Julie Anne Weaver

Instructor:

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Democracy in Practice in the Global South

Harvard University

Committee on Social Studies: Fall 2022, Fall 2021, Fall 2020 (Q score evaluation not conducted)

Department of Government: Spring 2025, Spring 2024, Fall 2022, Spring 2021

Overall evaluation by students (Q scores): Spring 2025 – 4.33 out of 5; Spring 2024 – 4.89 out of 5; Spring 2021 - 5 out of 5

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Syllabus

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Course Description: What does the practice of democracy look like in low- and middle-income countries today? How does that practice map on to democratic ideals like representation, participation and accountability? What are developing countries’ major democratic challenges and successes? The course will explore these questions through both theoretical and empirical social science research, with cases drawn primarily from Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Topics will include political accountability, state and institutional strength, corruption and clientelism, participatory democracy, managing diversity, activism and civil society engagement, and democratic backsliding. 

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Holding Politicians Accountable (First-year Seminar)

Harvard University

First Year Seminar Program: Spring 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025

Overall evaluation by students (Q scores): Fall 2025 – 4.4 out of 5; Fall 2024 – 4.55 out of 5; Spring 2023 – 4.75 out of 5

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Syllabus

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Course Description: Across the world, massive street protests and growing disdain for politics not only suggest high citizen dissatisfaction with politicians’ performance—from poor public services, high corruption, and increasing crime—but highlight the difficulty of holding politicians accountable to the voters who put them in office. Democracies are designed with certain mechanisms to generate political accountability (re-elections, checks and balances, government oversight agencies, watchdog media, social mobilization, and beyond).  Despite this range of methods for keeping politicians accountable, why is there still so much corruption and impunity within government? Why don’t politicians provide the policies and public services people seem to want? What are the barriers citizens and civil society face in engaging in politics?  What can we learn from citizen efforts to reign in politicians even within authoritarian regimes? Perhaps most importantly, what policies could we implement to reduce impunity and strengthen accountability?

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Politics and Governance in the Global South (Undergraduate Summer Seminar)

Harvard University 

Summer School: Summer 2022, Summer 2023

Overall evaluation by students (Q scores): Summer 2023 – 4.6 out of 5; Summer 2022 – 4.91 out of 5

 

Syllabus

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Course Description: This course introduces students to politics and the political economy of development in low-income countries. What are the main political and governance challenges low-income countries face and what are the best prospects for addressing them? How do political and institutional constraints, like poor accountability, frail institutions, and weak rule of law, impact how global south countries provide the public goods and policies their citizens demand? How does a country's income level influence politics and governance, and how is it influenced by them in turn? Drawing on both theoretical and empirical social science research, this course explores these questions by blending theory and case studies drawn primarily from Latin America, Sub- Saharan Africa, and South Asia. Main themes to be covered include state and institutional strength, political representation, and accountability, as well as more specific areas of governance and democratic practice such as public goods provision, corruption, international development aid, civil society and activism, gender, diversity and inequality, and managing public crises.

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Teaching Fellow:

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Senior Thesis Writers' Workshop (Gov 99)

Prof. George Soroka

Harvard University, Department of Government

Fall 2020-Spring 2021 (Year-long course)

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Foundations of Comparative Politics (Govt S-20)

Prof. George Soroka

Harvard University Summer School

Summer 2020

Overall evaluation by students (Q scores): 4.89 out of 5

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Sophomore Year Tutorial: The Political Science of Great Issues (Gov 97)
Prof. Ryan Enos
Harvard University, Department of Government
Spring 2019

Overall evaluation by students (Q scores): 4.85 out of 5

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Foundations of Comparative Politics (Gov 20)
Prof. Steven Levitsky
Harvard University, Department of Government
Fall 2018 
Overall evaluation by students (Q scores): 4.69 out of 5

 

Foundations of Comparative Politics (Gov 20)
Prof. George Soroka
Harvard University, Department of Government
Fall 2015
Overall evaluation by students (Q scores): 4.82 out of 5