Legal Resistance to Autocracy

This book focuses on resistance to autocratization, a less well-researched and understood topic than the rise of authoritarianism. As the editors and authors of this book have experienced both through their academic research and personal lives in autocratizing countries, autocratization does not march on unopposed. Moreover, resistance to autocratization has yielded results, if not managing to prevent attempted coups, like in Brazil and the United States, at least in disturbing the path of autocratizers and leaving doors open for future reversal, as in India, Israel and South Africa. This collection offers a contribution to this important yet neglected field from scholars of eight countries in different stages of autocratization: Brazil, India, China, Russia, Israel, Hungary, South Africa, and the United States, as well as cross-cutting themes on international human rights institutions, sanctions, the political economy of autocratization, and the role of lawyers from a comparative perspective. The authors include senior and rising scholars not only with academic interest and experience of the topic but also deep knowledge and intense involvement in the autocratization processes, and resistance, in their own countries. The volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, and policy-makers working in the areas of law, political science, and international relations.