#  Disrupting the Dominant Party: The Personalization of Autocratic Rule 

 



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####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **March 3, 2026** 

 12:00PM - 01:30PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS South, Room S216**  

No registration required to attend in person.

 

 

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In competitive authoritarian regimes, the executive often comes to power through elections tightly controlled by a dominant party. This electoral dependence on the party limits the power the authoritarian leader can independently exercise. We argue that the executive can reduce this constraint by expanding the electoral influence of the opposition. This opposition empowerment leads to an influx of new elected officials with whom the incumbent can negotiate to achieve his policy and tenure goals, thereby bypassing traditional, dominant party power-brokers. Employing archival data from Peru, we demonstrate that weakening the Civil Party's monopoly over the administration of legislative elections--by granting more electoral oversight to the independent opposition--strengthened Civil Party President Augusto Leguía (1908–1912). In areas with opposition electoral administrators, new legislators were elected who were more likely to join Leguía's coalition and to support his policy and tenure goals against the preferences of the Civil Party. Opposition-administered areas were also more likely to electorally support Leguía in his subsequent bid for the presidency against a Civil Party candidate. Our findings illustrate how authoritarian incumbents can weaken the parties that brought them to power and personalize their rule.

This project is co-authored with[ Anna F. Callis](https://www.annafcallis.com/).

  
*This event is presented in collaboration with the* [*Weatherhead Center for International Affairs*](https://wcfia.harvard.edu/)*.*



 

 ### Christopher L. Carter

Speaker

Assistant Professor of Politics & John L. Nau III Assistant Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy, University of Virginia Central America Visiting Scholar, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University



 

   ![carter_headshot](/sites/g/files/omnuum12451/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-01/carter_headshot.png?itok=baFL4lXq) 

 

 

 

 ### Steven Levitsky

Moderator

Director, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies; Professor of Government, Harvard



 

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 ### Alisha C. Holland

Moderator

Professor of Government, Department of Government



 

   ![Alisha Holland](/sites/g/files/omnuum12451/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-02/Alisha-Holland-e1669652325704%20%281%29_1.jpg?h=638708df&itok=LK9FFwXa) 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

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###    Christopher L. Carter  expand\_more  

**Christopher L. Carter** is an Assistant Professor of Politics and the John L. Nau III Assistant Professor of the History and Principles of Democracy at the University of Virginia. He is also a Central America Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. His research examines the historical evolution of Indigenous–state relations in Latin America. His book, *The Long Shadow of Extraction: The Origins of Indigenous Autonomy Demands* (Princeton University Press), examines how historical experiences of land and labor loss shaped Indigenous demands for autonomy. His research has received multiple awards, including APSA's Best Fieldwork Award and the Juan Linz Prize for Best Dissertation in Comparative Politics. His work employs a multi-method approach combining archival research, interviews, and experimental and natural experimental methods.

 

 



###    Steven Levitsky  expand\_more  

**Steven Levitsky** is David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. He is Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation and a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America. He is co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of *How Democracies Die*, which was a *New York Times* Best-Seller and was published in 30 languages, and *Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point*. He has written or edited 11 other books, including *Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America: Argentine Peronism in Comparative Perspective* (Cambridge University Press 2003), *Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War* (with Lucan Way) (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and *Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism* (with Lucan Way) (Princeton University Press, 2022). He and Lucan Way are currently working on a book on democratic resilience across the world.

Professor Levitsky has written for *New York Times*, *The Washington Post*, *The Atlantic*, *Foreign Affairs*, and *The New Republic*, and he has been a columnist for *La Republica* (Peru) and *Folha de São Paulo* (Brazil).

 

 



###    Alisha C. Holland  expand\_more  

**Alisha C. Holland** studies the comparative political economy of development with a focus on Latin America. Her first book, *Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America* (Cambridge University Press, 2017), examines the politics of law enforcement against the poor. She is working on a new book on the institutional determinants and challenges of infrastructure investment in Latin America. Prior to joining the faculty, she was an assistant professor in the Politics Department at Princeton University and a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows.

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 



 

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