Authoritarian leaders buoyed by populist politics can--and sometimes do--rise to power in electoral democracies. Using a range of contemporary and historical case studies, this seminar examines how and why democratic elections can lead to authoritarian regimes. Under what conditions do democratic institutions fail to restrain leaders who seek power beyond their mandates? What are such leaders’ sources of legitimacy? How do they govern? How do they reshape national economies? Turning our lens away from an exclusive focus on authoritarian leaders themselves, the seminar analyses the social, political, and economic conditions that give rise to authoritarian transformations in democratic societies. Amidst a global resurgence in populist politics, the seminar also critically explores the uses and limits of the vocabulary we use to describe contemporary political orders: what do concepts like “democracy” and “authoritarianism” illuminate, what do they obscure, and what alternative vocabularies might we consider for thinking and talking about varieties of political regimes?