Imperial behaviour, like the emperor’s name and image, was multifaceted, with different people expecting different things at different times. The variation was limited. A set of imperial roles – military, religious, and civil – was established rapidly and remained important throughout Roman history. There was variation of the balance between these different roles, but it was difficult for any emperor to wholly ignore any of them. Emperors could not present themselves as they saw fit. In that sense, Roman emperorship shows striking continuity. Still, the empire developed, and emperorship developed with it. Some of these shifts took place within traditional patterns. Christianity reformulated the emperor’s religious role, but did not redefine it. Child emperors were still expected to be military leaders. The move away from Rome as the emperors’ residence seems to have had a different kind of impact, diminishing the importance of some of the ‘Republican’ expectations with which Roman emperors had to cope. Yet for a Roman emperor to become exemplary, he had to satisfy different demands. Playing the right roles for relevant people was the best way to become the perfect emperor.

Chapter 3 identifies and discusses three periods in the record of democracy of Latin American countries since 1880. In a first period, one of oligarchic dominance, most countries had a variety of types of authoritarianism and only a few countries had experience with partial democracy. In a second period, that of mass politics and regime instability, the entry of the masses and women into politics created pressure for democratic change, and the region started to gain considerable experience with partial and fuller democracy. However, tensions due to the transition from elite to mass politics and then the Cuban Revolution led to political polarization, high levels of violence, and rule by right-wing dictatorships. Waves of democratization were followed by waves of de-democratization. Finally, in a third, ongoing period, Latin America entered a democratic age. Nearly every country in the region has had a democratic regime. Democracies have become more inclusive, as restrictions on the right to vote, that excluded women and the poor, were no longer imposed. Democracies have also endured. This chapter shows that the history of democracy in Latin America is one of considerable progress.

The war fragmented the Palestinians into three different groups: the Palestinians in Israel,in the Jordanian West Bank and in the Egyptian Gaza Strip. The rest were refugees scattered in refugee camps in the Arab world and exilic communities around the globe.

Chapter 6 indexes the influence of American religious exceptionalism on domestic matters. The authors speak of the vast attention paid to the role of Christian nationalists in the 2016 election and the policies of the Trump administration, by investigating how adherence to American religious exceptionalism explains the willingness to entertain illiberal policies and even undemocratic governance such as autocracy and military rule. The context of the pandemic is also addressed. Specifically, this chapter provides evidence of disciples’ doubling down on support for their savior Donald Trump, regardless of their proximity to the virus’s effect on their personal networks. The authors demonstrate the remarkable connection disciples share to their most unexpected and less-than-religious yet beloved crusading leader. The authors further provide strong statistical evidence that disciples’ vote choice, partisanship, domestic policy attitudes, and political activities are motivated by the need to promote the divine purpose of the nation amidst the internalized threats posed to a culturally homogeneous image of God’s country.

This chapter answers a set of central questions that concern intermediaries’ backgrounds, profiles, networks, and self-perceptions. It suggests that intermediaries’ backgrounds are important as they give an indication of whom they respond to as well as what their strategies and interests are. The chapter also analyses intermediaries’ capital (social and foreign) to show how the political capital that gave intermediaries local clout came in part from the risks that they took in favour of democratic ideals during the authoritarian period. The chapter shows that while rule of law intermediaries’ access to international capital ‘amplifies’ their work on rights-related issues at home, the use of foreign capital is not solely to intermediaries’ benefit because distrust of foreign interests affects the value of their capital. This ambivalence led intermediaries to apply different strategies to hide their connections to foreign actors. Still, they needed to be in a position where they could use their networked resources to channel aid money or development activities to local levels, in order to gain political influence.

Bangladesh was under military rule from 1975 to 1990 when a popular uprising toppled the dictator and restored parliamentary democracy. Since then elections have been held regularly and the political system has been dominated by two parties with charismatic leaders. Despite recurring elections, however, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh is not democratically ruled. The power elite of this society of 170 million people is remarkably small and surprisingly connected by family ties, even across party lines. Each time, a tight-knit coterie of familiar power holders comes out on top.

We analyze the economic policies of both democratic and military governments and the role of Import Substitution policies used to promote industrialization. We also explain the military intervention.

After independence, Burundi went through a process of rapid political disintegration. Uprona factionalised into political and ethnic blocs, while facing off against Rwanda as an ideological and geopolitical enemy. This chapter explores the rapid changes between 1962 and 1967, seeing the attempts to rule in the control of official truth. It examines the extreme hostility of the state towards the borderland population, and the forms of political language used in national address. It presents a moment of violence in 1964 when dissidents ran a campaign of arson from across the border, and the performances of loyalty enacted by others to display their obedience to official truth. Noting the national crisis over Prime Minister Ngendandumwe’s assassination in 1965, and the subsequent elections, attempted coups d’état and the first large-scale ethnic violence, it finally presents local responses to a military coup in 1966 that abolished the monarchy. Some resisted the coup by treating it as just another ‘rumour’, but most greeted the news with cautious silence. Official truth changed to exclude royal authority, but maintained old hostilities to Rwanda, rumour and ethnic politics.

This chapter presents the early years of the First Republic through the search for new terms of popular political inclusion and control, and through the internal suspicions and rivalries among the elite. After initial hostility and caution towards the new regime, the borderland population seemed to embrace the new ideology of ‘vigilance’ and the new party youth league, the JRR. Particularly suited to a border location, these modes of vigilance entailed the performance of absolute loyalty, and seemed to manifest the realisation of the state’s official truth, but also permitted some flexibility and protection for local communities by concealing their deviances and contradictions. The state, however, succombed to the ‘politics of gossip’, in which vigilance drove fatal feuds and accusations towards ethnic ideologies and paranoia. Presenting the emergence of the ‘Groupe de Bururi’ as a political faction and the farce of a treason trial that examplified the total subversion of truth among the elite, the chapter observes the drifting ‘zombification’ between an apparently loyal citizenry and the self-obsessed elite, beneath the deceiving truth of vigilance as a new mode of citizenship.