Playing to learn: using a coup game to teach autocracy

Josef Woldense

Chapter 7 in Teaching Autocracy and Autocratic Politics, 2026, pp 126-142 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Anyone teaching authoritarian politics will find a thriving literature on research about autocracy. It is a rapidly growing field that is shedding light on ever more aspects of authoritarian regimes. Although the material is rich, the challenge—just as for any other subject—is to make it accessible and interesting for students. To this end, this chapter explores the pedagogical value of games as a tool for teaching authoritarian politics. I argue that a well-crafted game can serve as an effective intermediary between course content and student learning. To leverage them as intermediaries, however, the fictitious world that games create must be infused with the concepts that the teacher wishes students to learn. By walking the reader through the design and implementation of a Coup game I developed, this chapter offers both a practical teaching tool and a model for integrating games into the broader study of authoritarian regimes.

Keywords: Authoritarian Politics; Power-Sharing; Coups; Pedagogy; Games; Active Learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035353453
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