Merete Seeberg

Merete Bech Seeberg holds an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and is a Ph.D. candidate at University of Aarhus in Denmark. Her dissertation explores the effect of elections on regime stability in authoritarian regimes. While authoritarian elections have been shown to work both as stabilizing tools underpinning the autocrat and as levers of democratization, Merete Seeberg argues that this apparent paradox is due to the variety of circumstances under which non-democratic elections play out. Where the authoritarian regime can draw on significant state capacity and an economic monopoly, elections are more likely to serve the dictators ends. Where structural conditions are not as favorable to the dictator and the international community steps in, elections are more likely to propel democratization.