Through a Glass, Darkly: How to Study Authoritarian Regimes
This project studies what and how outsiders learn about politics occurring in closed settings, i.e. in bodies where the outcome of the decision-making process may eventually be made public, but the process itself can be analyzed contemporaneously only by interpreting limited public signals and information gleaned through informal channels or leaks. I focus on the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, but the findings will likely apply to other authoritarian and democratic regimes.
