Laura Gamboa

Laura Gamboa is associate professor of democracy and global affairs at the Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame. She is the coauthor (with Rachel A. Schwartz) of New Forms of Democratic Erosion in Latin America (2026) and author of Resisting Backsliding: Opposition Strategies Against the Erosion of Democracy (2022).
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October 2026, Volume 37, Issue 4

How to Break an Autocrat’s Coalition

Autocrats look invincible until their allies start to walk away. Defections have brought down regimes from Guatemala to Hungary, and they can be engineered: Raise the costs of standing with the autocrat and ease the path out.

July 2023, Volume 34, Issue 3

How Oppositions Fight Back

Behind today’s authoritarian wave are democratically elected leaders who use and abuse institutions to undermine the system that brought them to power. But with the right strategies, opposition forces can slow or stop these would-be autocrats.