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Law, Violence, and Authoritarianism - POL00104M

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  • Department: Politics
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Rebecca Tapscott
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
    • See module specification for other years: 2023-24

Module summary

This module studies the relationship between law, violence, and authoritarianism. In doing so, it problematises the distinction between authoritarian and democratic regimes, while helping students think critically about sources and drivers of political control and repression.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2024-25

Module aims

After completing this course, students should:

  • Understand how authoritarian rule works in the day-to-day,

  • Recognise the relationships between violence and law in various regime-types.

  • Understand how the methods and theories of political science shape conceptions of authoritarianism in scholarly literature.

Module structure (indicative at this stage)

  • Conceptualizing and typologizing authoritarian regimes and the authoritarian state

  • Law and violence in the everyday

  • Literature on life under authoritarianism: Methodological reflections

  • Authoritarian state bureaucracy and bureaucrats

  • Formal and informal coercive and surveillance apparatuses

  • Legal devices such as state constitutions and courts

  • Gender and symbolic power

Module learning outcomes

After completing this course, students should:

  • Understand how authoritarian rule works in the day-to-day,

  • Recognise the relationships between violence and law in various regime-types.

  • Understand how the methods and theories of political science shape conceptions of authoritarianism in scholarly literature

Module content

Module structure (indicative at this stage)

  • Conceptualizing and typologizing authoritarian regimes and the authoritarian state

  • Law and violence in the everyday

  • Literature on life under authoritarianism: Methodological reflections

  • Authoritarian state bureaucracy and bureaucrats

  • Formal and informal coercive and surveillance apparatuses

  • Legal devices such as state constitutions and courts

  • Gender and symbolic power

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Summative essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Summative assessment		 N/A 100

Module feedback

Students will receive written timely feedback on their formative assessment. They will also have the opportunity to discuss their feedback during the module tutor’s feedback and guidance hours.

Indicative reading

Desrosiers, Marie-Eve. Trajectories of Authoritarianism in Rwanda: Elusive Control before the Genocide. African Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Ginsburg, Tom. "Authoritarian international law?." American Journal of International Law 114, no. 2 (2020): 221-260.

Green, Linda. “Fear as a Way of Life.” Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 2 (1994): 227–56.

Hassan, Mai. "The strategic shuffle: Ethnic geography, the internal security apparatus, and elections in Kenya." American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 2 (2017): 382-395.

North, Douglass C., John Joseph Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast. "Violence and the rise of open-access orders." Journal of democracy 20, no. 1 (2009): 55-68.

Ong, Lynette H. Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China. Oxford University Press, 2022.

Purdeková, Andrea. “‘Even If I Am Not Here, There Are so Many Eyes’: Surveillance and State Reach in Rwanda*.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 49, no. 3 (September 2011): 475–97.

Scheppele, Kim Lane. "Autocratic legalism." The University of Chicago Law Review 85, no. 2 (2018): 545-584.

Wedeen, Lisa. Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.