Understanding Political Courage

April 13th, 2026 - 10:00 am to 11:20 am PT

Stanford University and Online Raikes 102 | 507 Lasuen Mall
Stanford, CA 94305

PACS-SCANCOR Seminar Series: Organization and Organizing for Public Good

Please join us on April 13, 2026 for our PACS-SCANCOR seminar featuring Consuelo Amat, Assistant Professor of Political Science at SNF Agora Institute!

Join us in-person at Raikes 102 or virtually: 

Breakfast and coffee will be served at 9:30 AM. 

Topic: Understanding Political Courage

A rising authoritarian coalition in the United States, led by President Donald Trump, rejected two hundred years of American tradition by refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election. This faction rejected the outcome and ultimately attempted to overturn the votes of their fellow Americans–first through fraud and then through violence. Some high-profile figures and political leaders enabled, legitimized, amplified, and encouraged attacks on American elections to gain and hold onto power. In the face of democratic erosion at the national and subnational levels in the US, many leaders and ordinary citizens are taking action to protect democratic norms and institutions. Why do some people take courageous action to defend democracy, especially when those acts go against their own leaders and communities? We propose a new framework to understand courageous stances or “defections” from authoritarian movements within one’s in-group, specifically on two dimensions of action: breaking or binding, and speaking, acting, or standing in the way. For theory-building and to illustrate mechanisms, we leverage dozens of semi-structured interviews with conservatives in the United States who have defected from the authoritarian strand within the Republican party, as well as with conservatives who have not defected in any observable way but say that they wish they could do so. We examine all speeches and statements by Republican Members of Congress before and after January 6th, 2021, and other critical junctures, to understand the conditions under which representatives withdraw from authoritarian forces within their own party without exiting it.   

Recent Publications

• Amat, Consuelo and Claire Trilling (2024) “Who Gains from Nonviolent Action? Unpacking the Logics of Civil Resistance” Comparative Politics, https://doi.org/10.5129/001041524X17249592042927
• Amat, Consuelo (2023) “State Repression and Opposition Survival in Pinochet’s Chile” Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 57, Issue 3, https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140231169032

About Consuelo Amat

Consuelo Amat is the SNF Agora Institute Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests include the study of state repression, armed and unarmed resistance, political violence, and the development of civil society in authoritarian regimes. Her first book, Power in Autonomy: The Political Strategy of Constructive Resistance, argues that nonviolent movements can build power in contexts of extreme repression by focusing on delivering goods and services. She has also studied the impact of nonviolent action and peacebuilding trainings to build civic capacity in six countries in Latin America and Africa, in partnership with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). She received a PhD in political science with distinction from Yale University, and holds an MA in conflict resolution from Georgetown University, and BA degrees in international affairs and philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Learn more about the Organizations and Organizing for the Public Good seminar series.