About

Kenneth M. Roberts is the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell University. He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University, specializing in comparative and Latin American politics. His teaching and research interests focus on democracy and the political economy of development, with particular emphasis on the politics of inequality. Much of his published work explores the intersection of political parties, social movements, and populism, especially in Latin America and beyond. His recent book is the co-edited 'Democratic Resilience: Can the United States Withstand Rising Polarization,' published by Cambridge University Press. Roberts has also authored 'Changing Course in Latin America: Party Systems in the Neoliberal Era' and 'Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru,' among other publications.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Law
• Computer Security
• Sociology
• Gender studies
• Development economics
• Public administration
• Political economy
• Economics

Selected publications

• Democratic Backsliding, Resilience, and Resistance

  World Politics · 2025-01-01 · 24 citations

  articleSenior author

  abstract: This article assesses two next-level questions in the study of democratic backsliding: democratic resilience and political polarization. It first advances a set of methodological decision points to improve clarity in contemporary debates surrounding democratic backsliding measurement and the possibility of identifying moments of democratic recovery. It then moves to a theoretical and empirical assessment of pathways by which democratic backsliding takes place, under what conditions, which specific actors are involved, and what opportunities exist for democratic recovery given sources of resilience and strategies of resistance. The authors examine the role of political polarization in backsliding and highlight the combined importance of political agency and institutional levers for regime outcomes. The authors argue that regime outcomes are not predetermined by antecedent conditions, and particularly not by the level of development.

  PublisherDOI

• Global Challenges to Democracy: Backsliding, Resiliency, and Democratic Theory

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2025-05-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Polarization and Democracy in Latin America

  2025-09-08

  bookSenior author
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• Structural and Institutional Sources of Populist Resiliency

  2024-04-22 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The proliferation of different types of populism across strikingly diverse international settings suggests that the phenomenon has found unusually fertile terrain in contemporary social and political settings. Populism’s resiliency is rooted in structural tensions that have created its essential preconditions in much of the world, facilitating populist configurations of the political field along an antagonistic divide between “the people” and an elite power bloc. This field is shaped by the interplay of structural (or sociological) and institutional dimensions—more specifically, by the combination of complex social heterogeneity and crises of political representation. So also is it shaped by the forces of economic, cultural, and political globalization and the varied nationalist assertions of popular sovereignty spawned in their wake. Taken together, these forces have softened the class-based cleavage structures of industrial-era political orders, uprooted and weakened the integrative capacity of traditional political parties, and created openings for populism’s binary division of the political field along new lines of socio-political and socio-cultural contestation.

  PublisherDOI

• Democratic Backsliding,Resilience, and Resistance

  World Politics · 2024-01-01 · 19 citations

  articleSenior author

  This article assesses two next-level questions in the study of democratic backsliding: democratic resilience and political polarization. It first advances a set of methodological decision points to improve clarity in contemporary debates surrounding democratic backsliding measurement and the possibility of identifying moments of democratic recovery. It then moves to a theoretical and empirical assessment of pathways by which democratic backsliding takes place, under what conditions, which specific actors are involved, and what opportunities exist for democratic recovery given sources of resilience and strategies of resistance. The authors examine the role of political polarization in backsliding and highlight the combined importance of political agency and institutional levers for regime outcomes. The authors argue that regime outcomes are not predetermined by antecedent conditions, and particularly not by the level of development.

  PublisherDOI

• Authoritarianism in South America

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-09-19

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Although South America has a long history of pendular swings between authoritarianism and democracy, the region shifted decisively toward democracy in the 1980s, and has largely maintained democratic rule since. Over time, however, the institutional fragilities and social deficits of democratic regimes have left them susceptible to destabilizing forms of social mobilization and political polarization. In that context, authoritarian currents of varied political persuasions have reemerged, on both the left and right flanks of national political orders. In contrast to historical patterns of military coups and revolutionary armed struggle, contemporary manifestations of authoritarianism often compete in the democratic arena and make populist appeals to disenchanted mass publics to circumvent or dismantle the institutional checks and balances of democratic regimes. South America, therefore, despite its achievements during the Third Wave of democratization, is not immune to the patterns of democratic backsliding seen across much of the world in recent times.

  PublisherDOI

• Pathways of Democratic Backsliding, Resistance, and (Partial) Recoveries

  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · 2024-03-01 · 18 citations

  article

  We provide an analytical framework that identifies three distinct institutional pathways for democratic backsliding that culminate in executive aggrandizement: legislative capture, plebiscitary override, and executive power grabs. We also identify a fourth pathway of elite collusion that erodes democracy without necessarily concentrating powers in the executive. These four pathways reflect different combinations of ruling and opposition party strength, institutional legitimacy, and levels of popular support and political mobilization. The pathways also open and close different institutional and societal arenas where opposition forces can counter backsliding, and they create different opportunities, challenges, and dilemmas for democratic actors. The 15 case studies featured in this volume illustrate how backsliding occurs along these pathways, and how democratic actors achieved partial reversal in some cases. The cases also suggest focal points of resistance and institutional and programmatic reform that may be helpful to policymakers and advocates working to defend democracy.

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• Introduction: The New Polarization in Latin America

  Latin American Politics and Society · 2024-05-01 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Mounting evidence suggests that Latin American democracies are characterized by politics and societies becoming more divisive, confrontational, and polarized. This process, which we define here as the “new polarization” in Latin America, seems to weaken the ability of democratic institutions to manage and resolve social and political conflicts. Although recent scholarship suggests that polarization is integral to contemporary patterns of democratic “backsliding” seen in much of the world, this new polarization in the region has not yet received systematic scholarly attention. Aiming to address this gap in the literature, the different contributions in this special issue revise the conceptualization, measurement, and theory of a multidimensional phenomenon such as polarization, including both its ideological and affective dimensions, as well as perspectives at the elite and mass levels of analysis. Findings shed light on the phenomenon of polarization as both a dependent and an independent variable, contributing to comparative literature on polarization and its relationship to democratic governance.

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• Social Movements and Party Politics

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2023-05-22 · 6 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Social movements and political parties are often studied in isolation from each other in separate branches of the social sciences, but this divide is artificial and counterproductive. Movements and parties are both collective actors that offer citizens “voice” in the public sphere, and there are numerous points of intersection between them. Indeed, movements and parties can be mutually constitutive, and they reciprocally structure, and sometimes de-structure, mass political representation. The Latin American experience provides numerous examples of this reciprocal structuring, both historically and in the contemporary period. Party systems have often shaped the political opportunity structure for social movements, while mass protest has played a major role in configuring, realigning, and sometimes breaking down party systems. Understanding political representation in the region requires close attention to the interaction between parties and movements and their reciprocal structuring of popular collective subjects.

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• Populism and Social Class: Constituting “the People” and Cleaving the Political Field

  2023-07-26 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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Frequent coauthors

• Eric M. Uslaner

  25 shared

• Giiillermo Owen

  University of Otago

  25 shared

• Gerald A. Strom

  Case Western Reserve University

  25 shared

• Nathaniel Katz Beck

  University of Washington

  25 shared

• Comment Bachrach

  University of Otago

  25 shared

• John Turner

  25 shared

• Gordon Tullock

  George Mason University

  25 shared

• Mary B. Welfling

  25 shared

Education

• Ph.D. , Political Science

  Stanford University

  1992

Awards & honors

• Fulbright scholar at Universidad Carlos III-Instituto Juan M…
• Fulbright scholar at Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias So…
• visiting fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princ…
• visiting fellow of the Centre on Social Movement Studies at…
• visiting fellow of the Stone Center for Latin American Studi…