comp Flashcards
A Common Typology of Authoritarian
Regimes
A group of scholars argue that how authoritarian regimes are removed from office is a useful way to distinguish between dictatorships
Coding rules for identifying each type of
authoritarian regime
- Identify the effective head of state
- Identify whether the head of government bears the title of “king” and whether he has a hereditary successor or predecessor
- Identify whether the head of government is a current or past member of the military
Monarchy, Military and Civilian
While the number of civilian and military dictatorships globally have changed with time, monarchies have remained a stable form of dictatorial regime
Dictators, just like their democratic counterparts, count on the support of
coalition to stay in power
Types of Authoritarian Regimes
- Monarchic dictatorships
- Military dictatorships
- Civilian dictatorships – dominant party dictatorships and personalist dictatorships
The Two Fundamental Problems of Authoritarian Rule
- Authoritarian power-sharing
- Authoritarian control
These two problems of authoritarian rule indicate that
threats to dictatorial rule and come from within the authoritarian elite, or from the masses
The Problem of Authoritarian Power-Sharing
- Intra-elite conflict
- Since dictators do not come into power on their own, they rely on a support coalition. Dictators therefore only stay in power if they retain the support of their support coalition
- When the threat to remove a dictator is credible, we have a contested dictatorship – power is shared between the dictator and his allies
- Removing a dictator through a coup can be costly – if it succeeds, it will possibly lead to a destabilized regime due to lingering divisions. If it fails, the plotters will be killed or imprisoned
- The reluctance of the support coalition to rebel and uncertainty about the dictator’s action leads to the dictator attempting to grab power. If successful, he can accumulate enough power so that the support coalition can no longer credibly threaten to remove him
- This causes a shift in the regime from a “contested”
dictatorship where the dictator has constraints by his allies, to a “personalist” dictatorship where the dictator has a monopoly over power (Svolik, 2012)
Solving The Problem of Authoritarian Power-Sharing
- Dictators and their support coalition have an incentive to create a stable power sharing agreement. The agreement allows thedictator to stay in power, and the support coalition to benefit from the dictator staying in power
- However, if the support coalition members are unable to monitor the dictator’s action. The option they have is to launch a coup, or be marginalized
- The monitoring problem can be solved or minimized with appropriate political institutions-decision making bodies within legislatures or political parties known as politburos or ruling councils
- It is thought that dictators create the institutions to reward the support coalition allies but the truth is they do so to solve the informational problem
- Information on its own though, is not enough. The support coalition in addition to detecting power grab, must also be able to punish the dictator for renege on their agreement. The institutions must transfer power to the coalition so that it can credibly threaten the dictator. Empowered enough to act as a constraint
Institutional strength and not just institutional presence
The dictator credibly commits to the power-sharing agreement he makes with the support coalition by :-
- Creating institutions that enable the coalition to monitor his activity
- Transfer sufficient power to these institutions so that the support coalition can credibly punish the dictator if he reneges on him promises
The Problem of Authoritarian Control
In addition to experiencing threats from the authoritarian elite, the dictator also faces threats from the masses over which they rule
To solve The Problem of Authoritarian Control the dictator can:-
- Repress the masses – repressing will keep the masses under control, but the dictator needs to use other actors like the military. The actors might not share the dictator’s preference. Dictators prefer to use the internal security forces and keep the military weak (Svolik, 2022) Direct military intervention in the political system is only necessary if there is a moderately high probability of mass unrest
- Co-opt the masses – social unrest can create a split between soft liners and hard liners ( In chapter 7 we looked at top-down transitions to democracy). In this situation if soft liner gain prominence, they may attempt to liberalize the regime and broaden the dictatorship social base. The goal of institutionalization is to co-opt opposition groups (Blaydes, 2011; Gandhi, 2008) Direct transfers may not be deemed credible. And even if they are, institutions provide additional advantages in opposition co-option
SELECTORATE THEORY
According to the theory, a country’s material well being has less to do with whether it is democratic or authoritarian, and more to do with the size of the “winning coalition” and “selectorate”
Although democracies tend to produce relatively high levels of material well being for their citizens, they do not
outperform all dictatorships
- There is the assumption that all political leaders are motivated by the desire to gain office. The competitive nature of politics forces leaders of all regimes to behave “as if” there desire is to gain office. A key reason for this perspective is that -
there’s always a challenger, at any time, willing to replace the incumbent leader
The selective theory scholars made a list of 25 “best” leaders in terms of their provision of peace and prosperity and a list of the top 25 longest-ruling leaders in the same period. There was
no overlap
between the leaders on the two lists
Institutions
According to the selectorate theory, the variations in the performance of political leaders can be explained by the institutional environment they operate in
Each country has a fundamental set of institutions or rules that govern interaction between the residents within its border. These include rules that define:
1) Who is disenfranchised
2) Who is part of the selectorate
3) Who is part of the winning coalition
In a contemporary democracy, the – is all those eligible to vote
selectorate
The – is made up of those members of the selectorate whose support is necessary for the leader to remain in power
winning coalition
The – is able to differentiate the different forms of government – monarchic dictatorships, military dictatorships, civilian dictatorships and so on – by the size of the selectorate and winning coalition
selective theory
The key distinguishing factor between a dictatorship and democracy is the
size of the winning coalition
The key distinguishing factor between different types of dictatorships is the
selectorate size
Selectorate is large in dominant–party and personalist
dictatorships. BDM S refer to these are
“rigged election systems
