Authoritarian Practices in a Global Age

This book challenges the assumption that authoritarianism is necessarily a phenomenon located at the level of the state, and that states as a whole are therefore either democratic or authoritarian. Its central aim is to shed light on manifestations of authoritarianism that are not confined to the 'territorial trap' of the modern state, and are not captured by the concept of an authoritarian regime. Redefining authoritarianism from a practice perspective allows us to understand how authoritarian practices unfold and evolve within democracies and in transnational settings, in what circumstances they thrive, and how they are best countered. Authoritarian Practices in a Global Age provides a parsimonious framework for recognizing and analysing contemporary manifestations of authoritarianism beyond the state, alongside a number of empirical case studies.

The empirical chapters cast a wide net. They comprise a study of transnational repression by authoritarian states; two chapters on informal and formal multilateral collaboration in anti-terrorist policies; a chapter on corporate and public-private authoritarian practices in the mining sector; and a chapter on cover-ups of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The concluding chapter draws out commonalities and unique features from the case studies, thereby setting out a research agenda for future work. Authoritarian practices, once operationalized as demonstrated in this book, can and must be classified and compared, and causal connections established with other phenomena such as violence, corruption, and inequality, if we are to suggest ways of responding to them.

Marlies Glasius, Professor of International Relations, University of Amsterdam

Marlies Glasius is Professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics, University of Amsterdam, having previously worked at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she was a founding editor of the Global Civil Society Yearbook. Her research interests include authoritarianism, global civil society, international criminal justice, and the global rise of the super-rich. She is the author of The International Criminal Court: A Global Civil Society Achievement (Routledge, 2006) and lead author of Research, Ethics and Risk in the Authoritarian Field (Palgrave, 2018).