Kai M. Thaler

Kai M. Thaler is assistant professor of global studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

July 2018, Volume 29, Issue 3

Has Liberia Turned a Corner?

The retirement of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and George Weah’s election as her successor open a new chapter for a country that has made great strides since its brutal civil war, but where progress remains tenuous.

April 2017, Volume 28, Issue 2

Nicaragua: A Return to Caudillismo

With the ruling FSLN’s one-sided triumph in the November 2016 elections, Nicaraguan democracy underwent further erosion. The emerging authoritarian party-state, far from being a leftist revolutionary government, is becoming a neopatrimonial dictatorship in an older Latin American style.