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In recent years, the world has been shaken by numerous events that have caused and continue to cause massive human suffering, from the COVID-19 pandemic to intrastate and interstate armed conflicts.Moreover, climate change continues to plow ahead, contributing to growing tensions, population movements, and resource scarcity.

Democratic erosion in the United States, and the global decline of support for democratic values and institutions, obliges us to reflect on how we introduce politics to undergraduate students in this challenging era. Recent attacks on democratic rights and academic freedoms on college campuses, as well as the undermining of rule of law and democratic norms in the United States and abroad, compels us to reconsider and reflect on how we introduce politics and civic engagement in the classroom to our students. In this essay, we reflect on how current global and national trends in populism and authoritarianism require us to teach politics courses differently than in the past. We then identify the content, skills, and values we need to emphasize and continue to train students under the stressors of anti-democratic norms and legislation in the United States and around the world. We also identify our responsibilities as educators, as we promote civic and political engagement which may expose students to risks of political repression and even violence. Lastly, we propose ways to help students identify and understand their support for and satisfaction with the current state of democracy and critically evaluate the alternatives.

Democratic erosion in the United States, and the global decline of support for democratic values and institutions, obliges us to reflect on how we introduce politics to undergraduate students in this challenging era. Recent attacks on democratic rights and academic freedoms on college campuses, as well as the undermining of rule of law and democratic norms in the United States and abroad, compels us to reconsider and reflect on how we introduce politics and civic engagement in the classroom to our students. In this essay, we reflect on how current global and national trends in populism and authoritarianism require us to teach politics courses differently than in the past. We then identify the content, skills, and values we need to emphasize and continue to train students under the stressors of anti-democratic norms and legislation in the United States and around the world. We also identify our responsibilities as educators, as we promote civic and political engagement which may expose students to risks of political repression and even violence. Lastly, we propose ways to help students identify and understand their support for and satisfaction with the current state of democracy and critically evaluate the alternatives.

This article shows that while the impact of crime victimization on support for democracy is sensitive to question wording, the influence of fear of crime on this attitude is consistent and immune to measurement effects. We construe this as evidence that fear of crime has greater attitudinal consequences for democratic support than crime victimization. We show that fear of crime is affected by actual individual and contextual levels of crime victimization as well as evaluations of regime performance. Finally, and consistent with the affective intelligence literature, we find that crime fails to activate people’s surveillance systems in countries that exhibit very low levels of it (typically, where less than 10% of respondents report to have been victims of crime). It is only in countries that have significant crime victimization where fear of it becomes a factor affecting support for democracy.

This dissertation studies the relationship between transitional justice and human security. Examples of transitional justice include truth commissions, special prosecutions, amnesties, lustration policies, security sector and judicial reforms, as well as memorial and memory projects. Human security refers to the critical (severe) and pervasive (widespread) human threats and situations that could destabilize a state and society. Because I argue that, ultimately, the security of justice is predicated on the actualization of human security, this dissertation examines the extent to which human security—as a claim to justice—is advanced by the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms. Understanding how transitional justice informs human security practices may lead scholars and practitioners to reflect on the widespread assumption that security must be first in place in order for justice to be enacted. My research question problematizes that very assumption and investigates if and how the practice of justice is used to further the work of human security advocates and their agendas. I explore this impact on the three subfields of human security: safety of peoples, development, and rule of law/human rights. Chapter 3 explores the relationship between transitional justice and the safety of peoples by examining the displacement crisis in Colombia. Chapter 4 discusses how transitional justice relates to development by studying the impact of international courts on reparations programs in Guatemala and Uganda. Chapter 5 addresses the impact of transitional justice on rule of law/human rights by discussing the successes and failures of transitional justice in reforming the state to establish the rule of law in Kenya and Peru. In each of these substantive chapters I explore the conceptual and empirical connections between transitional justice and human security by introducing specific analytical frameworks to organize the evidence. My analysis reveals that, unfortunately, the empirical impact of transitional justice on human security initiatives is rather tenuous despite their strong conceptual connections. There is little coordinated effort between transitional justice and human security epistemic communities, despite the fact that victim testimony and claims to justice are often framed around the human insecurities people face in their daily lives. While many countries are adopting TJ mechanisms, these mechanisms rarely take into account persistent human insecurities that could undermine their ultimate goals to prevent the repeat of a violent and authoritarian past and restore the dignity and rights of individuals.