my early life under authoritarian governments. When I was getting my graduate degree in the 1980s, a wave of transitions to democratic government across Latin America led me to study the problems these emerging democracies face.
Most of us look at a country’s national government to determine whether it’s a democracy, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s happening at the local level. When you head out into the provinces, where people really feel the force of politics, you often find a different universe ...

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