“There’s a stereotype of dictatorship where one person decides everything, but that’s not always how politics works in an authoritarian regime,” says Emilia Simison, a sixth-year doctoral student in political science. Since 2015, Simison has been able to access and study documents that chronicle the lawmaking machinery of some of the past century’s most notorious dictatorships. Her analysis of these voluminous materials suggests that autocracies do not routinely follow a single “strongman” model, and that some even make room for opposition groups and legislatures. “I want to understand what makes…
