Dan Slater Says Authoritarian Ideologies Still Matter

Dan Slater Says Authoritarian Ideologies Still Matter

From Democracy Paradox by Justin Kempf

June 10, 2026 · 47 min · Season 2 · Episode 20

About this episode

Dan Slater discusses the impact of World War II on authoritarian ideologies and modern democracy.

We think of World War II as this global democratizing event, but what it really did was strengthen left-wing authoritarianism. Dan Slater Dan Slater is the James Orin Murfin Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Center of Emerging Democracies at the University of Michigan. He is the coauthor (with Joseph Wong) of the book From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia. More recently, he authored the article "The Authoritarian Origins of the Third Wave" in t...

People in this episode

Host: Justin Kempf

Guest: Dan Slater

Topics covered

  • authoritarianism
  • democracy
  • political science
  • World War II
  • modern Asia

Keywords

  • authoritarian ideologies
  • democratization
  • political science
  • World War II
  • Asia

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Michigan

Books & works: From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia, The Authoritarian Origins of the Third Wave

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