Week 6 (Authoritarian regimes and democratic breakdown) Flashcards
What is an authoritarian regime?
Hard to define. Is it just a lack of democracy? There is more variety between autocracies than there is between democracies.
Lack of turnover in the executive.
What challenges do authoritarian regimes face?
- Legitimacy
- Lack of competition -> corruption
- Peaceful and successful leadership transitions
- Information and expertise constraints - people lie/skew info so as to please dictators -> harder to formulate effective policy
Which types of authoritarian regimes are most successful?
(state capacity / longevity / leadership transitions)
- For state capacity, monarchist and single-party regimes do best; personalist regimes do worst.
- For longevity, monarchist and single-party regimes do best; military regimes do worst.
- For successful leadership transitions, military regimes do best; personalist regimes do worst.
What factors are suggested to cause authoritarian resilience?
- Historical-institutionalist theories (coalitions between actors)
- Poverty and inequality
- Barriers to collective action
- State weakness/failure
- Political culture
- The international system / diffusion
What do historical-institutionalist theories suggest about authoritarian resilience?
Coalitions among groups or classes shape fates of regimes, and institutions give these coalitions enduring effects.
Key actors may include social classes, economic interests and the military, for instance.
How can poverty and inequality cause authoritarian resilience?
- High levels of poverty -> people are too focused on day-to-day economic issues to worry about political liberties
- Inequality -> mistrust between groups
Poverty and inequality can also lead to state weakness, another factor in authoritarian resilience.
How can barriers to collective action explain authoritarian resilience?
Rational choice theory can explain the lack of opposition to authoritarian regimes.
Individual citizens have little incentive to risk opposing the regime
-> lack of effective coordination of opposition -> persistence of authoritarianism
How can state weakness/failure contribute to authoritarian resilience?
Weak institutions -> higher chance of authoritarianism.
Low state capacity will not lead to totalitarianism, but makes other types of dictatorship more likely.
How can political culture cause authoritarian resilience?
It is suggested that some societies have norms, values or attitudes to power that are more/less conducive to democracy.
HOWEVER the relevance of this is contested - see, for example, N/S Korea, or W/E Germany (both were previously united nations before and therefore had very similar cultural context).
How can the international system cause authoritarian resilience?
- Diffusion effects - democratic backsliding in one country can influence the perceptions and tactics of elites in other countries. (Eg: Polish PiS took inspiration from Orbán in Hungary.)
- Role of major powers - whether through direct interference, foreign aid, investment, etc. (Eg: US support for military dictatorships in Latin America during Cold War.)
What is a totalitarian regime and how is it different from standard authoritarian regimes?
Characterised by desire for the state to completely dominate and control the lives of individual citizens and even change human nature itself. Often use terror and ideological indoctrination.
- Most authoritarian regimes treat ideology more loosely; instead of actively indoctrinating the citizenry, they may merely ensure that it accepts the status quo.
- Most authoritarian regimes are dominated by elites; totalitarian regimes engage and mobilise the masses.
What two typologies can be used to classify authoritarian regimes?
- Continuous - a scale; how authoritarian is a given regime?
- Categorical - what kind of authoritarianism does a given regime exhibit?
What are the four main types of dictatorship according to a categorical typology?
- Personalist regimes - dominated by a single leader, who weakens other institutions and actors. Based on cult of personality rather than ideology.
- Single-party regimes - power concentrated in one party (rather than one leader). Many veto players + consultation -> stronger economic growth and durability.
- Military regimes - power concentrated in military (rather than one general). Tend to be short-lasting; democratisation likely.
- Absolute monarchies - ruler’s legitimacy based on lineage; loyal family often hold key positions. Durable. Legitimacy may be based on religious or tribal claims.
Why are military dictatorships relatively short-lasting?
- Being in government leads to factionalism. This threatens unity, which is highly valued by the military.
- The military is guaranteed to continue as an institution (and be respected by democratic leaders), so there is little to lose from democratisation.
What is a ‘support coalition’ (in the context of authoritarian regimes)?
The group of elites whose support the dictator depends upon.
- There is always the possibility of the dictator centralising power, but there is also the possibility that the support coalition will overthrow him. This situation is known as a contested dictatorship.
- If a dictator gradually centralises power and the support coalition misses key opportunities to stop him, a contested dictatorship can become a personalist dictatorship, with the support coalition no longer capable of removing the dictator.
What do dictators use elections for?
- Patronage
- Co-opting opposition groups (and dividing them, as some will compete while others oppose from outside the system)
- To gauge support
- Legitimacy
What is the dictator’s dilemma when it comes to the military?
- Strengthen military -> more capable of overthrowing them
- Weaken military -> less capable of suppressing opposition
What is a ‘winning coalition’?
The members of the selectorate whose support is needed for the leader to maintain power.
Democracies have high winning coalitions; authoritarian regimes have low winning coalitions.
What is a ‘selectorate’?
The group of people who play a part in selecting the leader.
Single-party and personalist dictatorships have bigger selectorates; monarchist and military dictatorships have smaller selectorates.
How do W/S ratios and size of winning coalition affect state capacity?
In regimes with high W/S ratios and large winning coalitions, there is greater provision of public goods. In regimes with low W/S ratios and small winning coalitions, leaders focus on providing private goods to elites.
- Democracies - high W/S, large winning coalitions
- Monarchies, military regimes - high W/S, small winning coalitions
- Single-party + personalist regimes - low W/S, low winning coalitions
