THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Biography:
Lisa Wedeen is the Mary R. Morton Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science and the College and Director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory at the University of Chicago. She is also Associate Faculty in Anthropology. Her publications include three books: Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria (1999; with a new preface, 2015); Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen (2008); and Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria (2019). Among her articles are the following: “Conceptualizing ‘Culture’: Possibilities for Political Science” (2002); “Concepts and Commitments in the Study of Democracy” (2004); “Ethnography as an Interpretive Enterprise” (2009); “Reflections on Ethnographic Work in Political Science” (2010); “Ideology and Humor in Dark Times: Notes from Syria” (2013); and “Scientific Knowledge, Liberalism, and Empire: American Political Science in the Modern Middle East” (2016). She is the recipient of the David Collier Mid-Career Achievement Award and an NSF fellowship. For Authoritarian Apprehensions, she received the American Political Science Association’s Charles Taylor Book Award (2020), sponsored by the Interpretative Methodologies and Methods group; the APSA’s inaugural Middle East and North Africa Politics Section’s best book award (2020); the IPSA award for Concept Analysis in Political Science (2021); and the Gordon J. Laing Award (2022), given annually for the book that brings the most distinction to the University of Chicago Press. She has completed an edited volume with Joseph Masco entitled Conspiracy/Theory (forthcoming Duke University Press, 2024); she is in the process of coediting an Oxford University Handbook, with Prathama Banerjee, Dipesh Chakrabarty, and Sanjay Seth, tentatively entitled Reimagining Cosmopolitanism (Oxford University Press); and, with Aarjen Glas and Jessica Soedirgo, the interpretive methods part of an Oxford University Handbook on Methodological Pluralism in Political Science (edited by Janet Box-Steffensmeier et al.). Wedeen is also beginning work on a monograph on violence and temporality.
Project Title: Translating Authoritarian Apprehensions
The resurgence of authoritarianism, both globally and within established democracies, signals a significant shift in the political landscape, challenging previous assumptions about the triumph of liberal democracy. The defeat of the Arab uprisings, the rise of populist nationalism in the United States and Europe, and the consolidation of autocratic regimes in Russia, Turkey, and beyond reflect a broader trend of political retrenchment. This project examines the dynamics of global authoritarianism, exploring the ways in which citizens, not just autocrats, are drawn to authoritarian systems. It takes a comparative approach, analyzing cases such as Trump’s political base, Putin's enduring popularity, Erdogan's rise in Turkey, and the entrenchment of autocratic rule in the Middle East and beyond. By integrating both quantitative and qualitative methods—ranging from ethnographic fieldwork to large-scale surveys—the study probes the socio-political and affective dimensions of authoritarianism, including emotional appeals like fear, resentment, and solidarity that sustain such regimes. The project emphasizes the role of affect in shaping political loyalties, moving beyond purely interest-based calculations of support. The aim is to produce a theoretically robust and empirically grounded account of authoritarianism, attending to its local and national variations, the design of coercive apparatuses, and the social and cultural forces that sustain it. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, this research seeks to enrich our understanding of the appeal of authoritarian rule, exploring how ordinary citizens in different contexts come to support regimes that curtail civil rights, dismantle democratic institutions, and prioritize the consolidation of power.