One of the most important determinants of the survival of authoritarian regimes is the maintenance of unity within the ruling elite . Disunity within the elite has been a major cause of regime change. It has also been the main reason for the overthrow of individual leaders ; one study has shown that more than two-thirds of all authoritarian leaders who lost power through non-constitutional means between 1946 and 2008 were removed by individuals from within that leader âs inner circle. 1 The stability of such ruling groups, and the strategies they use to bring this about, is therefore one of the most pressing questions in the scholarship on authoritarian rule and the focus of this book.
A recent influential book on leadership in authoritarian political systems by Milan Svolik 2 argues that the politics at the apex of authoritarian regimes are characterized by two basic factors: the absence of an independent authority to enforce agreements and rules of the game, and the presence of violence as the means for resolving differences. Essentially he sees authoritarian leadership as comprising two actors, the dictator who is continually seeking to expand his power at the expense of others, and the leader âs âallies â (i.e. the other members of the leadership group) who are continually trying to limit the leader and his attempt at power acquisition. The only effective deterrent to the leader âs search for increased power is said to be the allies â threat to replace him. However, this threat is seen to be credible only when the leader has not yet accumulated great power, and it is hindered by the collective action problem faced by the allies and emanating from the paucity of accurate information available to all actors. Svolik argues that institutions may be able to help stabilize the leadership: the regularized functioning of executive or legislative bodies may facilitate the exchange of information and thereby alleviate the uncertainty surrounding the dictatorâs intentions and actions. He argues that there are two âpolitically distinct formsâ of interaction between dictator and allies . 3 First, âcontested autocracyâ where âpolitics is one of balancing between the dictator and the allies âthe allies are capable of using the threat of a rebellion to check the dictatorâs opportunism, albeit imperfectlyâ, and second, âestablished autocracyâ where âautocrats have acquired so much power that they can no longer be credibly threatened by their allies âthey have effectively monopolized powerâ. These equate to oligarchy and dictatorship.
This is an alluring model of leadership. It is simple, contains a causal explanation and seems to fit many of the cases he cites. However, the model is too simplistic on a number of grounds:
- 1.It assumes that authoritarian leadership consists of a dichotomy, of the person of the dictator on the one hand and the other members of the leadership, his âallies â, on the other. However, in practice, this is usually much more complicated. The leader is rarely alone in confronting the âallies â, some of whom may actually support the leader rather than being in fear for their positions as Svolik seems to imply. This means that the âallies â are not a homogenous group. Some may support the leader completely, while some will support him on some issues and not others. Some are therefore likely to be stronger supporters of the leader than others, and some may actually be opponents of the leader . This means there will not just be two actors, but potentially multiple actors in the game of elite politics. This is reflected in the diversity of models of collective leadership that are available (see below).
- 2.Svolik assumes that everything is about power, that this is the only issue of concern to the leadership. Antagonistic power relationships are therefore built into the leadership group by definition. But in real life, power is rarely the only concern. Policy may be important, with the result that conflicts may occur within the elite over issues other than power distribution. Of course, such issues may feed into the question of power distribution, but they may not, and in any event they create potential lines of division ignored in the Svolik model.
- 3.The assumption that a leader will inevitably seek to expand his personal power at the expense of his colleagues is something that needs to be established in each case, not simply assumed.
- 4.The assumption that violence is always present, even as a threat, as the means of resolving differences is not always correct. The role of violence needs to be established in each case rather than assumed as part of the structure of the model.
- 5.The model assumes that there are only two courses open to the allies : passivity and acceptance of the leadersâ power, or rebellion. In practice, the relationship may be much more nuanced, with a range of responses possible.
- 6.The discussion of the role of institutions is cast purely in terms of the way that, under certain circumstances, they may assist in the reining in of the dictator. But such institutions may also assist in a dictatorâs search to enhance the powers at his disposal.
- 7.Although Svolik acknowledges that there may be agreements and rules of the game, he denies their importance by saying that there is no independent authority to enforce them. This assumes that such norms carry no independent authority themselves but rely for their application upon enforcement by an external authority. Such a view denies the possibility of there being assumptions, even a consensus , about how it is proper and correct to act, of norms that rely not on external enforcement but upon recognition of their own value and authority. Rejection of this possibility means politics is seen as a war of all against all with no rules . Such a view is unrealistic.
The heart of the problem as reflected in these points is that the model has at its kernel the assumption that leadership relations are inevitably antagonistic, either overtly or potentially. 4 This sort of assumption denies the complexity that can occur within authoritarian leadership, a complexity in terms both of structure and process. This is clear if we look at the Soviet experience.
As the longest lasting authoritarian regime of the twentieth century and the one which, for much of its life, was seen as posing a major geopolitical and ideological threat to the West, the state of leadership in the Soviet Union was a matter of central scholarly and international political concern. However, for much of its life, the secretive modus operandi of the Soviet system prevented the sort of systematic analysis of political leadership that emerged in the study of more open polities. This lack of transparency, combined with the assumption that in dictatorial regimes like the USSR political institutions had little role to play in the structuring of the political life of the elite , meant that much of the ear...