1. What makes a regime undemocratic?
What are categories and ideal types? Is the idea of a regime too broad?
How many forces should hold power in a society?: one, a handful, many? Is having anything less than power by the people inherently bad? Are there situations where it makes sense to have non-dem?
Why have so many countries becoming democratic in recent decades? US hegemony and globalization for starters
What separates out good governments from bad ones? Maybe the main criteria isn’t whether they are not democratic or not… How unhappy are people in undemocratic regimes? (chart next slide)

2. What makes a regime BAD?

3. What makes a regime undemocratic?
What separates out good governments from bad ones? Maybe the main criteria isn’t whether they are not democratic or not
The results in a country’s trajectory?:Despots vs. Modernizing tyrants and party states
The degree to which negative rights (aka liberties) and/or positive rights are protected?
The means of exercising power? Violence versus the alternatives (patronage, clientelism, propaganda, state-centered growth, self-checking division, electoral manipulation; scapegoating internal/external enemies)
Whether rules are arbitrary or not (equal citizenship)
Whether government serves itself or everyone… Are democracies more happy?
Do authoritarian regimes ever hold elections (usually do, these days) and/or protect rights (sometimes) and liberties (no)?
What are the main types of authoritarian regimes?:
Autocracies (inc., monarchies and “strongman governemtnts);
Oligarchies & competitive oligarchies (inc., single party states),
Bureaucratic authoritarianism (inc. some juntas)

4. WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE LIVE WITH UNDER AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES?
Why is author. the most common type of regime throughout history? What does democracy need to flourish?
Are there situations in which authoritarian regimes are justified or even best?: External security, dealing with ethnic divisions, modernizing tyrants, tutelage, & strategic resource control
Can these regimes be “legitimate” or even popular? Corporatism, clientelism, propaganda, and patronage
How do natural resources (a curse?) impact good and bad rulers? (state capitalism vs. lootocracies)
How likely are these regimes to persist over time without people revolting? Russia (ossification) vs. Mexico or China
How have authoritarian regimes evolved in recent decades to survive at least in the short-term (optional Andreas Schedler)? Legislatures, judiciary, elections, civil society, media

5. What are totalitarian regimes?
Why is totalitarianism a 20th C phenomenon? With command economy communism gone pretty much, why study it today?
Why so much violence by everyday people?
What kind of ideology? Scapegoats & utopias
Why cults of leadership? Can democracies have these, too? (Populism, yes; advanced industrial democracies, no)
Why propaganda and mass mobilization?
Why politicization of the private sphere?
How is a revolution institutionalized? Cells, purges, secret police, schools, & parties
Why do these regimes tend to be so short-lived? Will we have more totalitarianism or less as technological innovation goes forward (George Orweel)?
Why are they less likely to evolve into democratic regimes than authoritarian governments?

6. SO WHAT IS THE IRANIAN regime AND IS IT DANGERSOUS?
Why might Iran be aggressive regardless of its regime type? Realism, the US, its neighborhood (where it is one of two hegemons), and off shore balancing
In what sense was Iran initially totalitarian, and why was its totalitarian period “still born”? Are there still any totalitarian elements?
What is “factionalized” authoritarianism, and what does it look like in Iran? What does it look like in Mexico? What did it used to look like in China?
Is there any way in which Iran is democratic? What makes it undemocratic?
The Supreme Leader (selected by Assembly of Experts, life)
Assembly of Experts (elected clerics, 8 yr terms)
Iran’s president (elected with GC approval, 4 yr terms)
Guardian council (6 selected by SC, 6 by Parliament after being nominated by a head cleric selected by the Sup. Leader, 6-yr terms)
Parliament (4 yr-terms, GC vetting)
The Expediency Council (appointed by SL)
The Iranian Revolution Guard
The judiciary (Clerics)