The course will consider the leading causal interpretations of the cycle of democracy and authoritarianism. We will explore the conflict of constitutionalism and democracy in revolutions, as well as the related struggles between nationalism and federalism during the re-organization of large (previously imperial) spaces. We then move on to the tensions involved in the institutionalization of constitutional democracy in developing or restored capitalist settings. Finally we return to the problematic of populist challenge to constitutional democracy in contemporary settings, both as result of the tensions previously explored, and as a causal factor generating authoritarian outcomes under democracies.