Governance / Democracy

Research Interest

February 26: Junta on the Defense - Making Sense of Myanmar in 2026

January 28, 2026

February 26, 2026 | 12:30 - 2:00 PM | 223 Philosophy Hall

Nearly 80 percent of Myanmar’s territory is now either contested or controlled by anti-junta resistance groups. Aung Kyaw Moe, Deputy Minister of Human Rights for Myanmar’s pro-democracy government-in-exile, will offer an analysis of Myanmar’s rapidly evolving conflict and political landscape, explaining the advance of resistance forces over the past year.

He will discuss the regime’s recent elections, widely considered a sham to entrench junta rule. What does the electoral process mean...

February 5 with Prof. Denise Dresser: Mexico, Venezuela and the U.S. in the Era of Democratic Backsliding and the “Donroe” Doctrine

January 23, 2026

February 5, 2026 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM | 223 Philosophy Hall

Denise Dresser is an academic, public intellectual, columnist, and activist. Her work focuses on Mexican democratization, corruption, the construction of citizenship, and political economy issues from a comparative perspective.

Register

February 12: Book talk with Professor Chipo Dendere

January 9, 2026

February 12, 2026 | 3:30 - 5:00 PM | 223 Philosophy Hall

Join the UC Berkeley Institute of International Studies, Center for African Studies, and The Charles & Louise Travers Department of Political Science for a book talk with author Chipo Dendere, Associate Professor of Political Science, Africana Studies Department, Wellesley College.

Death, Diversion, and Departure: Voter Exit and the Persistence of...

The UC Berkeley Global Forum: Contemporary Challenges in the Asia Pacific

May 2, 2025

May 2, 2025 | 8:00AM - 5:00PM | Banatao Auditorium

The conference aims to bring together leading scholars and practitioners together to analyze, debate, propose solutions to several contemporary challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as to provide an opportunity for Berkeley students, faculty, alumni, and Bay Area international affairs professionals to engage with leading scholars, practitioners, and journalists regarding issues of contemporary importance.

https://events.berkeley.edu/ieas/event/297142-the-uc-berkeley-global-forum-conte…

Laurel Fletcher

Clinical Professor of Law and Director, International Human Rights Law Clinic
Law

Laurel Fletcher is Clinical Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, where she directs the International Human Rights Law Clinic and co-directs The Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. She studies human rights, humanitarian law, international criminal justice, and transitional justice.

Susan Hyde

Professor
Political Science
Center on the Politics of Development

Susan D. Hyde is the Robson Professor of Political Science at University of California, Berkeley, where she was Chair of the Department of Political Science (AY 2021-2024) and is co-director of the Institute of International Studies (2021- ). She studies international...

Andrew Little

Associate Professor
Political Science

Andrew Little is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies authoritarian politics, communication and information manipulation, and conflict, exploring the causes and political consequences of "nonstandard" belief formation with the use of formal models.

Mark Danner

Professor
Graduate School of Journalism
English

Professor Mark Danner is longtime journalist and writer who holds the Class of 1961 Distinguished Chair in Undergraduate Education at the University of California at Berkeley, teaching in both the Graduate School of Journalism and the Department of English. He writes about political violence, war, and American politics, mostly for The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, and teaches courses in foreign and war reporting and the realist and modernist novel.

Abhay Aneja

Professor
Law

Abhay Aneja is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies how legal institutions shape social and economic inequality, from domestic and comparative perspectives, with a focus on the law of democracy and criminal justice.

Pol Fité Matamoros

Graduate Student
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning
Pol Fité Matamoros is pursuing a PhD in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, as recipient of the Regent’s Fellowship. His research explores fascism as a spatial matter—i.e. as not only deploying certain spatial tactics, but also as premised on certain spatial imaginaries—through the case of early 20th century Spain. Its key contention is that exploring fascism through a spatial lens illuminates the links between European imperialism and fascism that are hinted at when calling the latter “the boomerang effect of...