How do authoritarian regimes attempt to build loyalty among a globally-minded youth? How do they educate students to be patriotic and supportive citizens, and do these strategies actually generate popular support for those in power? Drawing on political and patriotic education materials from contemporary Russia and China—two countries of geopolitical importance with long histories of political education training—Karrie Koesel will compare how these countries seek to transmit political knowledge to young people; how they use schools to socialize students to be patriotic and cultivate popular legitimacy; and whether these efforts build support for the authoritarian status quo.

Karrie J. Koesel is associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame where she specializes in the study of contemporary Russian and Chinese politics, authoritarianism, and religion and politics. She is the author of Religion and Authoritarianism: Cooperation, Conflict and the Consequences (Cambridge University Press, 2014), co-editor of Citizens & the State in Authoritarian Regimes: Comparing China & Russia (Oxford University Press, 2021), and a fellow in the Public Intellectual Program for the National Committee on US-China Relations. Karrie Koesel is currently working on a book, Learning to Be Loyal: Political Education in Authoritarian Regimes. Prior to joining the University of Notre Dame, she taught at the University of Oregon and received her Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University.

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