James Loxton

Former Kellogg Visiting Fellow James Loxton (2014-15), a political scientist specializing in political parties, regimes, and the comparative politics of Latin America, is a senior lecturer in comparative politics in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on two main subjects: conservative parties in Latin America and authoritarian successor parties worldwide. 

Loxton is the author of Conservative Party-Building in Latin America: Authoritarian Inheritance and Counterrevolutionary Struggle (Oxford University Press, 2021), which won the Canadian Political Science Association’s 2022 Prize in Comparative Politics, and the co-editor of Life after Dictatorship: Authoritarian Successor Parties Worldwide (Cambridge University Press, 2018) with Kellogg Faculty Fellow Scott Mainwaring. His latest book, Authoritarianism: A Very Short Introduction, is currently under contract with Oxford University Press. 

Loxton's work has appeared in a variety of academic and popular outlets, including the Journal of Democracy, Democratization, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, and the Washington Post and in chapters in edited volumes by Cambridge University Press and Johns Hopkins University Press. 

A native of British Columbia, Canada, Loxton was a fellow at Human Rights Watch in Santiago, Chile before attending graduate school. He holds a PhD in government from Harvard University.