Comparing autocracies in the early Twenty-first Century

Volume 1: Unpacking Autocracies - Explaining Similarity and Difference

Aurel Croissant, Steffen Kailitz, Patrick Koellner, Stefan Wurster, Aurel Croissant, Steffen Kailitz, Patrick Koellner, Stefan Wurster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317700173
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Despite the so-called Third Wave of Democratization, many autocracies have been resilient in the face of political change. Moreover, many of the transition processes that could be included in the Third Wave have reached a standstill, or, at the very least, have taken a turn for the worse, leading sometimes to new forms of non-democratic regimes. As a result of these developments, the research on autocracies has experienced a revival in recent times.

This unique two-volume work aims at taking stock of recent research and providing new conceptual, theoretical, and empirical insights into autocratic rule in the early twenty-first century. It is organized into two parts. The contributions in this first volume analyse the trajectories, manifestations and perspectives of non-democratic rule in general and autocratic rule in particular. It brings together some of the leading authoritarianism scholars in Europe and North America who address three broad questions: How to conceptualize and measure forms of autocratic regimes? What determines the persistence of autocratic rule? What is the role of political institutions, legitimation, ideology, and repression for the survival of different forms of autocratic rule?

This book is an amalgam of articles from the journals Democratization, Contemporary Politics and Politische Vierteljahresschrift.

Introduction:
Unpacking Autocracies: Explaining Similarity and Difference

Aurel Croissant, Steffen Kailitz, Patrick Koellner and Stefan Wurster

Abstract:

Since the early years of the twenty-first century, comparative authoritarianism research has evolved into one of the fastest growing research fields in comparative politics. This first volume of Comparing Autocracies in the Early Twenty-First Century takes stock of recent research and provides new conceptual, theoretical, and empirical insights. The contributors to the volume address three broad questions: How to conceptualize and measure forms of autocratic rule? Which factors shape the development of autocratic rule? What is the role of political institutions and of specific strategies for maintaining (different forms) of autocratic rule?

Introduction

The history of humanity is replete with dictators and dictatorships of various stripes and colours. Non-democratic rule has been the norm across the globe over the past centuries. Yet, after the first wave of conceptual and empirical studies of various forms and manifestations of autocratic rule¹ – ranging from totalitarian, “hyper-politicized” systems of rule to various manifestations of authoritarian rule which aim at depoliticizing citizens – had effectively petered out in the 1980s, research on autocracies experienced a certain lull until the late 1990s.² Although the analysis of different forms of autocracy remained a relevant topic even during the heyday of democratisation studies in the 1980s and 1990s, genuine autocracy research clearly ebbed away as researchers began to focus on the importance of authoritarian rule for the opportunities in, paths to and challenges of democratisation and the consolidation of post-authoritarian regimes.³

Figure 1. Number of articles in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) dealing with authoritarianism or autocracies (1990–2012).

Number of articles in political science, area studies, international relations or economics that have authoritarian* or autocra* in the title; excluding book reviews and articles dealing with new democracies’ authoritarian pasts/legacies, and post-authoritarianism or (subnational) authoritarianism in democracies. Source: Social Sciences Citation Index, Web of Science (Heidelberg University), last accessed 27 December 2012.

One of the characteristics of political science research is that research topics experience recurrent cycles. In particular Barbara Geddes’ path-breaking examination of the durability of different types of authoritarian rule⁴ inspired a new generation of comparativists to study autocracies.⁵ While explorations of the transition processes from dictatorship to democracy and the consolidation of young democracies shaped the agenda of comparative political science during the 1980s and 1990s like hardly any other issue, authoritarianism research evolved during the first decade of the new millennium into one of the fastest growing areas in comparative politics and political economy (see Figure 1). Three developments have contributed to this renewed focus on autocracies. The first one is the end of the so-called third wave of democratisation.⁶ According to the annual Freedom in the World Report by Freedom House, the proportion of electoral democracies among all states in the world is declining – from 64% in the year 2006 (123 out of 193 countries) to 61% in 2012 (118 out of 195).⁷ Second, not all past regime changes have led to democracy. In a substantial number of cases, new autocratic and hybrid systems of political rule emerged which combine democratic institutions and autocratic practices and which researchers have classified as “electoral authoritarianism”⁸ or “competitive authoritarianism”.⁹ Authoritarian regimes that play the game of multiparty elections are not a new phenomenon. But they seem more widespread today than at the beginning of the third wave.¹⁰ Third, the economic rise of some autocratically ruled nations (e.g., China, Singapore, and Vietnam) seems to question the assumption that the established liberal democracies in the West have a general “democracy advantage”. This “advantage” claim has come under particular scrutiny since the advent of the recent global financial and economic crisis.

As a result of these developments, theoretical and empirical comparative research on autocracies has experienced a “renaissance” in recent years.¹¹ Barbara Geddes’ seminal study on the relationship between the forms of autocracy and the probability of regime change,¹² as well as Juan Linz’s call to pay more attention to the newly emerging varieties of semi-democratic or authoritarian rule,¹³ provided the impetus for the proliferation of new research agendas, theories, methods and empirical studies on “authoritarianism in the age of democratisation”.¹⁴ At the same time, the aparticular: new authoritar ianism research exhibits some central themes and traits. These include, in particular:¹⁵

1. A focus on the durability, persistence, or resilience of various forms and types of autocratic rule.
2. A common concern with autocratic strategies of repression, legitimation, and the co-optation of elites and societal forces, and the implications of these strategies for the persistence or failure of autocracy.¹⁶ The research in this vein includes some influential, rational choice-based theories concerning the political logic of regime survival in different regime settings and their consequences for policy-making in autocracies and democracies¹⁷ as well as numerous examinations of the links between resource-wealth usage and autocratic rule.¹⁸
3. A reappraisal of the role of political institutions such as elections, legislatures and parties in autocracies and the importance of these institutions for the reproduction of authoritarian rule (see the section below on institutions in autocracies).

The renewed interest in political institutions and types of “authoritarianism with adjectives”,¹⁹ and the emergence of new theories of authoritarian rule have provided a considerable amount of knowledge for the comparative analysis of autocracies. Moreover, research on autocracies has in recent years become increasingly institutionalized, with relevant research efforts becoming more stable, durable and internally complex. Arguably, contemporary research on autocracies is also becoming increasingly valued within the political science community and beyond.²⁰ The contributions in this first volume on Comparing Autocracies in the Early Twenty-First Century take stock of this recent research and provide new conceptual, theoretical, and empirical insights by addressing three broad questions: How to conceptualize and measure forms of autocratic rule? Which factors shape the development of autocratic rule? What is the role of political institutions and of specific strategies for maintaining (different forms) of autocratic rule?

Classifications and Typologies of Autocratic Rule

An elaborated typology of political regimes is far more important for research on autocracies than for research on democracies. Research on democracy focusses on one regime type. While researchers need to distinguish democracy from non-democracy – which is difficult enough –²¹ it is of secondary importance for them whether all non-democracies can be captured by the broad category of autocracy or whether several distinct types of non-democracy exist. However, the multitude of quantitative and qualitative findings of autocracy research can be properly referred to each other and be integrated into a general picture, only if an orientation towards a shared typology of regimes exists.

For a long time, the distinction between (liberal) democracies, authoritarian regimes and totalitarian regimes dominated research on political regimes. This classification was commonly used since the 1930s.²² Juan Linz’s work provided a differentiated appraisal of “authoritarian regimes”.²³ However, a general problem with the old trifold typology is that the term “totalitarianism” is very narrowly defined and does not include – at least according to Linz – important parts of the communist and fascist states. Therefore the category of authoritarianism covers almost all current autocracies. It is thus too broadly defined and does not allow for the development and testing of meaningful hypotheses for comparative studies. In essence, the category of authoritarianism says little more than that relevant systems of political rule are non-totalitarian non-democracies. This problem might have contributed to the fact that Linz’s elaborate, if rather historically grounded typology of authoritarian regimes has hardly ever been used in empirical studies.

Today’s students of autocratic rule can choose from a range of datasets that have become available since the late 1990s. Barbara Geddes’ efforts at putting together data on autocracies based on the question of “who rules?” have proven particularly popular among scholars in terms of own applications and overall citations.²⁴ While Geddes’ initial dataset distinguished between military, single-party and personalist regimes (plus amalgams of these pure types), more recent versions add another type, viz. monarchies, and further differentiate the military and the party-regime types.²⁵ Another well-received dataset has been developed by Jose Cheibub et al., who – with respect to autocratic regimes (and their “inner sanctums”) – distinguish between military, monarchic and civilian dictatorships.²⁶

A third well-known dataset, which is presented in a revised version in this volume, is that by Michael Wahman, Jan Teorell and Axel Hadenius. They distinguish political regimes on the basis of what they perceive as the primary mode of maintaining power, viz. hereditary succession (monarchies), the use of military force or threat thereof (military regimes), and elections (various types of electoral regimes, including democracies, but also various sub-types of authoritarian electoral regimes, viz. single-party, limited multi-party and no-party based regimes).²⁷ A fourth comprehensive dataset has recently been put together by Steffen Kailitz and his classification is presented in his contribut...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Introduction: Unpacking Autocracies: Explaining Similarity and Difference
• 2. Authoritarian regime types revisited: updated data in comparative perspective
• 3. Classifying political regimes revisited: legitimation and durability
• 4. The three pillars of stability: legitimation, repression, and co-optation in autocratic regimes
• 5. Informal Institutions in Autocracies: Analytical Perspectives and the Case of the Chinese Communist Party
• 6. Four Basic Types of Autocracy and their Legitimization Strategies
• 7. Ideology after the end of ideology. China and the quest for autocratic legitimation
• 8. Elections in authoritarian regimes: the post-Soviet cases
• 9. Populism and competitive authoritarianism in the Andes
• Index