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Social services to claim legitimacy: comparing autocracies’ performance
Abstract
Autocrats cannot rule by repression and co-optation alone, and need to instil some sense of legitimacy in the populace. Lacking democratic legitimacy, and being in shortage of other identity-based sources of diffuse support, legitimation claims in post-Cold War autocracies increasingly rests on rulers’ ability to achieve concrete outcomes, including the improvement of citizen living conditions. However, autocracies differ from each other, and different institutional arrangements could influence a leader’s ability to deliver social services, and chase performance-based legitimation. Accordingly, this article compares the social service performance of different post-Cold War authoritarian regimes. The analysis demonstrates that so-called electoral autocracies outperform single-party and military regimes, although they show a capacity to provide for their citizens that is similar to hereditary regimes. These findings suggest that the legitimacy returns of introducing semi-competitive and participatory institutions could grow exponentially. Besides procedural legitimacy, these institutions could help rulers pursue legitimation through social services.
... Miller (2015) finds that negative electoral shocks in nondemocratic regimes predict increases in social welfare spending. Cassani (2017) finds competitive autocracies to outperform both military and one-party regimes in delivering education and healthcare. Other scholars contend that autocratic multiparty elections have no effect on social services (Kim and Kroeger 2018) and find democratization to have a 'threshold effect' that becomes positive only when politics is genuinely competitive (Wang, Mechkova, and Andersson 2019). ...
... With no apologetic purpose for the non-democratic rulers of these regimes that have proliferated during the past three decades (in the post-communist area as well as in other world regions), this article offers a different perspective. The case of Georgia shows that even when political change stops short of full democratization and only leads to competitive authoritarianism, it could have positive social returns to the extent that it draws rulers' attention to the living conditions of the less well-off (Miller 2015;Cassani 2017;cf. Wang, Mechkova, and Andersson 2019;Kim and Kroeger 2018). ...
... Moreover, we should consider that the Soviet legacy could influence the attention health policy receives in a post-communist country (Pop-Eleches and Tucker 2017). With these caveats in mind, our findings are nonetheless consistent with and corroborate the conclusions of a few large-N analyses (Miller 2015;Cassani 2017) as well as of other small-N studies on hybrid regimes from other regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa (Stasavage 2005;Kjaer and Therkildsen 2013;Travaglianti 2017). ...
Democratization is often said to direct rulers’ attention to social services. Yet how strong is this relationship in countries that had to restructure previously universalistic but financially unsustainable welfare systems, such as the post-communist states following the collapse of the Soviet bloc? And what if political change stops short of full democratization leading to hybrid regimes in which elements of competitive politics and authoritarianism coexist? To address these questions, we analyse health care reforms in post-communist Georgia. We posit that, even when authoritarianism is not fully eradicated, elections and a partial liberalization of the political arena could elicit rulers’ responsiveness to social needs. The research highlights that the progress in political competition that followed the 2003 Rose Revolution has not made Georgia fully democratic, but has nonetheless shaped the health policy approach of the two successive governments, favouring a reconciliation between financial sustainability and citizen accessibility.
... Outputs legitimacy is "associated with socio-economic achievements and the provision of political goods such as domestic security and protection" (Croissant and Wurster 2013, 7). Non-democratic regimes seek to build legitimacy through improving public services, in particular the quality of social care, and broader economic performance (Cassani 2017). Russia, for example, successfully promoted cooperation with activists in an e-participation project that focused on outputs-based legitimation. ...
... Rahmon's regime in Dushanbe relied on foreign aid at a certain time and channeled activists into the design and delivery of several public services. Both countries directed activism into expanding outputs legitimacy (Cassani 2017;Croissant and Wurster 2013). ...
... Democratic autocracy is closely associated with the dominance of the minority and personalised institutions. Any government where the interests of the elites and that of the leadership override the interests of the masses is autocratic in nature (Cassani, 2017). In the same vein, any state where the decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of few individuals is an autocratic state. ...
... Many people have thus come to associate democracy with periodic elections while in essence what obtains in many countries are 'elections without democracy' (Levitsky & Way 2002). These governments are either referred to as autocratic democracies, electoral autocracies, electoral authoritarianisms or democratic elitisms (Adenuga, 2019;Ágh, 2015Cassani 2017;Levitsky & Way, 2002;Miller, 2015;Zielonka & Rupnik, 2020). ...
The birth of Nigeria's fourth republic in 1999 was greeted with great optimism that the much-desired national development, denoted by a significant decrease in the rate of unemployment, poverty, and inequality, was to become a reality. This optimism was located in the belief that democracy provides the best condition for development to thrive. The study however observed that after over two decades of uninterrupted democratic rule, the desired national development remains a mirage. This is traceable to the autocratic nature of democracy in the country as indicated by elitist political leadership, disregard for the principle of the rule of law, and the noticeable disconnect between the leadership class and the masses in terms of responsibility and accountability. The study recommended, inter alia, the opening up of the political space and constitutionalism for the achievement of national development in Nigeria.
... This section situates our argument within several related literatures. Whereas our narrative prominently features the political careers of autocratic rulers, most influential studies of autocratic survival focus on the economic ( Yuichi Kono and Montinola 2009 ;Cuaresma, Oberhofer and Raschky 2011 ;Ross 2012 ) and institutional ( Lust-Okar 2006 ;Gandhi and Przeworski 2007 ;Magaloni 2008 ;Murtazashvili 2012 ) foundations of power with less consideration of individual rulers' backgrounds prior to attaining office. 2 Scholarly work on authoritarian institutions highlights consultative venues and party organizations as being propitious to autocratic rule, both as efficacious means of distributing patronage ( Geddes 1999 ;Magaloni 2008 ;Svolik 2012 ;Cassani 2017 ) and as tools for managing relations with social groups ( Gandhi and Przeworski 2007 ;Frantz and Kendall-Taylor 2014 ). Recent contributions indicate that the superficial trappings of legislative and party institutions are insufficient for constraining rulers. ...
... Rome was a long-enduring monarchical polity ruled by men (and a few women) from a variety of families and backgrounds. Unlike many historical European monarchies, with explicit 6 Previous findings relate economic growth and state provision of public goods in autocratic states' provision to popular legitimacy ( Cassani 2017 ) and autocratic survival ( Gandhi 2008 ). succession rules and long-lasting dynasties, the Roman Empire lacked formal succession practices and featured rapid turnover in ruling families. ...
One widely derided aspect of autocratic regimes is that they frequently feature nepotistic systems for political organization and management of power transfers, with inexperienced or unqualified individuals taking power solely because of their familial relation to the prior ruler. Such systems are thought to be more unstable and ineffective, reducing desirable outcomes for autocratic leaders, as well as the states they govern. We argue that this characterization ignores several important features of autocratic governance: rulers must constantly negotiate with other elites and rely on political networks based around loyalty and agreed-upon divisions of power, spoils, and prestige. Beneficiaries of nepotism enter office with many advantages that should make their reigns more stable and effective than those of less connected rulers. Specifically, we find evidence from the backgrounds and tenures of Roman emperors that dynastic relation to the previous ruler explains the likelihood of an emperor surviving in office without deposal as well as their effectiveness while in office. Rulers with close familial ties to their predecessor enjoyed longer rules and were associated with periods of imperial prosperity. Moreover, we also find that youth in autocratic office is a strong predictor of longevity without deposal, and that young rulers came to power owing to their dynastic relation to a predecessor.
... Health is a fundamental human right (WHO 1946), and health care is an important public good (Cassani 2017 and administering health services (Schieber and Maeda 1999;Roberts et al. 2004). As a result, health care provision may play an important role in mediating the relationship between people and state (Freedman 2005) and is a core political issue in countries around the globe (Carpenter 2012). ...
... On the basis of the research discussed above, which shows public goods may contribute to authoritarian regime legitimacy and that health care is recognized as an important public good internationally (Cassani 2017;Freedman 2015), our overarching hypothesis is that health care provision contributes to authoritarian regime legitimacy. To test this hypothesis, we use multivariate logistic regression to explore the associations in our CNHAS dataset between two health care provision variables on the one hand, and three variables aimed at capturing expressions of regime legitimacy on the other. ...
Context: Over the last two decades a growing body of research has shown authoritarian regimes trying to increase their legitimacy by providing public goods. But there has so far been very little research on whether or not these regimes are successful.
Methods: This article analyzes data from a 2012–2013 nationally representative survey in China to examine whether health care provision bolsters the communist regime’s legitimacy. Using multivariate ordinal logistic regression, we test whether having public health insurance and being satisfied with the health care system are associated with separate measures of the People’s Republic of China’s regime legitimacy: support for “our form of government” (which we call “system support”) and political trust.
Findings: Having public health insurance is positively associated with trust in the Chinese central government. Health care system satisfaction is positively associated with system support and trust in local government.
Conclusions: Health care provision may bolster the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes, with the clearest evidence showing that concrete benefits may translate into trust in the central government. Further research is needed to understand the relationship between trends in provision and legitimacy over time and in other types of authoritarian regime.
... Research on the changing nature of traditional (closed) autocracies and their stabilisation mechanisms has multiplied since the 1990s (Karl 1995;O'Donnell 1996;Zakaria 1997;Diamond 2002Diamond , 2019Carothers 2002;Morlino 2009;Bogaards 2009;Levitsky -Way 2002Schedler 2002Schedler , 2013Cassani 2014;Foa 2018;Guriev -Treisman 2015. This extremely diffuse literature examines in particular the regime strategies for limiting political contestation and the lack of institutional 'forbearance' (self -restraint) (Levitsky -Ziblatt 2018), and more recently, much attention has also been paid to the issue of 'autocratic legitimacy' (Gerschewski 2018;Dukalskis -Gerschewski 2017;von Haldenwang 2017;von Soest -Grauvogel 2017;Debre -Morgenbesser 2017;Cassani 2017;Backes -Kailitz 2015). ...
... However, electoral autocrats cannot rely in the longer term entirely on strategies of repression and co -optation. Therefore, they also have to and want to gain legitimacy (Gerschewski 2018;Dukalskis -Gerschewski 2017;von Haldenwang 2017;von Soest -Grauvogel 2017;Debre -Morgenbesser 2017;Cassani 2017;Backes -Kailitz 2015), especially pseudo -democratic legitimacy. This is very useful to make their rule less costly, and elicit a proper response of the citizenry, from active consent to compliance with the rules, or from passive obedience to mere toleration. ...
It is my contention that populism could be an appropriate framework to describe, explain and connect the phenomena of global crisis of democracy and functioning of electoral autocracies. In order to substantiate this claim, with the method of literature review, I examine first the characteristics of these phenomena. Then I focus on the nature of the relationship between them, in particular on the complex system of new types of autocracies’ stability, in which populism could play a crucial role. Populism, understood as an autocratic (re-)interpretation of democracy and representation, could be a particularly dangerous Trojan Horse for democracy. First and foremost, because its idea of a single, homogeneous and authentic people that can be legitimately represented only by the populist leader is a moralised form of antipluralism which is contrary to the pluralist approach of democracy (i.e. polyarchy). For precisely this reason, populism could play a key role in autocracies, especial in electoral autocracies which may use its core elements. Namely, the Manichean worldview, the image of a homogeneous people, people-centrism and the autocratic notion of representation are very compatible with electoral autocracies, since these regimes hold general elections and their power is built largely upon the alleged will of the people. By using populism, it is possible for these regimes to camouflage and even legitimise their autocratic trends and exercise of power behind the formally multi-party but not fair elections and democratic façade. As a radical turn towards closed autocracies (without de facto multiparty elections) would be too expensive, electoral autocrats need manipulated multi-party elections and other plebiscite techniques that could serve as quasi-democratic legitimation. Because of this, they tend to use the political logic of populism which could transform political contestation to a life- and- death struggle and provides quasi-democratic legitimation and other important cognitive functions. Therefore, populist electoral autocracies, as a paradigmatic type of electoral autocracies, could remain with us for a long time, giving more and more tasks to researchers, especially in the Central and Eastern European region.
... In view of this, legitimacy has become a central concept in explaining the longevity of authoritarian regimes. Repression is not always sustainable in the long-run given its high costs regarding international reputation and its counterproductive tendency to ignite popular protests (Cassani, 2017;Gerschewski and Dukalskis, 2017). As such, the durability of autocratic regimes increasingly relies on the ability of autocratic leaders to legitimize their rule -to foster a persuasive raison d'etre for the existence of their order -in the eyes of the ruled (Gerschewski, 2018). ...
... 437). It denotes citizens' short-term evaluations of any given political order's performance in satisfying their material demands and represents the quid pro quo of the social contract between the ruler and the ruled (Cassani, 2017), where if the ruler fails to deliver on these demands the population might withdraw its support. As such, specific support has been typically linked to performance-based legitimation strategies, where the ruler increasingly relies on claims that appeal to his or her success in satisfying citizens' short-term demands regarding material welfare, socio-economic development and social security (Gerschewski, 2013). ...
The purpose of this paper is to broaden the scholarly understanding of the phenomenon of legitimacy in autocratic settings. To achieve this end, a hierarchical cluster analysis technique was used to categorize authoritarian regime subtypes across four types of legitimacy claims, or narratives issued by autocrats to justify the existence of their particular order. These narratives include performance-based, ideological, character-based and procedural statements that reflect a given ruler's legitimation strategy. In accordance with existing research, a systematic difference across authoritarian regimes' claims to legitimacy centered around electoral openness was observed. In other words, authoritarian states that are considered to be more open to holding multi-party elections were found to be more prone to justifying their existence through procedural and performative-based claims. Alternatively, authoritarian states that are characterized by little tolerance towards any form of rule-based mechanism were found to be more prone in legitimizing themselves through ideological and/or character-based claims.
... For example, regimes might implement economic policies that support long-term economic growth in order to distribute wealth, and therefore generate support for the regime (Hankla and Kuthy 2013). The same goal often drives the completion of major development projects (Rodan and Jayasuriya 2009), the provision of jobs and other subsidies that contribute to the regime-population social contract (Conduit 2017), and efficient and effective service delivery (Cassani 2017). Indeed, Guriev and Treisman (2019: 101) noted that contemporary autocrats prefer to use a 'rhetoric of economic performance and provision of public services that resembles that of democratic leaders far more than it does the discourse of threats and fear embraced by old-style dictators'. ...
The purchase of commercial spyware by at least 43 authoritarian states has drawn attention to the links between the international private technology trade and autocrats. This article sits at the intersection of the literatures on the international relations of authoritarian regimes, digital authoritarianism and the political economy of authoritarianism, asking, what impacts, if any, do the foreign technology trade relations of authoritarian regimes have on authoritarian resilience? Building a four-mechanism model to explain the interaction between the private technology trade and digital authoritarianism, the article then tests the model on a case study of Iran. It argues that while global technology companies lack the ideological or geopolitical interests that drive the engagement between authoritarian regimes and foreign states, an intense overlap in interests still exists between profit-hungry private technology companies and technology-hungry regimes. This facilitates the establishment of mutually beneficial relationships that contribute to authoritarian resilience and survival, however inadvertently.
... The literature on social contracts has focussed mainly on their scope, substance and temporal dimension rather than the reasons for and moments of change. Some authors have compared different social contracts over time (e.g., Cassani (2017) for China; Hinnebusch (2020) for the Arab world; Feldmann and Mazepus (2018) for Russia) and across countries (e.g., Kaplan (2017 for fragile countries, Vidican Auktor and Loewe (2022) for Arab countries). Others have described their development (e.g., Rutherford (2018)) or analysed how social contracts can and should change in order to achieve certain goals and how they might ideally look (e.g., McCandless (2018) or World Bank (2004)). ...
... While both democracies and autocracies have access to similar soft power modalities, however, they draw on different channels of legitimacy (von Soest & Grauvogel, 2017). Unlike democracies whose authority derives from a popular mandate, autocracies rely on communicating ideas (Kosienkowski, 2021;Schedler & Hoffmann, 2016;Selvik, 2018;Zhao, 2016), simulating democratic institutions (Debre & Morgenbesser, 2017;Dimitrov, 2014;Morgenbesser, 2017), and delivering socio-economic goods (Cassani, 2017;Dukalskis & Gerschewski, 2017;Lorch & Bunk, 2017). Sometimes autocracies also capitalize on international engagements for their own legitimacy, such as participating in United Nations (UN) rule-making (Holbig, 2011), hiring thought leaders to deflect anti-regime opinion (Dukalskis, 2021), opening cultural centers, and giving a solid performance in the Olympics (Hoffmann, 2015). ...
Drawing from an analysis of international newswires’ media coverage of the Olympics from 2012 to 2022, the study posits that international media outfits tend to underreport the performance of non-democratic states despite considerable medal success, and overreport the sporting activities of democracies even if they underperform. We argue that this is due to the international media’s normative bias toward a world order that privileges liberal democracy and its adjacent values. Our findings indicate strong support for our hypothesis that the media is not a level playing field in the coverage of sporting events, and that it pays to be a democracy when it comes to soft power gains. Overall, the study contributes to the growing body of literature examining sports as an arena of political contestation.
... Our argument stems from the evidence that, regardless of a regime's political institutions (Panaro & Vaccaro, 2023), dictators use social policy to co-opt potential opposition groups in the political arena. By distributing social policy concessions, dictators enhance their political support and strengthen their grip on power (Cassani, 2017;Gandhi & Przeworski, 2007;Magaloni, 2008;Mares & Carnes, 2009). Similarly, distributive politics theories pinpoint that higher income and social inequality increase the probability of autocratic regime breakdown (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2006;Boix, 2003;Haggard & Kaufman, 2012). ...
Empirical evidence suggests that contemporary authoritarian regimes face several incentives to redistribute social policy concessions to their citizens. Yet autocracies differ extensively in their capacity to implement policy decisions. In this article, we identify three distinct but interrelated mechanisms through which state capacity determines a more equal provision of social benefits and services in healthcare and education sectors. Administrative capacity allows the regime to manage the implementation of social policy, extractive capacity ties in with more resources and information to be used for the provision of social benefits and services, and coercive capacity permits the state to effectively enforce policies. Using static and dynamic regression models for over 120 countries from 1960 to 2016, our findings show that state capacity enhances social equality in authoritarian contexts through these three interrelated mechanisms. Further analysis though suggests that the overall effect of state capacity dissipates in the long run.
... Still, this article also takes seriously the idea that studying legitimation as a dynamic process requires a conceptualization of state-society relations-how state actions are perceived by (at least some segments of) society and how these perceptions are reinjected into the political system (Przeworski 2022;Stroup and Goode 2023;Wedeen 1999). While existing work has demonstrated the effectiveness of authoritarian public goods provision for maintaining public support (Cassani 2017;Dickson et al. 2016;Duckett and Munro 2022), populations do not simply react to objective displays of state power. Policies that improve people's lives might enhance regime support and entitlement expectations at the same time, creating potential burdens for the future (Campbell 2012;Jones 2017;Lü 2014). ...
Existing scholarship establishes that authoritarian regimes make claims about their legitimacy yet does not tell us what makes these claims effective. This article argues that authoritarian legitimation is more effective when coproduced by the government, media, and progovernment supporters, rather than just being centrally disseminated talking points. This article uses the effective handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Saudi government to demonstrate how this narration translated trust in state capacity into performance legitimacy of the Saudi regime and system of governance. Saudi media figures and progovernment supporters expanded basic government talking points for audiences and discussed successful policies in relation to countries with higher international status (chiefly in the West) and higher state capacity (such as China). This article evaluates statements by the government, original media sources, and more than 90 interviews with Saudi nationalists, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs, while speaking to the relational character of performance legitimation beyond Saudi Arabia.
... In such systems, the authoritarian regime would remain in full power while allowing for a wide range of conversations online. Hence, Open Government reform may serve to achieve performancebased (Dukalskis and Gerschewski 2018) legitimation that is crucial for a non-democratic regime in persuading its citizens of the autocracy's worth and indispensability by delivering essential public services (Cassani 2017), and appearing allegedly responsive to citizens' preferences. However, the establishment of monitoring systems and participation channels of Open Government can have limited impact on improving the actual responsiveness of the state to its citizens. ...
The Open Government reform has been actively adopted across various non-democratic regimes, including post-Soviet Central Asia. The reform is supposed to bolster responsiveness and transparency through the active use of information communication technologies, and numerous authoritarian countries have recently adopted and deepened the Open Government reform. In this work, we study whether Open Government reform contributes to responsiveness in autocracies using the case of Kazakhstan under Tokayev’s rule (2019–present). We investigate the concept of the ‘Listening State’ recently adopted in Kazakhstan through the analysis of novel primary data. The perceptions of ordinary citizens reveal that the Open Government reform in the country has not led to the realization of its key goal of increased responsiveness. Therefore, we argue that the Open Government reform has serious limitations in achieving its ultimate goal of a better listening state to people’s needs in autocracies.
... In addition to information needs, a recent body of research argues that the strategies autocrats use to legitimize their position in power impinge on a regime's survival. These contributions demonstrate that different legitimation strategies affect the economic and social performance of nondemocratic regimes (Dukalskis and Gerschewski 2017;von Soest and Grauvogel 2017;Kailitz and Stockemer 2017;Kailitz 2013;Debre and Morgenbesser 2017;Cassani 2017). Following this logic, I argue that rulers using performance-based and democratic-procedural legitimation strategies need more information about citizens' preferences compared to other types of regimes if they intend to deliver on their legitimation claims. ...
The literature on authoritarian regimes argues that societal participation is limited as the policy- making process is dominated by the ruler and access is restricted to the members of the ruling coalition (Boix and Svolik 2013; Svolik 2012). But recent studies and other contributions to this volume demonstrate that autocratic leaders do not govern in isolation. Instead, they also need to acquire political support from groups outside the ruling coalition in order to strengthen their position in power (Geddes 1999; Gandhi and Przeworski 2007; Gandhi 2008). In doing so, rulers are not immune from groups’ pressure and, under some circumstances, their preferences may even influence policy decisions in those contexts (Teets 2017; Steinberg and Shih 2012; Böhmelt 2015).
This chapter asks under which conditions nondemocratic regimes
develop routinized mechanisms for societal interest representation in
the policy- making process. By focusing on rulers’ need for informa-
tion, I analyze the conditions that facilitate interest groups’ access
under authoritarianism. I demonstrate that autocracies that legitimize their position in power by using claims of socioeconomic performance and democratic procedures need to collect more information about citizens’ preferences. This in turn creates more opportunities for civil society organizations (CSOs)1 to interact with public officials than in autocracies that rely on other sources of legitimation. Unlike the previous chapters in this section that shed light on outcomes in one policy area (land in Zimbabwe and social services in Russia and Belarus), I focus on the outcome of institutional changes creating consultative mechanisms, and argue that they are catalyzed by specific regime information needs and the ability of advocacy groups to provide this information.
... In this regard, Magaloni (2006) shows that elections in autocracies can serve as a tool to "monitor" the distribution and levels of support or opposition to the hegemonic regime, this way enabling corresponding budget allocations. Cassani (2017) also hypothesizes on the role institutions play in delivering the adequate social services for the public in the service of pursuing performance legitimacy, claiming that with the introduction of participatory and semi-competitive institutions, the deliverance on matters of health care and education is eased. All in all, instances of responsiveness seem to be related to performance and procedural electoral legitimation, especially in competitive autocratic regimes. ...
The tendency of vote-seeking politicians to produce ever-more policies in response to the citizens’ demands has been identified as a central driver of the process of “policy accumulation.” If we accept this premise, policy accumulation should be a central feature of modern democracies but overall be less pronounced in autocracies. Due to its highly ambivalent nature, policy accumulation and its implications may thus constitute an important but so far neglected facets of the new system competition between democracies and autocracies. In this article, we test this argument in the context of the authoritarian regime of Singapore. Singapore is one of the very few autocracies that display elements of political competition and has a level of socio-economic development that is comparable to advanced democracies. Singapore thus constitutes a least-likely case for low levels of policy accumulation. By studying changes in Singapore’s environmental policy over a period of more than four decades (1976 to 2020) and by contrasting the patterns observed with the policy developments in 21 OECD democracies, we find that autocratic regimes do indeed tend to accumulate less than democratic regimes. More precisely, we find that Singapore (1) has only produced about one-fourth of the environmental policy measures of an “average” democracy and (2) is constantly the country with the lowest level of policy accumulation in our sample. These findings hold even when controlling for alternative explanations, such as the effectiveness of the administration and the government’s ability to opt for stricter and more hierarchical forms of intervention.
... Authoritarianism is understood as antidemocratic, illiberal politics with a decline of core institutional requirements for electoral democracy, and fewer opportunities for opposition (Lührmann and Lindberg 2018). Contemporary autocracies are typically electoral autocracies (Cassani 2017); they come to power legally by democratic elections and "mainly use legal and gradual strategies to undermine democracies" (Lührmann and Lindberg 2018, p. 23). ...
The paper analyzes changing civic spaces in Austrian civil society. Different levels of authoritarian politics in different phases of the last 8 years – the recent phase intertwined with the Covid-19 crisis – are analysed in terms of their impact on civil society frameworks. Empirically, the paper draws on three studies completed in 2014, 2019 and 2021. The results shed light on the complex interplay between civil society and the government. Specifically, they show the steps towards authoritarian governing of early state autocrats related to civil society, in particular the often-unspectacular elements that together form a clear pattern of civil society capture and changing civic spaces. Further, they show both the vulnerability of civil society regarding framework conditions – e.g. posed by the pandemic – and politics but also its strategies of resilience.
... In this regard, selectorate theory has been linked inter alia to regime trajectories (Aplote 2015), corruption (Chang and Golden 2010) and the provision of social services and welfare (Miller 2015;Cassani 2017;Wurster 2019). Concerning environmental protection, political competition and winning coalition size have been linked to stringency of environmental policy and lower levels of pollution (Fredriksson et al. 2005;Bernauer and Koubi 2009;Cao and Ward 2015). ...
Only few studies have investigated the link between the heterogeneity of non-democratic regime types and environmental protection. This study disaggregates authoritarian regimes and identifies four patterns of environmental performance. Using 16 indicators of environmental performance, autocratic subtypes such as royal dictatorships, military dictatorships, hegemonic autocracies, and competitive authoritarian regimes are compared and contrasted with democracies. The results demonstrate that a democracy advantage in the protection of the environment, as many former studies find it, typically cannot be confirmed for all autocratic subtypes. We rather detect a quite manifold picture when the variety of authoritarianism is taken into account.
... liberal-economic and political reforms). In fact, the evidence suggests the contrary: that liberalisation and economic reforms reinforce the regime-controlled networks of patronage (Cassani, 2017). Chinese liberalisation without democratisation is an obvious case (Kingsbury, 2017). ...
This Article draws on the analysis of historical relations between the European Union and the Southern Mediterranean countries and highlights the main initiatives and consequences of the adopted practices of democratisation in the region following the Arab Uprisings. The main focus is on the continuity and limited changes in the new approach. One of the main findings is that the limited reform of the EU approach primarily resulted from the inherited political constraints. The net result was a set of structured security-orientated relationships that will continue to repeat earlier mistakes before 2011. The mechanisms of democracy promotion including conditionality remained inherently full of contradictions. The double standards in applying the conditionality principle in addition to the lack of significant leverage rendered the EU democratisation approach of the Southern neighbours inapt. Despite the 2011 ENP review promise of a substantial change in the EU democratisation approach, it seems that the EU’s initial euphoria following the “Arab spring” has waned as it seems to repeat the same old approach of liberalisation and securitisation of the Southern Mediterranean region rather than democratisation.
... In studies of welfare capitalism, the argument has long 24 Jude Howell et al. been made that capitalist governments ensure social order by providing public goods and thus appease any demands for systemic change. There is also a body of work that investigates how and why authoritarian regimes provide public goods to secure their rule (Cassani, 2017;Croissant and Wurster, 2013). As Leung et al. (2012Leung et al. ( : 1054 note, there are similarities with the European context around the role of social work in governmentality. ...
In 2013 the authoritarian Chinese Communist Party adopted a nationwide policy to contract out welfare services to social organizations. This presented the Party/state with a conundrum: how best to foster service-oriented social organizations whilst retaining control over politically sensitive groups. Using a Foucauldian framework of analysis, this article explores the rationalities and technologies of statecraft deployed to navigate this tension. It argues that contracting welfare services is a form of governmentality linked to economic efficiency, welfare provision and social stability, requiring subtle ways of governing society. In implementing this policy, the Party/state seeks to foster a service-oriented civil society and stymie rights-based and politically sensitive groups.
... First, we demonstrate that the NPF provides researchers with a well-suited framework to study narrative strategies in nondemocratic settings. Recent literature on authoritarianism shows how the legitimacy of nondemocratic regimes rests on governments' ability to use convincing narratives to disseminate stories of successful policy performance (Cassani, 2017;Dukalskis & Gerschewski, 2017;Göbel, 2011;Kneuer, 2017;Lambach & Göbel, 2010;Malinova, 2020;Schlaufer, 2021). Oppositional actors, on the other hand, receive weaker coverage in public debates to propose alternative policy solutions. ...
The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) explains the role of narratives in policy processes. The NPF was developed for democratic contexts and has not been systematically applied in a nondemocratic setting. This study fills this gap with an empirical analysis of narrative strategies used by governmental and oppositional actors in urban policy debates in Moscow. Results show how governmental actors consistently use angel shifts, contain issues, and avoid using causal mechanisms, while actors opposing governmental policy use devil shifts, expand issues, and use intentional causal mechanisms. The findings suggest that narrative strategies differ depending on whether policy actors seek to promote policy reforms or draw attention to problems. We argue that policy actors' objectives are a well-suited predictor for narrative strategies in both democratic and nondemocratic contexts.
... Miller (2015aMiller ( , 2015b argues that non-democratic regimes holding elections obtain better results in education and healthcare than closed autocracies. With a more specific focus on sub-Saharan Africa, Cassani and Carbone (2016) similarly find that these regimes lie in between democracies and non-competitive autocracies, as far as human development is concerned (see also Cassani, 2017 for analyses on global samples). Other scholars challenge these conclusions and argue that autocratic multi-party elections have no effect on human development outcomes, such as infant mortality (Kim and Kroeger, 2018). ...
... A represszió az "autokráciák gerince" (Gerschewski 2013: 21), amely funkciója, hogy "eltántorítsa a politikai elitet a hűtlenség választásától, illetve megnehezítse az állampolgárok kollektív cselekvésének megszerveződését" (Morgenbesser 2017: 208), míg a formális és informális kooptálás funkciója, hogy a főbb politikai aktorokat "meg lehessen győzni arról, hogy hatalmukat ne használják obstrukcióra" (Shleifer -Treisman 2000: 8-9.). Azonban mivel "hosszabb távon egyetlen politikai rezsim sem építheti fennmaradását kizárólag a represszióra és a kooptálás intézményére" (Bartha -Kopasz 2019: 106), ezért az autokráciák számára is fontos, hogy rendelkezzenek legitimációval (Gerschewski 2018, Dukalskis -Gerschewski 2017, von Haldenwang 2017, von Soest -Grauvogel 2017, Debre -Morgenbesser 2017, Cassani 2017, Backes -Kailitz 2015, amely a posztmodern autokráciák esetében elsősorban kvázi-demokratikus legitimációt jelent. Ezzel különösen hatékonyan képesek az autokratikus uralmat kevésbé költségessé tenni és a megfelelő állampolgári hozzáállást kiváltani az aktív egyetértéstől a passzív belenyugváson át a puszta toleranciáig, amelyben a populizmusnak kitüntetett szerep jut, hiszen elmélyíti a rezsim számára kedvező politikai-társadalmi törésvonalakat, elvégezve ezzel a stabilitáshoz szükséges mobilizálációs és demobilizációs feladatokat. ...
Állításom szerint a populizmus lehet az a kapocs, amely segíthet megfelelőbb keretben értelmezni nem csupán a globális demokráciakrízist, hanem az új típusú autokráciák térnyerését és mindennapi működését. Az állítás alátámasztása érdekében előbb ezen jelenségek térhódításának jellegzetességeit vizsgáltam meg, majd a közöttük lévő kapcsolat természetével foglalkoztam, különös tekintettel az új típusú autokráciák stabilitásának vizsgálatára, amelyben érvelésem szerint a populizmus kulcsszerepet tölt be. A demokrácia és a képviselet egy autokratikus értelmezéseként felfogott populizmus, mint egy trójai faló, különösen nagy veszélyt jelent a demokráciákra, mindenekelőtt a homogénnek képzelt nép egységes akaratának és a közjó meghatározásának kisajátítására törekvő, megcáfolhatatlan morális képviseleti igénye miatt. Másfelől a populizmus az új típusú, formálisan ugyan többpárti választásokkal operáló posztmodern autokráciák számára a politikai versengés szisztematikusan eltorzított, így csupán korlátozott jellegét, valamint a rendszeren belüli újabb és újabb autokratikus tendenciák elfedését és legitimálását szolgálhatja. Mivel egy radikális, a modern autokráciákat idéző hatalmi fordulat túlságosan költséges lenne, a kvázi-demokratikus legitimációt biztosító manipulált, de többpárti választásokra és másfajta plebiszciter technikákra nélkülözhetetlen szerep hárul a posztmodern autokráciák számára, amelyekben a konszolidált politikai versenyt élet-halál harccá transzformáló és egyéb kognitív funkciókat ellátó populizmus központi szerepet tölthet be. Azaz a populista autokrácia – mint a posztmodern autokráciák egy paradigmatikus típusa – jelensége sokáig velünk maradhat, újabb és újabb feladatokat adva ezzel a működésükkel foglalkozó kutatók számára.
... At a minimum, the practice of implementing public health interventions shows citizens that government executives are making real efforts to protect the population from a deadly virus (Hasmath et al., 2020). This is likely the case for non-democratic regimes, which are often legitimated through performance (Cassani, 2017;Ratigan, 2020). For example, China produced the lowest overall government response score according to the CovidGRI, but was ranked among the highest for its public health directives (FP Analytics, 2020a). ...
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has slowed down economies, upended societies, and tremendously affected the daily lives of ordinary people throughout the world. In the international context, various government responses have thus given rise to many political debates and discussions centered around the handling of these impacts and the novel coronavirus itself. Here, emphasis is often placed on how regime type (i.e., democratic or non-democratic) and governance quality influence policies aimed at responding to the ongoing crisis. By examining relevant scientific resources, including the COVID-19 Global Response Index (developed by FP Analytics), Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), and Bjørnskov-Rode regime data, this study found that regime type was indeed related to governmental policy responses to COVID-19. Results specifically showed that governance quality (especially effectiveness) had moderate impacts on how well these policies were implemented. Due to several limitations, however, these findings should be regarded as preliminary evidence.
This article investigates how authoritarian institutions shape the role of expert knowledge in public policymaking. While governments worldwide rely on expert knowledge to address complex societal challenges, most existing research on the influence of expert knowledge on policymaking focuses on democratic settings. In contrast, this systematic literature review analyzes 47 peer-reviewed studies to explore how expert knowledge is used in authoritarian contexts and in democracies experiencing democratic decline. Following PRISMA guidelines, the review identifies several institutional features that shape the role of expert knowledge in policymaking: centralized decision-making, restricted access for external actors, administrative capacity, populist anti-scientism, and bureaucratic politicization. The findings reveal that access to decision-making, weak administrative capacities, and populism are decisive in shaping the influence of expert knowledge in policymaking in authoritarian states and declining democracies. The article underscores the central role of public administration in mediating the influence of expert knowledge and calls for a more nuanced understanding of how authoritarian institutional features impact policy processes. The study contributes to debates on democratic backsliding, autocratization, and knowledge utilization.
Since Kingdon’s 1984 canonical study of federal-level agenda setting in the USA, the multiple streams framework has been used to examine not just other democracies, but also autocracies. Based on a dataset of 101 English language journal articles, we provide an overview of how the MSF has been used to examine policy processes in autocracies. Priorities for future MSF research on autocracies are (1) integrating the literature on authoritarianism (2) shifting from case studies to examining individual MSF elements across time, jurisdictions, and policy areas. To this end, we present a list of theory-grounded expectations and corresponding research questions pertaining to each MSF element. To make it easier for future MSF studies to connect their findings to prior research on authoritarian settings, we provide a list of existing MSF journal articles on autocracies.
This study applies the social contract theory to examine political participation in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021. While recognising Afghanistan’s unique historical and cultural context, we argue that social contract theory provides a valuable framework for understanding governance dynamics in this complex setting. The study surveyed 400 respondents across six Afghan provinces, exploring public perceptions of governance, political engagement and democratic processes. Our findings reveal that despite Afghanistan’s distinct traditions, many citizens hold expectations of government that align with social contract principles. A majority (67.95%) believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, citing security, economic issues and restrictions on women’s rights as key concerns. Notably, 91.5% of respondents support elections as the means of selecting leadership, indicating a strong desire for democratic processes. The study also found widespread support (78.5%) for peace negotiations with opposition groups. These results demonstrate the relevance of social contract theory in understanding the evolving relationship between Afghan citizens and the Taliban government. By adapting this framework to incorporate local customs and Islamic governance principles, we gain insights into both the unique aspects of Afghanistan’s political landscape and the universal challenges of state-building in post-conflict societies. This research contributes to a nuanced understanding of governance in non-Western contexts and offers valuable insights for policymakers and scholars working on state-building in complex cultural and political environments.
We investigate government responsiveness in the notice and comment process, a prominent instrument of consultative authoritarianism through which policy is made in contemporary China. We conduct an extensive data collection effort, assembling draft policies, public comments, and government responses for more than one thousand instances of notice and comment policymaking over a 17‐year period. Our statistical analysis demonstrates both the promise and limitations of consultative authoritarianism in the context of the notice and comment process. Government responsiveness in salient policy areas and to lengthy and critical comments demonstrates that public scrutiny matters to policymakers. These patterns are consistent with the notion that autocrats seek to remain in power not only through repression but also by bolstering exchanges of information between state and society. Central government ministries, however, are relatively unresponsive, indicating that significant aspects of policymaking are not characterized by robust attention to public sentiment and information.
As the world is threatened by new and powerful climate-driven hazards, how are states and societies likely to react? In this paper, I explore the role of regime type in determining the likelihood of state survival under extreme environmental conditions. I begin with a theoretical and empirical analysis of public goods provision under different regime types, finding no evidence for the contention that any one particular regime is superior to others. Following from this, I argue that the survival of the state under increased hazard conditions will at least partly be a function of political flexibility, with more democratic regimes better able to weather crisis than non-democratic ones. I explore this argument by analysing two historical cases of climate change: the non-democratic Maya civilisation in the first millennium and the quasi-democratic Icelandic state at the start of the second millennium. These historical cases highlight potential advantages to the democratic system in allowing states to survive a world with increased hazards but also underscore how rising competition and political instability can negatively impact those same democratic institutions.
This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .
To what extent can nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) communicate policy problems in an authoritarian country, and how limited are they in narrating policy alternatives? This article seeks to develop studies on the application of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) in Russia, extend our knowledge about the use of narrative strategies in centralized and authoritarian policy processes, highlight certain methodological peculiarities related to the devil–angel shift calculation, and test causal mechanism hypotheses that have not previously been applied to the analysis of policy debates in Russia. The study examines hypotheses based on the narrative strategies (devil–angel shift, scope of conflict, and causal mechanisms) that were used by government and NGO coalitions in the debate about “landscape fire” policies in Russia over the period 2019–2021. The results show that the differences between the coalition's narrative strategies were not as significant as had been shown previously. The government coalition uses a strong angel shift in its narratives and avoids conflict expansion. The NGO coalition demonstrates a moderate angel shift, but with the use of conflict expansion in parts of the narratives. Both coalitions use the intentional or inadvertent causal mechanism blaming the citizens for starting the fires, but differ in employing causal mechanisms when discussing the large scale of landscape fires.
A large body of literature investigates whether increasing the number of women in legislative office translates into policies that benefit women in society. This research builds upon theories about descriptive and substantive representation. However, these theories may not travel well to authoritarian contexts, where we see some of the largest gains in women legislators in recent years. This article unpacks the link between women’s descriptive representation, healthcare spending, and health outcomes by regime type. Using a sample of 169 countries from 2000 to 2018, we find that the percentage of women legislators is associated with increased healthcare spending across all regimes. However, women’s health outcomes do not improve with women’s descriptive representation in closed autocracies. Meanwhile, the results for democracies and electoral autocracies are similar, suggesting that even limited vertical accountability through semi-competitive elections may facilitate substantive representation of women.
We argue that authoritarian regimes engage in subnational propaganda targeting in pursuit of political survival. Drawing on an original dataset of propaganda collected inside North Korea, we show that the regime tailors messaging to elites and masses differently. We outline a schema of strategies and themes that authoritarian regimes utilize when crafting propaganda, theorize variations in their use, and test these variations empirically, using qualitative analysis, regression, and text analysis. We demonstrate that the North Korean regime targets Pyongyang-based elites with co-optational messages promising economic benefit, while the masses receive mobilizational messages focused on agricultural productivity. North Korean propaganda also legitimates the regime differently based on audience: messages to elites reassure them of their privileged status but messages to the masses remind them of why their sacrifices are necessary.
Do political leaders influence the level of economic inequality in authoritarian countries? Building on previous studies on political leaders and authoritarian regimes, we argue that economic inequality is likely to decrease during the tenure of authoritarian leaders with personal experiences of economic hardship. Since authoritarian leaders have greater policy discretion than their democratic counterparts, their policy choices are less constrained by other political actors and institutions. As their material background makes authoritarian leaders more likely to favour introducing redistributive measures, they are expected to use such strategies for political survival, leading to a decrease in economic inequality. We created and analysed a new dataset on political leaders’ socioeconomic backgrounds in authoritarian regimes and found support for our arguments. In line with recent studies on political leaders and policy outcomes, our findings suggest that leaders’ personal experiences of economic hardship greatly affect their policy choices in authoritarian countries.
لم تكن الألعاب الأولمبية الحديثة، منذ نشأتها في نهاية القرن التاسع عشر، مجرّد فضاء للتنافس بين الرياضيين الطامحين إلى حصد الألقاب والميداليات المختلفة، بل شكّلت أيضًا مجالًا للمناكفة بين الدول لما رأته أنظمتها في النجاح الأولمبي من قدرةٍ على شحذ الشعور القومي وتعزيز شرعيتها، وحتى إبراز تفوّقها الأيديولوجي في مواجهة خصومها الداخليين والخارجيين. وفي المقابل لم تكن كلّ الدول التي حكمتها أو تحكمها الأنظمة السلطوية على المستوى نفسه من النجاح، إذ تُظهر حصيلة نتائج الدول ذات النظام السلطوي تفاوتاتٍ كبيرةً على مرّ الدورات الأولمبية. تنظر هذه الدراسة في أسباب هذه التفاوتات؛ وذلك بالتركيز على دور شخصنة النظام السلطوي بوصفه عاملًا مفسِّرًا لها، إذ تبيّن عن طريق تحليلها معطيات تغطّي الفترة 1948 - 2008 أنّ قدرة أيّ بلد يحكمه نظام سلطوي على حصد الميداليات الأولمبية تتأثّر بمستوى شخصنة الحكم، فكلّما ارتفع مستوى شخصنة النظام السلطوي انخفضت حصيلة البلد من الميداليات الأولمبية، بغضّ النظر عن طبيعته (حزبي، ملكي، عسكري، فردي)، ودون أن يلغي ذلك محورية العوامل البنيوية المتحكّمة تقليديًّا في تألّق أيّ بلد في المنافسات الرياضية الدولية، وعلى رأسها مستوى النماء الاقتصادي وعدد السكّان.
In The Two Logics of Autocratic Rule, Gerschewski argues that all autocracies must fulfil three conditions to survive: the co-optation of key elites into their inner sanctum, the repression of potential dissent, and popular legitimation. Yet, how these conditions complement each other depends on alternative logics: over-politicization and de-politicization. While the former aims at mobilizing people via inflating a friend-foe distinction, the latter renders the people passive and apathetic, relying instead on performance-driven forms of legitimation. Gerschewski supports this two-logics theory with the empirical analysis of forty-five autocratic regime episodes in East Asia since the end of World War II. In simultaneously synthesizing and extending existing research on non-democracies, this book proposes an innovative way to understand autocratic rule that goes beyond the classic distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. It will be of interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, political theory, and East Asian politics.
We argue that authoritarian regimes engage in subnational propaganda targeting in pursuit of political survival. Drawing on an original dataset of visual and text propaganda collected inside North Korea, we show that the regime in Pyongyang tailors messaging to elites and masses differently. We outline a schema of four strategies and seven themes that authoritarian regimes commonly utilize when crafting propaganda, theorize variations in their use, and test these variations empirically, using a combination of qualitative analysis, regression, and machine-learning-based text analysis. We demonstrate that the North Korean regime targets Pyongyang-based elites with co-optational messages promising prosperity, modernization, and economic benefit, while the masses outside of Pyongyang are more likely to receive mobilizational messages focused on agricultural productivity. North Korean propaganda also legitimates the regime differently based on audience: legitimation messages to elites emphasize ideological themes related to the party, reassuring elites of the regime's commitment to preserving their privileged status. By contrast, legitimation messages in rural areas emphasize security themes, reminding the masses of why their sacrifices are necessary. The manuscript contributes to scholarly understanding of authoritarian propaganda by providing a theoretical logic for subnational propaganda targeting in non-democracies, and showing that this logic is empirically substantiated.
This article makes a case for studying the legitimation of emergency politics from the vantage point of securitisation. To that end, it zooms in on politics during the COVID-19 pandemic – a many-sided crisis that generated a heightened insecurity environment. Based on a qualitative content analysis of the French official rhetoric on two COVID-19 emergency measures, it foregrounds how securitising speech acts construing a macro threat and notable shifts in hierarchical ordering of securitisations underpinned justifications for COVID-19 pandemic politics. Conceptually, this research bridges the literature on legitimation and securitisation by synthesising scattered securitising elements in typologies of legitimation and outlining the legitimating function of two securitisation dynamics – macrosecuritisation and securitising dilemma.
Do economic experiences early in life affect regime support later in life? Effects of recent economic performance on regime support are extensively studied, but lasting effects of individual-level economic experiences across the lifespan remain unexplored. We argue that in democracies and autocracies alike, economic experiences in early adulthood (that is, age eighteen to twenty-eight) are wired into people's memories and become important cues for their democratic support later in life. Having lived in a well-performing economy in a democracy increases democratic support throughout most of people's lives, whereas having lived in a well-performing economy in an autocracy decreases democratic support throughout most of people's lives. Using extensive survey data on support for democracy covering ninety-seven countries from 1994 to 2015, we find support for these propositions, demonstrating that economic experiences in early adulthood, conditional on the regime in place at the time, have strong, robust and lasting effects on democratic support.
Does electoral competition affect expenditures on the provision of public goods in electoral autocracies? Previous studies firmly agree that multiparty elections are critical to autocratic survival. Accordingly, studies argue that multiparty elections lead to an increase in health expenditure in electoral autocracies. In addition to the literature, less explored is the effect of electoral competition on the expenditure. If oppositions can run elections with a higher level of electoral competition and threaten the dictator's winning over elections, would autocrats provide more public goods to citizens? This paper raises a pessimistic view on this question and argues that the impact of electoral competition does not affect government health expenditure. Empirical findings with 291 cases of 70 electoral autocracies from 2000 to 2018 and an illustrative case study of Armenia demonstrate that autocrats are less likely to provide health and education expenditures to citizens even though they face higher competition during elections.
The notice and comment process, in which government organizations make public draft laws and regulations and solicit feedback on these proposals, is a prominent governance reform in contemporary China. This article examines the durability of notice and comment policymaking by conducting a pair of audits of the practices of dozens of central government ministries and provincial governments. There are a number of reasons to expect that it is difficult to sustain governance reforms in China. Nevertheless, the audits—which the authors carried out in 2014 and 2021—demonstrate that, subject to a number of constraints, notice and comment policymaking was routinely implemented by government organizations throughout the period under analysis. Although the notice and comment process is a durable governance reform, additional research is needed before it can be concluded that the procedure brings more than a veneer of transparency to Chinese policymaking.
Recently, the world has witnessed increased participation from nondemocratic countries in international cultural institutions, such as UNESCO’s International Assistance (IA) program. This study poses the question of why several authoritarian countries request IA programs more frequently than others do. In addition to economic and international factors, we argue that differences in domestic institutions within autocracies influence the decision-making of such states in requesting IA programs because these programs can be a useful tool for several incumbent regimes to generate public support or maintain their status. We implement negative binomial regressions for 131 authoritarian countries between 1979 and 2014 and demonstrate that politically competitive regimes are more likely to request IA programs than non-competitive ones. The findings suggest that authoritarian regimes with competitive political institutions are likely to utilize the programs of cultural international regimes.
Recientemente, el mundo ha observado una mayor participación de países no democráticos en instituciones culturales internacionales, tales como el programa de Asistencia Internacional (International Assistance, IA) de la UNESCO. Este estudio plantea la pregunta de por qué numerosos países autoritarios solicitan programas de IA con más frecuencia que otros países. Además de los factores internacionales y económicos, sostenemos que las diferencias en las instituciones nacionales dentro de las autocracias influyen en la toma de decisiones de tales estados al solicitar programas de IA, ya que estos programas pueden ser una herramienta útil para que los regímenes de turno obtengan el apoyo del público o mantengan su posición. Implementamos regresiones binomiales negativas para 131 países autoritarios entre 1979 y 2014, y demostramos que los regímenes políticamente competitivos son más propensos a solicitar programas de IA que los que no lo son. Los resultados sugieren que es probable que los regímenes autoritarios con instituciones políticas competitivas utilicen los programas de regímenes culturales internacionales.
Le monde a récemment été témoin d’une participation accrue des pays non démocratiques aux institutions culturelles internationales, notamment au niveau des programmes d’aide internationale de l’UNESCO. Cette étude s’interroge sur les raisons pour lesquelles plusieurs pays autoritaires demandent des programmes d’aide internationale plus fréquemment que d’autres. En plus des facteurs économiques et internationaux, nous soutenons que les différences dans les institutions nationales des autocraties influencent la prise de décision de ces États lorsqu’ils demandent des programmes d’aide internationale, car ces programmes peuvent être un outil utile pour plusieurs régimes en place pour générer un soutien public ou maintenir leur statut. Nous avons appliqué des régressions binomiales négatives pour 131 pays autoritaires entre 1979 et 2014 et nous démontrons que les régimes politiquement concurrents sont davantage susceptibles de demander des programmes d’aide internationale que les régimes non concurrents. Nos conclusions suggèrent que les régimes dont les institutions politiques sont concurrentes sont susceptibles d’avoir recours aux programmes des régimes culturels internationaux.
How do the electoral institutions in authoritarian regimes affect the development of the shadow economy? While understanding the determinants of the shadow economy is important for the study of political economy and development, little is known about the political determinants of the shadow economy. We argue that authoritarian governments reduce the size of the shadow economy through legislatures. Electoral institutions allow regimes to strengthen their claim to performance legitimacy as they need to cater to a larger winning coalition. This results in increased spending on domestic socio-economic policies that effectively reduce the size of the shadow economy. Using panel data of 54 authoritarian regimes between the years 1991 and 2010, we find authoritarian regimes with electoral institutions have a significant, negative effect on the size of the shadow economy. This study has important implications for understanding the determinants of the shadow economy as well as the effect of political contestation in authoritarian regimes.
Electoral autocracies – regimes that adopt democratic institutions but subvert them to rule as dictatorships – have become the most widespread, resilient and malignant non-democracies today. They have consistently ruled over a third of the countries in the world, including geopolitically significant states like Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan. Challenging conventional wisdom, Popular Dictators shows that the success of electoral authoritarianism is not due to these regimes' superior capacity to repress, bribe, brainwash and manipulate their societies into submission, but is actually a product of their genuine popular appeal in countries experiencing deep political, economic and security crises. Promising efficient, strong-armed rule tempered by popular accountability, elected strongmen attract mass support in societies traumatized by turmoil, dysfunction and injustice, allowing them to rule through the ballot box. Popular Dictators argues that this crisis legitimation strategy makes electoral authoritarianism the most significant threat to global peace and democracy.
Electoral autocracies – regimes that adopt democratic institutions but subvert them to rule as dictatorships – have become the most widespread, resilient and malignant non-democracies today. They have consistently ruled over a third of the countries in the world, including geopolitically significant states like Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan. Challenging conventional wisdom, Popular Dictators shows that the success of electoral authoritarianism is not due to these regimes' superior capacity to repress, bribe, brainwash and manipulate their societies into submission, but is actually a product of their genuine popular appeal in countries experiencing deep political, economic and security crises. Promising efficient, strong-armed rule tempered by popular accountability, elected strongmen attract mass support in societies traumatized by turmoil, dysfunction and injustice, allowing them to rule through the ballot box. Popular Dictators argues that this crisis legitimation strategy makes electoral authoritarianism the most significant threat to global peace and democracy.
This research note contributes to the emerging debate on the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for democracy, autocracy and regime change. Following a review of the literature on the short-term impact of the pandemic on citizen freedoms, I conduct a preliminary test showing that COVID-19 has widened the freedom divide between democracy and autocracy. I propose a prudential interpretation of this new finding and of its implications for medium- to long-term regime change dynamics. In an age of advancing autocratization, regaining awareness that democracies and autocracies treat citizens differently could help marginalize antisystem political forces in democratic countries. However, increased levels of repression in regimes that are already authoritarian are no good news in terms of prospective democratization. Moreover, the management of the social and economic consequences of the pandemic is likely to represent a key driver of future regime change, duo to its impact on the legitimacy and stability of both democracies and autocracies.
Old-age pensions are the most widespread social security programmes around the world that in many countries account for a huge part of the national budget. Based on the PENLEG dataset (Pension Legislation around the World, 1880–2010), this article answers the question whether the political regime type has affected the choice of a specific pension design when implementing old-age pensions for the first time. The global study shows that nondemocratic regimes were more likely to implement social insurance designs, as these pension designs are best suited to bind citizens to the state and to target benefits on groups that are essential for regime survival. In contrast, the study can only find weak evidence that electoral autocracies were less likely to implement social insurance designs than closed autocracies. Moreover, colonial legacies mattered strongly. Especially former French colonies were more likely to implement social insurance designs.
This study examines the effects of democracy and hybrid regimes on income inequality. Despite strong theoretical arguments for the redistributive impact of democracy, empirical evidence of this phenomenon is inconclusive. This study helps to solve this puzzle by suggesting that the two key dimensions of democracy, contestation and inclusiveness/participation, have opposite effects on inequality. Whereas contestation provides incentives for politicians to redistribute, suffrage or participation alone (without competition) affords elites further control over the population and reduces its redistributive threat. Therefore, electoral authoritarianism (characterized by high inclusiveness and medium contestation) is also expected to be more unequal than either democratic or authoritarian regimes. These arguments are primarily supported by the results of instrumental variable regressions of data from 135 countries from 1971 to 2015 and are supplemented by some qualitative evidence.
Autocratic governments make claims about why they are entitled to rule. Some autocracies are more talkative than others, but all regimes say something about why they deserve power. This article takes seriously these efforts by introducing and interrogating the concept of autocratic legitimation. After engaging in a definitional discussion, it traces the development of autocratic legitimation in modern political science by identifying major turning points, key concepts, and patterns of inquiry over time. Ultimately, this introductory article aims to not only argue that studying autocratic legitimation is important, but also to propose contexts, concepts, and distinctions for doing so productively. To this end, the article proposes four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation that can facilitate comparative analysis: indoctrination, passivity, performance, and democratic-procedural. Finally, the essay briefly introduces the five original articles that comprise the remainder of this special issue on autocratic legitimation. The article identifies avenues for further research and identifies how each article in the issue advances down productive pathways of inquiry.
Constructing convincing legitimacy claims is important for securing the stability of authoritarian regimes. However, extant research has struggled to systematically analyse how authoritarians substantiate their right to rule. We analyse a novel data set on authoritarian regimes’ claims to legitimacy that is based on leading country experts’ assessments of 98 states for the period 1991–2010. This analysis provides key new insights into the inner workings and legitimation strategies of current non-democratic regimes. Closed authoritarian regimes predominately rely on identity-based legitimacy claims (foundational myth, ideology and personalism). In contrast, elections fundamentally change how authoritarian rulers relate to society. In their legitimacy claims, electoral authoritarian regimes focus on their ‘adequate’ procedures, thereby mimicking democracies. All regimes also stress their purported success in proving material welfare and security to their citizens.
Africa’s political landscape has changed profoundly over the past two decades. The crisis of many military and single-party regimes led to the widespread adoption of reforms that, in many countries, stopped short of full democratization but opened the way to the institutionalization of limited forms of political competition. While it is now evident that competitive authoritarianism is not a transitory phenomenon, it is less clear whether formal democratic institutions may nonetheless have a beneficial effect. Specifically, yet to be evaluated is the ability of these democratic institutions to shape government commitment to improving the wellbeing of citizens in an environment deeply affected by neo-patrimonial practices, such as African politics. This article presents the findings of one of the first inquiries into the socioeconomic consequences of competitive authoritarianism. Our main conclusion is that electoral mechanisms do favour some social improvements even within the context of an authoritarian setting.
Recent years have seen an efflorescence of work focused on the definition and operationalization of democracy. One debate concerns the scale, i.e., whether democracy is best measured by binary or graded scales. Critics of binary indices point out at that they are overly reductionist; all features of a regime must be reduced to a single coding decision, producing binary sets that lack discriminating power. Defenders counter that the different levels of graded measures are not associated with a specific set of conditions, meaning that they are difficult to interpret. Against this backdrop, we propose to operationalize electoral democracy as a series of necessary-andsufficient conditions arrayed in an ordinal scale. The resulting "lexical" index of electoral democracy, based partly on new data collected by the authors, covers all independent countries of the world from 1800 to 2008. It incorporates binary coding of its sub-components based on factual characteristics of regimes and in this way reduces the problem of subjective judgments by coders for non-binary democracy indices. Binary codings are aggregated into an ordinal scale using a cumulative logic. In this fashion, we arrive at an index that performs a classificatory function - each level identifies a unique and theoretically meaningful regime type - as well as a discriminating function.
Reviewing 40 years of hard, empirical data, from China and India to Chile and Iraq, the authors show that poor democracies beat poor autocracies in every economic measure. In addition, the authors offer dramatic evidence that democracies are less likely to fight each other and that terrorists more often find safe haven in authoritarian countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
When the leader of an autocratic regime loses power, one of three things happens. The incumbent leadership group is replaced by democratically elected leaders. Someone from the incumbent leadership group replaces him, and the regime persists. Or the incumbent leadership group loses control to a different group that replaces it with a new autocracy. Much scholarship exists on the first kind of transition, but little on transitions from one autocracy to another, though they make up about half of all regime changes. We introduce a new data set that facilitates the investigation of all three kinds of transition. It provides transition information for the 280 autocratic regimes in existence from 1946 to 2010. The data identify how regimes exit power, how much violence occurs during transitions, and whether the regimes that precede and succeed them are autocratic. We explain the data set and show how it differs from currently available data. The new data identify autocratic regime breakdowns regardless of whether the country democratizes, which makes possible the investigation of why the ouster of dictators sometimes leads to democracy but often does not, and many other questions. We present a number of examples to highlight how the new data can be used to explore questions about why dictators start wars and why autocratic breakdown sometimes results in the establishment of a new autocratic regime rather than democratization. We discuss the implications of these findings for the Arab Spring.
A strong statistical association between legislative opposition in authoritarian regimes and investment has been interpreted as evidence that authoritarian legislatures constrain executive decisions and reduce the threat of expropriation. Although the empirical relationship is robust, scholars have not provided systematic evidence that authoritarian parliaments are able to restrain the actions of state leaders, reverse activities they disagree with, or remove authoritarian leaders who violate the implied power-sharing arrangement. This article shows that authoritarian legislatures, by providing a forum for horse trading between private actors, are better at generating corporate governance legislation that protects investors from corporate insiders than they are at preventing expropriation by governments. The statistical analysis reveals that the strength of authoritarian legislatures is associated with corporate governance rules and not expropriation risk.
This review essay examines the burgeoning literature on democratic authoritarianism, which examines two related, but distinct questions about why authoritarian regimes adopt institutions conventionally associated with democracy, and how these institutions ironically strengthen authoritarian regimes and forestall democratization. The literature suggests that authoritarian regimes adopt and utilize nominally democratic institutions to strengthen regimes in five main ways: signaling, information acquisition, patronage distribution, monitoring, and credible commitment. I evaluate each of these mechanisms in this review essay, as well as the empirical challenges facing this research agenda in general, and offer several suggestions for how the field should proceed to overcome these challenges.
Previous studies report that semi-democratic regimes are less durable than both democracies and autocracies. Still, mixing democratic and autocratic characteristics need not destabilize regimes, as three highly plausible alternative explanations of this correlation remain unaccounted for: (a) semi-democracies emerge under conditions of political instability and social turmoil; (b) other regime characteristics explain duration; and (c) extant democracy measures do not register all regime changes. We elaborate on and test for these explanations, but find strikingly robust evidence that semi-democracies are inherently less durable than both democracies and autocracies. “Semi-democracies are particularly unstable political regimes” should thus be considered a rare stylized fact of comparative politics. The analysis yields several other interesting results. For instance, autocracies and semi-democracies are equally likely to experience “liberalizing” regime changes more specifically, and once accounting for differences in degree of democracy, there is no robust evidence of differences in duration between military and single-party regimes.
This article presents a new typology and a new dataset of political regimes (1946–2010). The classification presented is based, in theoretical terms, on the distinctive patterns of legitimation exhibited by the political regimes. To demonstrate the usefulness of the classification, I explore the extent to which the classification and its theoretical foundation, namely the pattern of legitimation, helps to explain the durability of different political regime types. I compare the results and explanations with those of Geddes and Hadenius and Teorell in order to clarify the differences made by the use of the presented classification.
Why do some autocracies remain stable while others collapse? This article presents a theoretical framework that seeks to explain the longevity of autocracies by referring to three pillars of stability: legitimation, repression, and co-optation. These three causal factors are derived by distilling and synthesizing the main arguments of classic and more recent research efforts. Particular emphasis is paid to re-incorporate legitimation in the explanation of stable autocracies. The article conceptionalizes the three pillars and discusses methods of concrete measurement. It then moves on to explain the stabilization process. How do these pillars develop their stabilizing effect? It is argued that reinforcement processes take place both within and between the pillars. They take the form of exogenous reinforcement, self-reinforcement, and reciprocal reinforcement. To illustrate the inner logic of these processes, I draw on empirical examples. I also state what we would need to observe empirically and how we can approach the three pillars methodically. A theoretical framework of this nature has two advantages: it is able to take the complexity of autocratic regimes into account while remaining parsimonious enough to be applicable to all autocratic regimes, irrespective of their subtype; and it integrates a static view to explain stability, with the emphasis on the underlying stabilization mechanisms and facilitates within-case and cross-case comparisons.
This article introduces a modified and updated version of the authoritarian regime type dataset first introduced by Hadenius and Teorell. The basic logic and merits of this dataset is presented, previously published criticism of the index is addressed and practical advice for potential users is provided. The dataset is also compared theoretically and empirically with the datasets provided by Cheibub et al., and Geddes et al. It is argued that the choice of dataset is likely to have a substantial effect on the results of empirical research. The different datasets all have their respective strengths and weaknesses. However, our typology of authoritarianism distinguishes itself from the alternative categorisations in that it recognises the heterogeneous character of electoral regimes and provides a category corresponding to the theoretically interesting class of ‘electoral authoritarian’ regimes.
When it comes to social welfare, we do not have clear understanding of whether it is more important to have democracy or a capable state. Specifically, most studies do not consider the possibility that effects of democracy are conditioned or obscured by differences in the capabilities of states to deliver services effectively. This article contends that better developmental outcomes can result from either democracy or state capacity, but the combination of high levels of both democracy and state capacity is not synergistic. Empirical evidence from a time-series-cross-sectional dataset covering up to 162 countries during the 1965–2010 time period supports the conclusion that these factors partially substitute for each other with respect to improving outcomes in school enrollment and infant mortality. These findings provide a more optimistic answer to the query of Ross (Am J Polit Sci 50(4): 860–874, 2006) as to whether democracy is good for the poor. Once accounting for state capacity, we find that democracy leads to better development outcomes.
A most comprehensive empirical analysis of the economic transformation of the former Soviet bloc during the first decade after communism. It debunks many myths, seeing transition as a struggle between radical reformers and those thriving on rent seeking. People have gained from fast and comprehensive reforms, but several countries have gotten stuck in corruption. Economic decline and social hazards have been greatly exaggerated, since people have forgotten how awful communism was. Swift liberalization of prices and foreign trade, as well as rapid and profound fiscal adjustment, have been vital for growth, institutional reforms, legality and greater equity. Privatization has been beneficial, and its effects will grow over time. The main problem has been the continuation of unregulated and ubiquitous state apparatuses living on corruption, while no country has suffered from too radical reforms. Where malpractices of the elite can be checked, market reforms and democracy have proceeded together.
Paradigms and Sand Castlesdemonstrates the relationship between thoughtful research design and the collection of persuasive evidence in support of theory. It teaches the craft of research through interesting and carefully selected examples from the field of comparative development studies.
During the 1990s, international democracy promotion efforts led to the establishment of numerous regimes that cannot be easily classified as either authoritarian or democratic. They display characteristics of each, in short they are semi-authoritarian regimes. These regimes pose a considerable challenge to U.S. policymakers because the superficial stability of many semi-authoritarian regimes usually masks severe problems that need to be solved lest they lead to a future crisis. Additionally, these regimes call into question some of the ideas about democratic transitions that underpin the democracy promotion strategies of the United States and other Western countries. Despite their growing importance, semi-authoritarian regimes have not received systematic attention. Marina Ottaway examines five countries (Egypt, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Croatia, and Senegal) which highlight the distinctive features of semi-authoritarianism and the special challenge each poses to policymakers. She explains why the dominant approach to democracy promotion isn't effective in these countries and concludes by suggesting alternative policies. Marina Ottaway is senior associate and codirector of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment. © 2003 Carnegie Endowmentfor International Peace. All rights reserved.
David Beetham's book explores the legitimation of power both as an issue in political and social science theory and in relation to the legitimacy of contemporary political systems including its breakdown in revolution. 'An admirable text which is far reaching in its scope and extraordinary in the clarity with which it covers a wide range of material... One can have nothing but the highest regard for this volume.' - David Held, Times Higher Education Supplement ;'Beetham has produced a study bound to revolutionize sociological thinking and teaching... Seminal and profoundly original... Beetham's book should become the obligitory reading for every teacher and practitioner of social science.' - Zygmunt Bauman, Sociology
Elections do not always advance democratisation, yet they can. We outline a democratisation-by-elections model according to which the opportunities for political change opened up by each electoral round build on previous election-related democratic progress. We focus on Nigeria, interpret the recent executive turnover in light of previous elections, and set the country within the comparative context of Africa’s democratisation. Using a new Africa Leadership Change dataset, we use election-related events to examine the diverse routes that African regimes have taken since 1990. The analysis highlights two major syndromes: democratic stagnation and recession. In a sizeable group, however, the institutionalisation of democracy has been making gradual progress. While there is no predetermined way to advance democracy, the reiteration of elections can be instrumental in such advancement. © 2016, GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies. All rights reserved.
Far from sweeping the globe uniformly, the “third wave of democratization” left burgeoning republics and resilient dictatorships in its wake. Applying more than a year of original fieldwork in Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Jason Brownlee shows that the mixed record of recent democratization is best deciphered through a historical and institutional approach to authoritarian rule. Exposing the internal organizations that structure elite conflict, Brownlee demonstrates why the critical soft-liners needed for democratic transitions have been dormant in Egypt and Malaysia but outspoken in Iran and the Philippines. By establishing how ruling parties originated and why they impede change, Brownlee illuminates the problem of contemporary authoritarianism and informs the promotion of durable democracy.
What drives politics in dictatorships? Milan W. Svolik argues that all authoritarian regimes must resolve two fundamental conflicts. First, dictators face threats from the masses over which they rule – this is the problem of authoritarian control. A second, separate challenge arises from the elites with whom dictators rule – this is the problem of authoritarian power-sharing. Crucially, whether and how dictators resolve these two problems is shaped by the dismal environment in which authoritarian politics takes place: in a dictatorship, no independent authority has the power to enforce agreements among key actors and violence is the ultimate arbiter of conflict. Using the tools of game theory, Svolik explains why some dictators, such as Saddam Hussein, establish personal autocracy and stay in power for decades; why leadership changes elsewhere are regular and institutionalized, as in contemporary China; why some dictatorships are ruled by soldiers, as Uganda was under Idi Amin; why many authoritarian regimes, such as PRI-era Mexico, maintain regime-sanctioned political parties; and why a country's authoritarian past casts a long shadow over its prospects for democracy, as the unfolding events of the Arab Spring reveal. When assessing his arguments, Svolik complements these and other historical case studies with the statistical analysis of comprehensive, original data on institutions, leaders, and ruling coalitions across all dictatorships from 1946 to 2008.
Often dismissed as window-dressing, nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures and political parties, play an important role in non-democratic regimes. In a comprehensive cross-national study of all non-democratic states from 1946 to 2002 that examines the political uses of these institutions by dictators, Gandhi finds that legislative and partisan institutions are an important component in the operation and survival of authoritarian regimes. She examines how and why these institutions are useful to dictatorships in maintaining power, analyzing the way dictators utilize institutions as a forum in which to organize political concessions to potential opposition in an effort to neutralize threats to their power and to solicit cooperation from groups outside of the ruling elite. The use of legislatures and parties to co-opt opposition results in significant institutional effects on policies and outcomes under dictatorship.
This now-classic examination of the development of viable political institutions in emerging nations is a major and enduring contribution to modern political analysis. In a new Foreword, Francis Fukuyama assesses Huntington's achievement, examining the context of the book's original publication as well as its lasting importance. "This pioneering volume, examining as it does the relation between development and stability, is an interesting and exciting addition to the literature."-American Political Science Review. "'Must' reading for all those interested in comparative politics or in the study of development."-Dankwart A. Rustow, Journal of International Affairs.
Despite its authoritarian political structure, Egypt’s government has held competitive, multi-party parliamentary elections for more than 30 years. This book argues that, rather than undermining the durability of the Mubarak regime, competitive parliamentary elections ease important forms of distributional conflict, particularly conflict over access to spoils. In a comprehensive examination of the distributive consequences of authoritarian elections in Egypt, Lisa Blaydes examines the triadic relationship between Egypt’s ruling regime, the rent-seeking elite that supports the regime, and the ordinary citizens who participate in these elections. She describes why parliamentary candidates finance campaigns to win seats in a legislature that lacks policymaking power, as well as why citizens engage in the costly act of voting in such a context.
The study of authoritarian politics is in the midst of a renaissance. A particular concern amongst practitioners and scholars has been how the use of “nominally” democratic institutions, such as courts, legislatures and parties, actually aids the survival of dictators and ruling parties. Despite notable breakthroughs, however, the question of why authoritarian regimes bother to hold elections has received far less consideration. In democracies, elections by and large facilitate the expression of consent, because they enable citizens to select their representatives freely and fairly. In authoritarian regimes, by contrast, elections do not provide evidence of this principle, because citizens lack an effective choice due to the existence of manipulation and misconduct. While it is certainly easy to dismiss such polls as shams, this does not explain the longstanding and widespread use of this institution. So what is behind the façade? Using three comprehensive case studies from Southeast Asia, this book argues elections allow authoritarian regimes to collect information, pursue legitimacy, manage political elites and/or sustain neopatrimonial domination. Drawing on a historical and institutional approach, it demonstrates how these functions are employed to manage the complex strategic interaction that occurs between dictators, political elites and citizens. Since the book offers the first comparative treatment of this global phenomenon in nearly four decades, the findings are particularly relevant for practitioners involved in the promotion of democracy, but also students and scholars working on authoritarianism, democratization, elections and Southeast Asian politics. Far from being mere window dressing or even a precursor to democracy, this book demonstrates how flawed elections are paramount to the maintenance of authoritarian rule.
This book provides a theory of the logic of survival of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), one of the most resilient autocratic regimes in the twentieth century. An autocratic regime hid behind the facade of elections that were held with clockwise precision. Although their outcome was totally predictable, elections were not hollow rituals. The PRI made millions of ordinary citizens vest their interests in the survival of the autocratic regime. Voters could not simply ‘throw the rascals out of office’ because their choices were constrained by a series of strategic dilemmas that compelled them to support the autocrats. The book also explores the factors that led to the demise of the PRI. The theory sheds light on the logic of ‘electoral autocracies’, among the most common type of autocracy, and is the only systematic treatment in the literature today dealing with this form of autocracy. © Beatriz Magaloni 2006 and Cambridge University Press, 2009. All rights reserved.
We present a theory that addresses the question of why autocracies with a regime legitimation which ties the destiny of the members of the ruling elite, namely the nobility or ideocratic elite, to the survival of the autocracy, namely (ruling) monarchies and communist ideocracies, are more durable than other kinds of autocracies. Using logistic regression analysis and event history analysis on a dataset on autocratic regimes in the period 1946 to 2009, we are able to show that ruling monarchies and communist ideocracies are indeed the most durable autocratic regime types.
Do autocratic institutions matter for the welfare of average citizens? Despite the large literature comparing democracies and autocracies, we know little about how human development outcomes differ among autocratic types. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this article argues that contested autocratic elections promote human development by improving state accountability and capacity. Using an instrumental variables setup, I show that the presence and history of multiparty autocratic elections predict significantly better outcomes on health, education, gender equality, and basic freedoms relative to non-electoral autocracy. In fact, the effects on health and education are as strong as the effects of democracy. In contrast, legislatures and parties without multiparty elections produce slightly negative outcomes because these institutions chiefly concern elite cooptation. The results have major implications for the study of autocracy, the political economy of development, and the welfare effects of international election promotion.
The responsiveness of policy to election results is a central component of democracy. Do the outcomes of autocratic elections also affect policy choice? Even when the threat of turnover is low, I argue that autocratic elections influence policy by allowing citizens to signal dissatisfaction with the regime. Supplementing existing work, this study explains how this opposition is communicated credibly and then shows that ruling parties use this information to calibrate policy concessions. In the first cross-country analysis of autocratic election outcomes and policy choice, I find that negative electoral shocks to ruling parties predict increases in education and social welfare spending and decreases in military spending following elections. In contrast, there is no policy effect leading up to elections, in response to violent contestation, or in resource-rich regimes, illustrating a potential mechanism for the resource curse.
Attentive readers of this journal will have already noticed that NED’s International Forum for Democratic Studies is engaged in a study of what we have varyingly labeled the “world movement against democracy” or the “authoritarian resurgence.” This project is divided into two parts—one focusing on the countries that have been leading this resurgence, and a second examining some of the key “soft-power” arenas in which they have been seeking to weaken democracy.
The first article generated by this project, Andrew J. Nathan on “China’s Challenge,” appeared in our January 2015 issue. In the pages that follow, we offer readers essays on four other major authoritarian countries—Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia—that are seeking both to gain ascendancy in their respective regions and to undercut the rules-based institutions that have been instrumental in setting global democratic norms.
These regimes may disagree on many things, but they share the objective of obstructing the advance of democracy and weakening the influence of democratic principles in the world.
Lilia Shevtsova analyzes the transformation of Russia’s kleptocratic regime into something far more belligerent and dangerous, and explains how Vladimir Putin’s new foreign policy is raising the stakes and reshaping the landscape in Europe and Eurasia.
Javier Corrales shows that Venezuela under Hugo Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro has seen a “turn toward greater autocracy.”
Abbas Milani evaluates the underpinnings of the clerical authoritarian regime in Iran, and in a companion piece Alex Vatanka looks at how Tehran is actively projecting its influence throughout its neighborhood.
Frederic Wehrey examines Saudi Arabia, Iran’s great regional rival, and the negative impact of Saudi policies on democracy.
Over the past decade, these regimes have proven adept at refining their techniques of repression and control. But all four of them have been buoyed by high oil revenues, and it remains to be seen how they will fare if the price of oil remains at sharply lower levels over an extended period of time.
The authors of these essays explain the threat posed by these resurgent authoritarians, but also identify their inherent political and economic weaknesses, including rampant corruption. The established democracies have been slow to recognize the increasingly determined challenge from today’s authoritarians, perhaps because they hope that these regimes will be undone by their flaws. But given the resilience that the authoritarians have displayed so far, it would be rash for the democracies to underestimate the seriousness of the dangers that they pose.
—Christopher Walker and the Editors
The institutional turn in comparative authoritarianism has generated wide interest. This article reviews three prominent books on authoritarian institutions and their central theoretical propositions about the origins, functions and effects of dominant party institutions on authoritarian rule. Two critical perspectives on political institutions, one based on rationalist theories of institutional design and the other based on a social conflict theory of political economy, suggest that authoritarian institutions are epiphenomenal on more fundamental political, social and/or economic relations. Such approaches have been largely ignored in this recent literature, but each calls into question the theoretical and empirical claims that form the basis of institutionalist approaches to authoritarian rule. A central implication of this article is that authoritarian institutions cannot be studied separately from the concrete problems of redistribution and policy making that motivate regime behavior.
A dictator's motivation for using repression is fairly clear, but why some repress more than others or favor particular types of repressive strategies is less obvious. Using statistical analysis, this article demonstrates that a dictator's reliance on co-optation fundamentally alters how repression is used. Specifically, it finds that co-optation through the use of political parties and a legislature creates incentives that lead dictators to decrease empowerment rights restrictions, like censorship, while increasing physical integrity rights violations, like torture and political imprisonment. This occurs because, by creating parties and a legislature, a dictator draws his potential opposition out of the general public and into state institutions, making it easier to identify who these opponents are, to monitor their activities, and to gauge the extent of their popular support. This reduces the need to impose broad types of repressive measures, like empowerment rights restrictions, that breed discontent within the overall population. At the same time, co-optation creates the risk that rivals, once co-opted, will use their positions within the system to build their own bases of support from which to seek the dictator's overthrow, generating incentives for dictators to increase physical integrity violations to limit the threat posed by these individuals.
No monarchy fell to revolution in the Arab Spring. What accounts for this monarchical exceptionalism? Analysts have argued that royal autocracies are inherently more resilient than authoritarian republics due to their cultural foundations and institutional structure. By contrast, this paper leverages comparative analysis to offer a different explanation emphasizing deliberate regime strategies made in circumstances of geographic fortuity. The mobilization of cross-cutting coalitions, hydrocarbon wealth, and foreign patronage account for the resilience of monarchical dictatorships in the Middle East. Without these factors, kingships are just as vulnerable to overthrow as any other autocracy—something that history indicates, given the long list of deposed monarchies in the region over the past half-century.
This piece combines parts of Chapter 1 (Introduction) with Chapter 2 (theoretical framework) of an early draft of our book manuscript. The chapters that will eventually follow cover each of five regions: the Americas, Central Europe, former Soviet Union, East Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
In this essay, the authors propose a three-part ideal-type typology that distinguishes between “ruling monarchy,” “constitutional monarchy,” and what they call “democratic parliamentary monarchy” (or DPM for short). For us, the defining characteristic of a DPM is that only the freely elected parliament forms and terminates the government. In a constitutional monarchy, by contrast, there is a strong element of dual legitimacy in that parliament and the monarch need each other’s support in order to form or terminate a government. In still greater contrast, in ruling monarchies the monarch can often unilaterally form or terminate the government. Moreover, each of these three types comes with its own set of patterns concerning the rule of law, constitutional constraints on the monarch, the status of parliament, and the relative autonomy of the judiciary.
This paper offers a first comprehensive account of popular voting intentions in Africa's new electoral democracies. With reference to aggregate and survey data from 16 countries, this paper shows that competitive elections in Africa are more than mere ethnic censuses or simple economic referenda. Instead, Africans engage in both ethnic and economic voting. Not surprisingly, people who belong to the ethnic group in power intend to support the ruling party, in contrast to those who feel a sense of discrimination against their cultural group. But, to an even greater extent, would-be voters in Africa consider policy performance, especially the government's perceived handling of unemployment, inflation, and income distribution. Moreover, a full account of the intended vote choice in Africa also requires recognition that citizens are motivated – sincerely or strategically – by partisan considerations; they vote for established ruling parties because they expect that incumbents will win. This paper shows that voters attempt to associate themselves with prospective winners because they wish to gain access to material benefits and to avoid retribution after the election. These dynamics are most evident in African countries where dominant parties restrict the range of electoral choice.
Authoritarianism research has evolved into one of the fastest growing areas in comparative politics and political economy. However, the newly awakened interest in autocratic regimes goes hand in hand with a lack of systematic research on the results of the political and substantive policy performance of variants of autocratic regimes. In this article we introduce the individual contributions to this special issue and summarize their findings with regard to three core research questions: What are the differences between autocracies and democracies, as well as between different forms of authoritarian regimes, with regard to their outcome performance in selected policy fields? Does policy performance matter for the persistence of authoritarian rule? How can we conceptualize different types of autocratic regimes and do differences in the availability of performance data matter for the results of empirical studies comparing democracies and autocracies or different types of non-democratic regimes?
The concept of electoral competition is relevant to a variety of research agendas in political science, yet the question of how to measure electoral competition has received little direct attention. We revisit the distinction proposed by Giovanni Sartori between competition as a structure or rule of the game and competitiveness as an outcome of that game and argue that to understand which elections can be lost (and therefore when parties and leaders are potentially threatened by electoral accountability), scholars may be better off considering the full range of elections where competition is allowed. We provide a data set of all national elections between 1945 and 2006 and a measure of whether each election event is structured such that the competition is possible. We outline the pitfalls of other measures used by scholars to define the potential for electoral competition and show that such methods can lead to biased or incomplete findings. The new global data on elections and the minimal conditions necessary for electoral competition are introduced, followed by an empirical illustration of the differences between the proposed measure of competition and existing methods used to infer the existence of competition.
Why do some dictatorships establish institutions that may constrain their leaders? We argue that institutions promote the survival of dictatorships by facilitating authoritarian power-sharing. Specifically, institutions such as parties, legislatures, and advisory councils alleviate commitment and monitoring problems between the dictator and his allies caused by the secrecy in authoritarian governance. However, because authoritarian power-sharing succeeds only when it is backed by a credible threat of a rebellion by the dictator’s allies, institutions will be ineffective or break down when an imbalance of power within the ruling coalition undermines this threat’s credibility. Our arguments clarify the complex interaction between collective action, commitment, and monitoring problems in authoritarian governance. We use both historical and large-N data to assess new empirical predictions about the relationship between political institutions, leader survival, and the concentration of power in dictatorships.