Nominally democratic institutions under nondemocratic rules

Question 1

Gandhi

Dictators face which two problems? According to Gandhi

Answer 1

1) Need to stop (thwart) rebellion - due to lack of legitimacy.
2) Need to obtain cooperation (to gain more resources)

The main focus is on the masses. Dictators can make concessions in the form of rents/and or institutions.

Question 2

Gandhi

What are rents and what are some examples?

Answer 2

• Bribes to individuals
• State employment or public works programs

Rents are not public goods. Membership in regime parties is often necessary to get rents - you have to signal you support the regime.

Question 3

Gandhi

What is the main role of a regime party in a dictatorship?

Answer 3

• Provides a forum for individuals willing to collaborate with the regime (good for both the individual and dictator)
• Individuals get: perks, privileges and prospects of career advancement
• In exchange, these party members mobilise popular support and supervise behaviours of people who are unwilling to identify themselves with the dictator.

Question 4

Gandhi

What are policy concessions? Give an example and explain how it benefits the dictator and the opposition.

Answer 4

These are public goods.
* Policy concessions are made through institutions because of lower transaction costs. The main institution in this regard are legislatures.

• Good for dictators: offers an environment of controlled bargaining. The dictator often knows he’s not popular, and will want to know what people are the most dissatisfied with without people going to the streets.
• Good for opposition: Provides an arena for parties to interact, learn about the regime’s intentions and voice their own opinions without being arrested.

Question 5

Gandhi

What are the two institutions in a nondemocratic regime?

And do they share the same functions? Elaborate on single-party vs multi

Answer 5

1) Regime parties
2) Legislatures.

Regime parties can serve some of the same functions as legislatures, but not to the full extent.

A single-party regime may be insufficient to manage (co-opt) a significant amount of opposition. It may not effectively address the diversity of opinions, grievances, or potential challenges from various segments of the population.

Therefore, some dictators allow multiple parties.

Question 6

Gandhi

What is the main role of institutions?

Answer 6

To reduce insecurity and transaction costs for both sides.

Question 7

Gandhi

How can the variation in institutions be explained? When is the dictator more likely to establish institutions?

Three key factors

Answer 7

1) The need for cooperation
* This is determined by how much the dictator needs broad support of society to maximise state revenue
* Dictators who can rely on mineral resources or foreign aid need cooperation less than others to secure rents.
* The more the dictator requires cooperation, the higher the concessions he will be willing to make. He needs to buy their support and make sure they won’t rebel.

2) The degree of polarisation
* What the ideological and policy congruence is between the dictator’s and opposition’s preferences.
* In democracies, government preferences are generally closer to the population median due to fair elections. But not in dictatorships, because of the lack of elections.
* The further a dictator is from the opposition, generally the lower the concessions he will want to make. He does not want to seem weak and he wants to get what he wants.

3) The strength of the opposition
* Strength of opposition depends on factors such as how organised the opposition is, regime stability, the international environment, repressiveness of the regime etc.
* If the opposition overturns the dictator successfully, it gets all the rents and gets to implement its own ideal policy.
* If the opposition is defeated, then the dictator punishes the opposition and you don’t need to give concessions.

Based on this you get three possible equilibria (outcomes): 1) Cooperation, 2) Co-optation and 3) Turmoil

Question 8

Gandhi

What are the three possible equilibria we might see in terms of dictatorial concessions? When do these occur (strong or weak opposition?)

Game theory

Answer 8

Gandhi sets up a game theoretic model to better understand the possible outcomes we might see in terms of dictatorial concessions. The model genereates three equilibria (outcomes)

1) Cooperation equilibrium
* Happens when the potential opposition is relatively weak
* The dictator will offer some policy concessions but no rents. The rents are going to be the most valuable ones for individuals, and amounts to a higher level.
* The dictator will still make some concessions to ensure the minimal cooperation he requires from society.

2) Co-optation equilibrium
* When the potential opposition is relatively strong.
* Hence, the dictator must offer more concessions to co-opt it, to make sure they are not overturned. They don’t want to take the chances of a civil war.
* The concession will include more policy compromises than under the first equilibrium.
* The dictator will also offer some rents.

3) Turmoil equilibrium
* Here, the opposition has some strength to potentially overthrow the dictator. They will give the civil war a go.
* The dictator is unable to punish the opposition for trying, and this creates turmoil.
* The dictator makes a cooperation offer, but the opposition refuses and rebels.
* This leads to low-level conflict, which could possibly lead to the dictator being overthrown.
* Civil war is the only possible outcome, because force is the only language the dictator knows.

Question 9

Gandhi

What are Gandhi’s thesises when it comes to the level of policy concessions and institutionalisation?

4 points

Answer 9

Policy concessions are expected to be greater, and therefore, the degree of institutionalisation is expected to be greater when:
1) The dictator needs more cooperation
2) The polarisation between the dictator and the opposition is lower
3) The opposition is more likely to succeed in overturning the dictator
4) The loss the opposition would suffer if it failed is small

Question 10

How does Gandhi test/measure her empirical expectations of policy concessions on the level of institutionalisation?

Answer 10

Dependent variable = the level of institutionalisation
Her measures:
0 = non-institutionalised dictatorship
1 = narrow dictatorship where the regime party occupies all seats within the legislature
2 = broadened dictatorship where the legislature has multiple political parties.

This is an ordinal measure, because they can be ranked but you can’t say anything substantial about the distance between these values.

She measures the need for cooperation, policy polarisation and strength of potential opposition, by looking at the type of regime they have.

Independent variables =
1) Military dictator
2) Civilian dictator
3) Resources
4) Ethnic polarisation
5) Income inequality
6) Inherited parties
7) Leadership changes
8) Purges
9) Other democracies

Question 11

Gandhi

What are the variables that affect the need for cooperation, which in the end determines the level of institutionalisation?

Answer 11

1) Being a civilian dictatorship has a positive effect on the need for cooperation. They need to coo-operate more because they must rely on regime parties (they don’t have a strong family or the armed forces). So they lead to more institutionalisation
2) A high level of mineral exports and resource wealth has a negative impact on the need for cooperation. Meaning that the need for cooperation is lower. Leading to less institutionalisation.

Question 12

Gandhi

What are the variables that affect the policy polarisation, which in the end determines the level of institutionalisation?

Answer 12

1) Ethnic division leads to less institutionalisation.
2) Income inequality leads to more institutionalisation. (Criticism: the data is small)

Question 13

Gandhi

What are the variables that affect the opposition strength, which in the end determines the level of institutionalisation?

Answer 13

1) Historical leadership changes: The regime is more likely to neutralise potential opposition through institutions. Positive effect.
2) Inherited political parties: When you assume power with inherited political parties, the more likely you are to make concessions. Positive effect.
3) Other democracies: have a positive effect on institutionalisation. The presence of an increasing number of democracies may increace the strength of the opposition, leading to greater institutional concessions.

Purges does not have an effect.

Question 14

How does Gandhi explain the unexpected positive direction that income inequality has on policy polarisation?

Answer 14

She says that the data on income inequality is not really available, only for a small number of countries.

Question 15

Svolik

What are three organisational features of successful authoritarian parties as instruments of co-optation?

Answer 15

1) Hierarchial assignment of service and benefits
* The leader in power is at the top of the pyramid.

2) Political control over appointments
* This is good for the leader, you have the ability to buy them off.

3) Selective recruitment and repression
* Every single dictatorship will rely on repression to some extent.

Parties with these features contribute to the longevity of authoritarian regimes.

Question 16

Svolik

Elaborate on the hierarchial assignment of services and benefits and its role in party-based co-optation. What is the main causal mechanism that keeps this “in check”?

Organisational features of parties

Answer 16

• Most authoritarian parties have several levels of membership.
• Importantly, different benefits and services are associated with each level of the party hierarchy.
• Lower ranks do most of the service; higher ranks reap most of the benefits.

When lower ranks have expended a costly service, they stay loyal to the regime when they get to the top, to reap these benefits from their service.

Party membership benefits:
* Employment
* Privileged access to educational opportunities and social services

Services: promoting ideology, intelligence gathering (about opposition and citizens) and popular mobilisation

Question 17

Svolik

What are “sunk costs”?

Organisational features of parties

Answer 17

Costs that have already been obtained and cannot be recovered.

• Junior members are recruited based on the assumption that they will eventually become senior members.
• This reduces defections by giving party members a stake in the regime’s survival
• To get them to defect, a challenger will have to think about not just current costs and benefits but also future benefits that party members will get.

Question 18

Svolik

Elaborate on the political control over appointments and its role in party-based co-optation

Organisational features of parties.

Answer 18

• Parties aim for dominant social and economic control, by for instance making party membership a requirement for many career opportunities.
• The more that desirable careers depend on having partisan credentials, the more the party will be able to co-opt society while also maintaining political control.

Question 19

Svolik

Elaborate on selective recruitment and repression and its role in party-based co-optation.

Organisational features of parties

Answer 19

• Policies that establish state control over many careers will have to face opposition from society.
• So the regime must also have the capacity to repress.

Those who are ideologically closer to the dictator are co-opted and vice versa.

Question 20

Svolik

How does the institution of the party help a dictatorship to survive longer?

What is the empirical evidence?

Answer 20

• Dependent variable = survival of the atuhoritarian ruling coalition
• Main independent variable = legislative seat share of the regime party (Svolik is interested in how dominant the party is)
• The thought is that as long as the party can get people to invest in them (sunk costs) the regime will be likely to survive.

Svolik controls for factors such as GDP per capita, GDP growth, fuel exports, mineral exports, civilian vs military dictatorship, Cold War, democratic neighbours.

**He finds that as a regime party’s seat share in the legislature increases, it is more likely to survive for longer.
**

Question 21

Gandhi and Svolik

How are Gandhi’s and Svolik’s views on parties and institutionalisation different from each other?

Features of institutionalisation in authoritarian regimes

Answer 21

Gandhi: The more you institutionalise, the more parties you allow, the better.

Svolik: It is better to have one party that is going to be very representative in your society. If there is only one single party, people only have one option to invest in these. High levels of sunk costs in this party.

Question 22

Svolik

According to Svolik, do the two institutions (legislature and party) share the same function?

Answer 22

For Svolik they have the same function and the same goals, but different audiences.
* The legislature is meant to increase transparency of what the dictator wants to do and easy the concerns of ruling coalition.
* Political parties are meant to co-opt opposition elements outside of the regime.