Jaroslav Bílek

Jaroslav Bílek is a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague. His research interests cover authoritarian politics, polarization, repression, electoral manipulation, international linkages, and civil–military relations.

Autocratic resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America

The COVID-19 pandemic has put additional pressure on governments all around the world. However, most of the attention so far has been paid to democratic states, and often to richer ones with a more advanced level of state capacity. Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic also spread to poorer countries with less developed state capacities and authoritarian forms of government. The aim of this presentation will be to analyse how authoritarian governments in Venezuela and Nicaragua managed to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The two mentioned authoritarian regimes did not enter the COVID-19 pandemic in good political, economic, or social shape. Despite this, they demonstrated an unexpected level of autocratic resilience.