Why are religious minorities well represented and politically influential in some democracies but not others? Focusing on evangelical Christians in Latin America, I argue that religious minorities seek and gain electoral representation when (a) they face significant threats to their material interests and worldview and (b) their community is not internally divided by cross-cutting cleavages. Differences in Latin American evangelicals’ political ambitions emerged as a result of two critical junctures: episodes of secular reform in the early twentieth century and the rise of sexuality politics at the turn of the twenty-first century. In Brazil, significant threats at both junctures prompted extensive electoral mobilization; in Chile, minimal threats meant that mobilization lagged. In Peru, where major cleavages divide both evangelicals and broader society, threats prompt less electoral mobilization than otherwise expected. The multi-method argument leverages interviews, content analysis, survey experiments, ecological analysis, and secondary case studies of Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

Chapter 3 tests the book’s central macro-level implication: that electoral autocracies tend to emerge in the wake of deep security, economic, and political crises – circumstances that allow such regimes to compellingly justify their rule as necessary to preserve order and stability. Based on a comprehensive cross-national analysis of regime transition and survival patterns for 1960-2014, this chapter demonstrates that socioeconomic and security crises are the best predictors of transitions to electoral authoritarianism. In contrast, other factors emphasized in the literature, including economic development, resource rents, state repressive capacity, and geopolitical and democratization pressures, do not consistently explain how these regimes emerge. The analysis also demonstrates that those electoral autocracies that are preceded by the deepest economic crises, and that subsequently manage to make the greatest progress toward restoring prosperity, have the lowest risk of democratization.

Part of the book's background chapters on the ECtHR's engagement in Turkey's Kurdish conflict, Chapter 2 seeks answers to the following puzzle: How is it that Turkey remains an authoritarian regime despite havig been part of the post-World War II international liberal democratic order? Arguing that the answer lies in the country's political history and sociological reality, it traces Turkey’s post-war tumultuous experience with electoral democracy, constitutionalism, human rights and minority protection against the backdrop of its engagement with international and European institutions, including the European Union and the Council of Europe. It argues that Turkey’s transition to polyarchy in 1950 has never translated into democratisation, which cannot be solely explained by frequent military interventions. Rather, authoritarianism has survived in Turkey due to unique social and political factors, including sustained electoral support for anti-democratic laws and policies, a tradition of a strong state immune to the internal checks of liberal democracy and the absence of a democratic culture.