What drives politics in dictatorships

Question 1

Gandhi

Why do nondemocratic rulers only sometimes govern with
democratic institutions like legislatures and political parties?

Two problems of governance for a dictator and what they depend on

Answer 1

Because there are some problems of governance that dictators face, but in varying degrees.

For Gandhi these two problems are:
1) Dictators do not have the same legitimacy as democratic leaders because they have not been chosen by their citizens.
– Thus, they need to prevent attempts to undermine their legitimacy

2) Dictators need some form of cooperation from those they rule.
– The more internal stability there is, the more internal prosperity.
– The more internal prosperity in the country, the more the autocrat can accumulate wealth and power.

How big these problems are depends on
1) The strength of resistance to the dictator
- When opposition is weak, rulers do not need to manage them;
- A united, broad movement is a bigger problem for the ruler.

2) On the ruler’s access to external revenue sources
- The dictator is less dependent on domestic groups to generate wealth, so you can repress the citizens more.

Main point: Dictators make concessions to outside groups depending on these factors.
These could be rents or policy compromises. The latter could require nominally democratic institutions to organize.

Question 2

Gandhi

What counts as institutions?

Nominally democratic institutions

Answer 2

Two main institutions according to Gandhi:
1) Legislatures
- “body with formal, but solely legislative powers (p. 34)
- Therefore, this does not include, e.g., juntas because they have both executive and legislative powers (Chile under Pinochet)
- Does not include consultative councils because they lack formal legislative power and can only provide advice to the ruler (Saudi Arabia)

1) Political parties
- They are defined “by their de jure existence” (p. 36) (de jure means by law, de facto means in practice)
- This means that parties are considered non-existent if they are formally banned, even if they operate underground

Question 3

Gandhi

What are some examples of legislatures under dictatorship?

Three “ways”.

Answer 3

1) No legislature

2) Regime-appointed legislatures
- E.g.: Sukarno in Indonesia introduced a system of “guided democracy”, because of the government instability. He himself appointed members to the legislature.

3) Elected but vetted or partial election
- If partly elected, the regime appoints some proportion of seats
- Even when elections are allowed, however, candidates often have to be approved by government-controlled bodies (E.g. Iran with the Guardian Council)
- Thus, the council pretty much controls who can run for office; it has often disqualified reform-minded candidates, even well known ones.
- This is the more common method of legislative selection in authoritarian regimes that have legislatures

Question 4

Gandhi

What happens to political parties under dictatorship?

Answer 4

• Most dictators ban parties temporarily when they first come to power
• Some regimes also create its own single party, especially in communist regimes
• Some authoritarian regimes will genuinely have multiple parties

Question 5

How is institutionalisation under competitive authoritarianism? And what dilemma does it create for the incumbents?

How does the regime respond to challenges?

Answer 5

• Fairly meaningful democratic institutions, that create areas of contestation through which the opposition can sometimes legally and legitimately challenge incumbents
• Contestation in such regimes produces a dilemma for incumbents:
• Repeating challenges require blatantly assaulting democratic institutions by e.g., stealing elections, closing parliament
• Such repression is costly both at home and internationally
• However, not intervening may mean losing power
• The result is often a regime crisis
• But even when incumbents have lost power, competitive authoritarian regimes have often stayed intact.

Question 6

What are the three potential outcomes for the CA?

Answer 6

1) Democratisation
- This involves the establishment of free and fair elections, broad protection of civil liberties, a level playing field
- Mexico after the PRI-dominant era ended

2) Unstable authoritarianism
- Cases that undergo one or more transition but do not democratise. The incumbents were removed at least once but the new government was also not
democratic, e.g. Belarus.

3) Stable authoritarianism
- Here, authoritarian incumbents or their chosen successors remained in power for at least three presidential/parliamentary terms after the regime began, e.g., Russia.

Question 7

Levitsky and Way

How can we predict which country will more likely democratise, or become an unstable or stable dictatorship?

Two determinant factors

Answer 7

There are two determinant factors:
1) Western linkage and leverage (international factors) - the pressure from outside, particularly the West

2) Dictator’s organisational power (domestic factor) - How well can they withstand the pressure both externally and internally? With a strong support system in place you will be able to sustain it

Question 8

Levitsky and Way

Explain the meaning of “linkages to the west”

What happens in the case of high linkages and low linkages?

Answer 8

• Economic, political, social and organisational ties with the West

In case of high linkages:
* Makes autocratic abuse more salient, leading to a Western response
* Creates incentives for authoritarian rulers to abandon power in the face of opposition challenges
* Creates incentives for successor governments to rule democratically

In case of low linkages:
* External pressure to democratise is weaker
* Hence, domestic factors becomes more important
* If the state is well organised and cohesive, incumbents manage to stop even serious opposition challenges
* If state and governing parties are underdeveloped and not cohesive, regime instability is subsequently higher

Question 9

Levitsky and Way

Explain the different factors in the international dimension

5 factors

Answer 9

• Diffusion - the spread of political practices, ideas, or institutions from one country to another
• Direct democracy promotion - involves active efforts by external actors, often Western countries or organizations, to promote democratic values and practices in other nations.
• Multilateral conditionality - involves conditions set by multiple countries or international organizations for providing aid, support, or engagement with a particular nation
• Democracy assistance - the provision of support, often in the form of funding, expertise, or technical assistance, to countries seeking to strengthen democratic institutions or practices. Important particularly for poorer countries
• Transnational advocacy networks NGOs, trying to pressure the countries to become democratic

Question 10

Levitsky and Way

What are the interaction effects? What are the outcomes of western linkage, organisational power and western leverage?

Democracy, stable or unstable authoritarian regime?

Answer 10

Western linkage is high = democracy

Western linkage is low/medium = Comes down to the organisational power of the dictatorship

Organisational power is high = stable authoritarian

Organisational power is low/medium = depends on the level of western leverage

Western leverage is high = unstable authoritarian (potential for democracy?)

Western leverage is low/medium = stable authoritarian

See photo week 5

Question 11

Levitsky and Way

What are some informal “institutions” in CA?

Answer 11

1) “Privatised” violence to suppress opposition
2) “Legal” repression
3) Organised corruption: bribery, blackmail, proxy ownership
4) Vote buying, ballot-box stuffing, and manipulation of the vote count

Question 12

Gandhi

The fundamental problem of governance for dictators comes from …

Answer 12

The need to prevent their authority/legitimacy being undermined by those whom they rule over, whilst needing their cooperation for economic benefit. Good economic performance is a good way to achieve some kind of legitimacy. This leads to varying institutional settings.

Question 12

Svolik

What are the two problems that shape authoritarian politics?

Answer 12

1) The problem of authoritarian control

2) The problem of power-sharing

Question 13

Svolik

Explain the problem of authoritarian control

Answer 13

Authoritarian elite vs masses.

• The majority is excluded from power and presents a mass threat all the time
• All authoritarian regimes rely on repression to keep the regime intact.
• This everyday repression is handled by the police and specialised internal security agencies.
• When opposition is mass based, organised and violent, only the military is capable of defeating it due to its resources. So as a dictator you have to rely on the army.
• The cost of this reliance is political, as it gives the military more capacity to turn against the regime.
• So whenever possible dictators avoid paying that price by instead relying on co-optation, rather than pure repression.

Question 14

Svolik

How does the dictator solve the problem of authoritarian control?

Two mechanisms.

Answer 14

Through two mechanism:
1) Repression
- People have their rights limited and fear for their lives
- Heavy reliace on repression is a double-edged sword because the military is used for this, and that gives the military a lot of political leverage that they can exploit.

2) Co-optation
- You buy off the opposition to maintain power
- All regimes rely on at least some degree of repression, but some deal with the threat of popular uprising by co-opting certain groups.

None of these are bullet-proof, you have to find a mix of these.

Question 15

Svolik

Explain the problem of authoritarian power-sharing

And the two types of interactions (contested vs established autocracy)

Answer 15

Between the dictator and his allies.

Two common types of interactions between a dictator and his allies: contested autocracy and established autocracy.

1) Contested autocracy
- A balanced power between the dictator and allies
- Allies can use the threat of rebellion to keep the dictator’s power in check
- Such autocracies often see formal political institutions
- These institutions are only effective if they are backed by a credible threat of force (it depends on the allies’ ability to remove the dictator)

2) Established autocracy
- The dictator has acquired enough power that they cannot be credibly threatened by allies
- This leads to personalist dictators
- Such dictatorships develop personality cults and enjoy long tenures
- They have effectively eliminated threats from their ruling coalitions.

Question 16

Svolik

Between the problem of authoritarian control and power-sharing, which one is more problematic for the dictator?

Answer 16

When looking at the data, 2/3 of the dictators in Svolik’s dataset were removed by regime insiders: e.g. individuals from the dictator’s inner circle, government, or repressive apparatus (he army, the police, the judiciary, and the prison system)

So power-sharing is more problematic.

Question 17

Svolik

What explains whether we end up with a contested or established autocracy?

Answer 17

The ability of dictator’s inner circle to credibly threaten him with removal.

Question 18

Svolik

Explain the two equilibria

Answer 18

• The dictator knows that his allies won’t always rebel if he starts gaining more power so he will be tempted to do so in the hopes that the allies don’t notice or don’t react.
• Possible outcomes: (i) Contested Autocracy or (ii) Established (Personal) Autocracy

Question 19

Svolik

Why don’t all ruling elites threat the dictator?

Answer 19

Svolik’s argument is that maybe they do, but it is not credible enough.

A threat of rebellion may lack credibility because of:
1) The dictator is a bit stronger: and there will be dire consequences such as execution of former allies
2) Allies’ imperfect information
- there is uncertainty about the dictator’s intentions and actions, so they give him a chance
- The ruling coalition will only want to rebel when they are sure that the dictator is trying to seize power from his allies and/or replace them (the cost of rebellion is very high)

Question 20

Svolik

In a contested autocracy, how can the problem of power-sharing be solved?

Answer 20

• The threat of the allies rebelling against the dictator, is enough to deter his opportunism to some degree.

Essentially: The dictator is the most powerful member of the coalition but rules in the shadow of the threat of a rebellion.

Question 21

Svolik

How can the problem of power-sharing be solved in an established autocracy? Or is there a problem at all?

Answer 21

• The dictator has consolidated enough power to no longer be credibly threatened by the ruling coalition. Allies have no credible threat, so rebellions do not occur.
• Dictator has effectively eliminated the ruling coalition and no longer requires their support for his survival
• Members of the ruling coalition are mere administrators and do not meaningfully share power.
• Established autocrats depend on their administrators as a collective, but no individual administrator is indespensable, so they can be purged, dismissed, rotated across posts etc.

Question 22

Svolik

Explain the path to an established autocracy

Answer 22

• Not an easy one. Long and slippery as the chances of rebellion increase as the autocrat gains more power. The more “greedy” you are, the more likely the other in the ruling elite will want to intervene.
• Established autocracies are therefore rare in the real world, but when they do occur: they are long-lived.
• Authoritarian regimes can move from being contested autocracies to established ones, but not the other way around.

Question 23

Svolik

As the magnitude of mass threats grows, which three regimes of interaction between the government and the military may emerge?

Answer 23

1) Perfect political control
* Happens when mass threats to regimes are small.
* Dictators either don’t need militaries for internal repression or are willing to take the small risk of mass uprising

2) Military tutelage
* Happens when mass threats are high
* You need a strong military, so dictators must give resoures to them.
* The military’s ability to successfully intervene is so credible that they do not need to explicitly do so to get resources and policy concessions from the government.
* The military does not have to stage a coup, because the regime will do whatever they want.

3) Brinkmanship bargaining
* Happens when there is a medium mass threat
* The military’s resources are therefore large enough to be tempted to use the threat of intervention to extract concessions from the government - You arm them enough, but not enough to pose a threat
* The effectiveness of brinkmanship relies on the credibility of the threat. If the government questions or doubts the military’s determination to follow through with the intervention, it weakens the overall impact of the military’s strategic move, and the situation may escalate into overt military intervention (coup) as both sides try to assert show who’s the most powerful.

Question 24

Svolik

Svolik’s hypothesis: “as the magnititude of mass threats to the regime increase, the chance of military interventions first increases and then decreases” - but how does he measure threat?

Answer 24

He uses economic inequality.
* He looks at participation of the military in the entry and the exit of leaders (coup)
* He controls for many other factors (e.g. weak state authority, natural resources, civil war, recent independence)

Result:
* As the threat increases, you give more and more resources to the military, and the military becomes stronger and more likely to intervene - but only in the initial face. When the military becomes strong enough, the dictator will accept this and give them enough power and respect their voice, so that they don’t have to do a coup.