Leitner Seminar Series: Anne Meng

Anne Meng is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. Her research centers on authoritarian politics, institutions, and elite powersharing. Her book, Constraining Dictatorship: From Personalized Rule to Institutionalized Regimes (Cambridge University Press, 2020), examines how executive constraints become established in dictatorships, particularly within constitutions and presidential cabinets. She has also published articles on authoritarian ruling parties, rebel regimes, opposition cooptation, term limit evasion, and leadership succession. Her new work focuses on autocratic backsliding and executive aggrandizement in non-democracies. She takes a political economy approach to comparative authoritarianism and have a regional focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work has been published in the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Theoretical Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Columbia Law Review, and Studies in Comparative International Development.