3901f12-notes

Intro

▸ What makes a government authoritarian?

▸ Is there only one kind of authoritarian?

▸ How do authoritarian systems differ from democracies?

▸ How do authoritarian systems govern?

▸ What instruments and institutions do they use?

▸ Are authoritarian systems a stop on the road to democracy or do they represent a durable regime type?

▸ What do we mean by regime?

▸ Authoritarian

▸ Now any non-democratic government

▸ Democratic = electoral democracy

▸ Minimal definition (Schumpeterian)

▸ Benefits and costs of this view

▸ Dichotomous

▸ Older version: 1 Democrats v. Totalitarians

▸ Totalitarians: total control of economy, society, polity

▸ Aspired to more than achieved

▸ Police state; state terror

▸ Often mobilizational party

▸ Examples: Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini (lesser degree), Mao, the Kims, some satellites (DDR? Romania?), Pol Pot, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (much earlier), the Brothers Casto…

▸ Older version 2: Non-democrats = authoritarians + totalitarians

▸ Authoritarians

1 ▸ Less totalizing: Some sectors remain relatively independent

▸ Business and religion

▸ Party to limit mobilization

▸ Examples: Franco, Salazar, Pinochet, Mugabe, Bongo. Saudis, pre-’94 South Africa, many others; far more common than totalitarians

▸ From 1950s and 1960s

▸ Totalitarianism, see Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski (1956)

▸ For authoritarianism, see Juan Linz (1964)

▸ Moved from dichotomous to continuous

▸ Not all non-democrats the same

▸ Some less/more selectively repressive

▸ Have done this again more recently by adding semi-authoritarian and hybrid regimes to mix

▸ What does this suggest about how we conceptualize?

▸ What are the advantages of dichotomies? What are their limitations?

▸ Same thing from continua (pl. of continuum)

▸ Regime

▸ Current uses

▸ Popular

▸ Political science

▸ IR

▸ Public Policy

▸ Comp. Pol/Pol Theory

▸ What makes a regime a regime? Five things:

▸ Structure of power

▸ Basis of claim to rule legitimately

2 ▸ Accountable to whom

▸ Influentials

▸ State-society relations

▸ Could be other indicators

▸ Per Brooker, students of non-democratic regimes have looked at

▸ Who ruled: absolute monarch, personal dictator, military ruler, institutional military dictatorship, party dictatorship, party dictator

▸ How they ruled: totalitarian, authoritarian, traditional monarch, short term military, transformational military

▸ List of what makes up a regime leans a little more toward how than who, but has both.

▸ Brooker also describes in some detail the key works of several different approaches to studying authoritarians

▸ Syntheses of arguments and how views have evolved

▸ Totalitarians

▸ Start, Arendt, lots on personal dictatorship

▸ Later, F&G, more on propaganda and indoctrination

▸ Still later, Shapiro, stress mobilization

▸ Most recent: more on how they govern; see mobilization and propaganda as not very effective

▸ Meaning two things

▸ Over time incorporated new concepts

▸ Behaviour of supposed totalitarians changed

▸ Authoritarians

▸ Juan Linz on Spain

▸ Demobilizing populous (populist authoritarians are exceptions)

▸ Some limited pluralism

▸ More forms, incl. military rule

▸ Guillermo O’Donnell on bureaucratic authoritarianism -- technocrats

3 ▸ Military regimes: quite good

▸ How do they rule: Role for civilians? Transformational? Juntas and institutional military dictatorships v. one-man military dictators – who often become just dictators

▸ The one-party state

▸ Some allusion to licensed opposition; too little

▸ Basic question has been whether it is direct rule by one party or rule under the auspices or one party; latter have ano official party but govt is by one man

▸ Personal rule

▸ Literally by one person

▸ Various options, as personal rule takes various forms

▸ We will see that Jennifer Gandhi says a lot about these various dictatorial alternatives.

▸ So what? What does this tell us?

▸ Study of non-democratic politics is varied and has evolved

▸ That it has been taken seriously by PS, though sometimes is falls well back behind the flavour of the month

FH & EIU

▸ What they are

▸ Classifications of countries by regime type

▸ FH uses a measure of freedom: free, partly free, unfree

▸ EIU’s more conventional: democracies, flawed democracies, hybrids, authoritarians

▸ Each has strengths and weaknesses

▸ And there’s substantial overlap

▸ Exercises in classification and comparison

▸ What are the attributes of different regimes?

▸ How can regimes be classified?

▸ Have policy impact

4 ▸ Was especially true of FH – rankings used to isolate and castigate leftist governments who were arguably more democratic than rightists who scored higher; cold war stuff

▸ Show how PS can move out of the academy and have an applied side

Methods

▸ This is important

▸ How do they get their information?

▸ What information do they use? How do they use it?

▸ What, in short, is the methodology of each?

▸ Does one seem better than the other; more likely to yield more accurate results or are both essentially similar?

FH-FIW

▸ Big advantage

▸ Been around: can trace back to1972

▸ And can trace individual countries

▸ Both may take some work but it can be done

▸ What it measures: Freedom, not democracy

▸ But has a special sub-category for electoral democracies

▸ Focus is “real-world rights and freedoms” for individuals

▸ Score on political rights and civil liberties

▸ Three classes: Free, partly free, not free

▸ Relies on experts, in-house + consultants

EIU-DI

▸ About democracy

▸ Breaks results into four classes: Full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrids, and authoritarians

▸ Categories scored include: political culture and participation, and functioning of govt

▸ Only gives scores for last two years

▸ Use public opinion data where available

5 ▸ Like FH, use in-house experts.

▸ Do give a more thorough treatment of what they mean by democracy; more contested than freedom

Democracy

▸ Minimum: Contested elections

▸ But minimum has prereqs, per G. O’Donnell

▸ Free media, freedom of expression, political culture that encourages participation and not just permits it.

▸ Practically means

▸ Free elections + prerequisites + broad personal rights effectively enforced + govt able to deliver policies benefitting most citizens + real possibility for marginalized to gain benefits (legal, material, social, cultural) via politics + govt accountability & responsiveness

▸ Former easier to measure; latter more durable

▸ Both give a sense of where different govts stand on measure related to freedom and democracy

▸ Both have relatively subtle methods and both rely on expert opinion for scoring

▸ One tries to assess govt effectives, pol. culture and participation

▸ Both present a continuum and explain why they break at the points they do

▸ Both are useful; FH is more used because it’s older

Military Rule

▸ Not all forceful seizures of power are military coups

▸ Coups d’état not all military

▸ But all take state power by force

▸ Can argue that not all rule by some armed force = military rule

▸ Can put warlords, caudillos or Big Men in a different category (personal rule) if they did not use formal military to take power

▸ What this leaves:

6 ▸ Military as a formal organization; especially a professional military

▸ Professional military: One based on specialized training, in which a career is possible and open to any qualified person, in a permanent force, and which is supposedly subject civilian control and not used as partisan instrument

▸ Commissions not bought; not mercenaries for hire;

▸ Product of 19th century

Coups

▸ Per definition, coups become military coups only with a professional military

▸ Latin America, around 1870

▸ Asia: most after independence; Thailand by late 1880s

▸ Africa: most after independence; Ethiopia, 1899

▸ Mid-East: most after independence; Turkey, 2 quarter, 19th c,

▸ Professional armies aren’t supposed to politically active but many are. Why?

▸ Often better educated and better traveled than many, even most politicians more sophisticated

▸ Have sense of duty and service to country; see pols as self-serving or serving party interests at best

▸ Also loyal to military institution and will defend it if it seems threatened

▸ Have strong distaste for disorder; if pols, self-serving and not as well educated, can’t even keep order  military steps in

▸ And they have the guns and tanks and troops…

▸ Without a strong democratic tradition coups become a real option

▸ Since 1900 there have been around 300 successful coups in the world

▸ Few in developed countries and few in consolidated democracies, regardless of development

New model coup

▸ Honduras, 2009

▸ Mel Zelaya

▸ Military ousts Mel but doesn’t take power

▸ Hands it over to Micheletti, representative of anti-Zelaistas

7 ▸ Who governs until the next election and stands down

▸ Hondo elite has history of asking military to sort out its problems

▸ This time military didn’t assume power

▸ New model? Consistent with (quasi-)democracy?

Old-style coup: Mali 2012

▸ Capt. Amadou Sanogo overthrows Pres. Amadou Toumani Toure

▸ Army felt it wasn’t getting troops & equipment it needed to fight separatist Touareg rebels of Azawad Natl Liberation Movement (MNLA)

▸ Result has been instability, more loss of territory to MNLA, and many displaced people

▸ A typical coup because it grew from army’s discontent

Military rule

▸ Often short-lived; musical coups;

▸ Short term military govts make few big changes

▸ Toss a few pols out; boost military budget

▸ Longer term can  big changes (and vice-versa)

▸ Zia al Haq, Pakistan, 1978-88  Islamicization

▸ Pinochet, Chile, 1973-89  shift to right; hobble democracy

▸ Both leaders eclipsed institution

▸ In Brazil (1964-85) and Argentina (1976-83) military leaders rotated through presidency.

Individual military rulers

▸ Can (should?) include any ruler who takes power at the head of an organized military force.

▸ If the ruler is representative of and dependent on the support of the military it is military government with one public face.

▸ Brazil, Argentina

▸ Any place where a countercoup brings another military ruler

▸ If he has his own base of support outside military it is personal government.

8 ▸ Amin, Bokassa, Banzer (Bolivia),

▸ Mixed

▸ Probably most Pakistani military presidents

▸ Maybe the Thais, too

One-party rule

▸ Most literal: only one party is permitted

▸ More flexible: only one party is permitted to win

▸ By law or by practice

▸ Don’t confuse with one-party dominant

▸ One regularly wins but can lose legally and does not resort to systematic fraud

▸ Lots of examples: Alberta, 1935-71, (Socred) 1971- present; (PC); Sweden, 1936-78 (Social Democrats); Italy, 1947-52 (CD); US, Solid South, 1876-1964 (Dem)

▸ One-party dominant (also called one-party predominant) found in democracies; product of particular patterns of party competition

▸ The others are authoritarian

▸ Party = organizational weapon

▸ Used to control society, not just state

▸ More pluralistic if licensed opposition

▸ One-party dominant (also called one-party predominant) found in democracies; product of particular patterns of party competition

▸ The others are authoritarian

▸ Party = organizational weapon

▸ Used to control society, not just state

▸ More pluralistic if licensed opposition

▸ Vanguard parties

▸ Lead revo/independence  know the correct line of march  only group ever qualified to lead

9 ▸ Currently eight:

▸ PRC, Viet Nam, Laos, North Korea, Cuba, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, Sahwari Arab Democratic Republic [ex-Spanish Sahara] (Polisario Front)

▸ Ex: Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tome e Prncipe, all ex-Soviet Bloc; Somalia

▸ Non-CP examples

▸ Nkrumah, Ghana, CPP, 1956-

▸ FSLN, Nicaragua; dropped after three years

▸ Not all do: ANC. South Africa

▸ Sometimes allow licensed opposition: compete but not win

▸ These are sometimes also called hegemonic parties

Other rationales

▸ Unity: Post-Independence Sub-Saharan Africa

▸ Why? To counter potential for inter-ethnic conflicts

▸ Only internal competition was rationale

▸ How many? At least 25

▸ Many turned into plain one-party dictatorships

▸ Lots in Arab world, also Burma;

▸ Longest-lived one-party state: Liberia, 1878-1980, True Whig Party

Hegemonic party rule

▸ Competition allowed within limits

▸ Classic case: Mexico under the PRI, 1929-1997, 2000

▸ Fraud became main instrument

▸ Power-sharing pacts

▸ Opposition accepts defeat in return for “quotas of power” = seats in legislature, a share of judicial and other appointments = patronage

▸ Common in Latin America, late 19th and early 20th c.

▸ Nicaragua, 1950-79, 2000-2011.

10 ▸ Authoritarian? Yes, competition not free; not accountable

▸ One-party rule fairly common

▸ Can be democratic: one-party dominant (predominant)

▸ Need to distinguish from rest; e.g., Alberta, 1935-71; 1971-now

▸ Can be authoritarian but allow opposition to exist but not win (one-party hegemonic), Mexico, PRI, 1929-97.

▸ Or can have a total ban on other parties

▸ Many vanguards

▸ Other one-party dictatorships: Franco’s Spain, Baathists in Syria and Iraq, ex-Burma, ex- Gabon, ex-Malawi, ex-Liberia

Personal Rule

▸ Probably the most common form throughout history

▸ Tyrants and dictators

▸ Trujillo, Amin, Bokassa and Macias go here; many more, too

▸ Monarchs

▸ Not the modern constitutional kind

▸ Personal rulers not necessarily abusive if constrained

▸ Law, custom or countervailing force

▸ But most are constrained only by own reading of what they can get away with

▸ Still lots, despite Third Wave of democracy

▸ In fact, there are new opportunities within hybrids and re-styled authoritarian systems

▸ Can & should be compared to executive-centred democratic states

▸ Precisely because the two are not the same

▸ Need to discover points of convergence and divergence

▸ And are still first choice among many aspiring authoritarians

▸ They matter

11 We want to know

▸ What forms do they take. ?

▸ How many career paths are open to a wannabe dictator?

▸ How important are personal regimes?

▸ One person can’t really rule a modern state.

▸ Shouldn't one-person rule be on the decline?

▸ Has one-person rule changed over time?

▸ Is the tyrant passing from the scene?

▸ Do they take and lose power as before? Forms

▸ Generic

▸ Power officially in one person’s hands; may be delegated

▸ Political choices determined by leader

▸ There is, though, a clique of personal advisors

▸ No autonomous state institutions, though some routinely function without interference; e.g. lower courts

▸ No/few autonomous media

▸ No checks on leader

▸ No independent parties or civic organizations

▸ Business may have some autonomy; religion too

▸ Security forces under leader’s control

▸ Can be benign or malign; depends on leader and his needs

▸ This produces certain outcomes; more below

▸ Absolute (Ruling) Monarchy

▸ Pharaohs, Roman emperors, divine right monarchs; Shah or Iran, Emperor of Ethiopia

12 ▸ Today: monarchs of oil states, Persian Gulf, SA, Brunei; + Morocco, Jordan; not traditional

▸ Traits

▸ Hereditary succession

▸ Officially one-man rule, though with modern bureaucracy

▸ Minimally limited by legislature (if present) or courts

▸ Monarch determines what limits he accepts

▸ Not many; not likely to be more

▸ Residual category

▸ Do add to list of authoritarians

▸ Some liberalization in Kuwait, Jordan and Morocco

▸ Point of interest is how earlier absolutist monarchies were transformed

▸ A good few were overthrown: France, Russia, Iran and probably England (1688)

▸ Some legislated out of existence: Germany, Portugal and Spain

▸ Sultanistic rulers

▸ Chehabi and Linz, eds, 1998, Sultanistic Regimes

▸ Exercise power without restraint and usually without a guiding ideology

▸ Most likely in more underdeveloped states

▸ Tend to be patrimonial; i.e., treat state as their property

▸ Private property not secure

▸ Paternalistic and clientelistic

▸ Patron-client relations

▸ Examples

▸ Trujillo, Batista (Cuba), Marcos (Philippines,), Somozas – two generations (Nicaragua), Duvaliers – two generation (Haiti), Pahlavis – two generations (iran)

▸ All of these had an official political party that never lost but might share trappings of power

13 ▸ Others

▸ Nkrumah or Castro, want to restructure society

▸ Some rely more on force than on clientelism

▸ Those who came up through military

▸ And a few use terror as main governing instrument: Francia or Amin

How they rule

▸ Political Science always interested in this question

▸ Renewed since about 2000

▸ Always known:

▸ Corruption

▸ Factionalism and playing factions off against one another

▸ Clientelism

▸ Purges and rehabilitations

▸ Assassinations

▸ More recently discovered and confirmed

▸ Personal dictatorships more robust, harder to change, than party or military dictatorships

▸ The elites in personal dictatorship depend on the leader

▸ Do not have an institutional base, as they would in military or party dictatorships

▸ Harder to organize, easier to repress

Three more dictators: Amin, Bokassa & Macias Nguema

▸ These fit best with Trujillo and probably Gairy, though the latter was a labour leader who was instrumental in Grenada’s independence, and Gadhafi

14 ▸ But Trujillo was a very able businessman and Gairy not as cruel

▸ A bit with Francia and Mugabe, though both of them were well educated individuals

▸ Not so much with Ho or Franco

▸ And Bokassa would find lots of friends in 19th c. Latin America

▸ And Fidel Castro has had his share of nutty ideas

▸ So there is a class of dictators who are not emotionally or intellectually (or both) well equipped to govern

▸ They would have a hard time in an electoral democracy

▸ Recent misfortune of GOP, for example: Peter Principle

▸ How did the three Africans get a chance to be dictators?

▸ And how did they differ from RLT?

▸ Trujillo

▸ From modest but not impoverished background

▸ Had criminal record: fraud, robbery and gang leader

▸ Still able to enter new Natl. Guard, formed by US, in 1918; military school; general by 1927

▸ Coup in 1930  31 years of dictatorship by the Goat

▸ Personality cult + patrimonialism – treats country as private domain

▸ The three Africans

▸ Origins?

▸ Conditions for rise?

▸ How they got power?

▸ As rulers?

▸ Their ends?

▸ Where are they the least like RLT?

▸ Where are they the most like him?

15 Analyzing Personal Rule

▸ Lots of descriptions of dictators

▸ Some attempts to classify them

▸ Jackson and Rossber, 1982, Personal Rule in Black Africa.

▸ Chirot, 1994, Modern Tyrants

▸ Chehabi and Linz, Sultanistic Regimes

▸ Most recent stuff tries to look at all authoritarian regimes

▸ Far more general and abstract

▸ Case studies, grouped case studies, and macro analyses

▸ Nothing really mid-range

▸ Gandhi and Franz & Ezrow take the macro route.

▸ F & E are nearly entirely macro in the reading you have – in other stuff they aren’t

▸ Gandhi starts with case studies to show where her research questions come from and what evidence underlies her hypotheses.

▸ Jennifer Gandhi

▸ Looks at use of usual democratic institutions by dictatorships

▸ Not just for show

▸ Serve to include potential opponents in regime

▸ JG asks if opting to include opponents helps dictators survive longer

▸ Focuses on parties and legislatures tests a series of hypotheses

▸ Interested that dictatorships have different sets of institutions

▸ Monarchs rely on kin

▸ Military dictators have the armed forces

▸ Civilians have or create an official regime party

▸ How they use these institutions is one question

16 ▸ How these institutions help the dictator is another.

▸ Two important things here

▸ Dictatorships aren’t all alike; seen in their institutions

▸ A dictatorship using parties and legislatures is not necessarily doing so for show

▸ Erika Frantz and Natasha Ezrow

▸ Elites in dictatorships

▸ Dictatorships have elites

▸ People in top positions

▸ May have real responsibilities or not

▸ May or may not have influence with dictator

▸ But they are there

▸ Two questions

▸ Do different types of dictatorships – personal, military and party – produce different elite structures? Yes.

▸ Military mainly from military and are influenced by command and control structures; first loyalty to the service

▸ Party dictators draw their elites principally from the ranks of the party. So elites will be loyal to party in the sense that the good of the party > good of leader

▸ Personal, loyal to leader, depend on leader; leader is the “one what brung ‘em.”

▸ Does this make a difference to a dictator’s survival?

▸ NB: Dictator’s survival not necessarily the same as a dictatorship’s survival.

▸ Yes

▸ Military dictators most likely to fall; usually to a countercoup

▸ Second most likely to fall are party dictators; again to an internal coup

▸ Least likely to fall are personal dictators

▸ Why?

▸ Presence or absence of unifying institution

17 ▸ Do elites have some source of power outside govt?

▸ Note that both studies are interested in the survival of dictators and dictatorships

▸ And both centre their examinations on elements regularly studied in democracies

▸ So they’re bringing dictatorships inside the PS tent.

Oligarchy

▸ What it is

▸ Broadest definition

▸ Rule by an elite

▸ In its own interest

▸ Elite can be

▸ Economic

▸ Religious

▸ Ethnic

▸ Whatever

▸ Corrupt regimes: Ruler governs in own interest

▸ Virtuous regimes: Ruler governs in public interest

▸ For Aristotle oligarchs govern in interest of a specific minority

▸ Not just any minority but their minority

▸ Implies that rule will be authoritarian

▸ Unaccountable and unresponsive to many

▸ Opaque in its dealings

▸ Disregards law when convenient

▸ And were propertied

▸ Oligarchy here parallels institutional dictatorships

▸ Represent the interests of a definable group

18 ▸ So would fit military or party dictatorships

▸ Presumably oligarchs could substitute for their representative

▸ Could govern through proxy

▸ Manchurian Candidate option

▸ Or in coalition with other institution

▸ Military or official party

▸ Military not unusual: Honduras, 2009

▸ Party: Maybe the Colorados of Paraguay

▸ Winters’s take

▸ Oligarchy always class-based

▸ Takes this back to Aristotle

▸ Also much conventional usage assume this

▸ Costs and benefits of his position

▸ Clarity and simplicity, plus wide acceptance

▸ Excludes other self-interested ruling minorities

▸ Whites in Rhodesia or apartheid South Africa

▸ Religious minorities: Saddam’s Iraq, Assads’ Syria, Bahrain

▸ Power elite, C, Wright Mills (1956): Business + Military + Politics

▸ And oligarchy can exist within a democracy.

▸ Not direct rule, though conceivable

▸ Rather influence

▸ One of JW’s key points

▸ But it means maintaining dramatic inequalities of wealth

▸ Not just any elite=people in top positions.

▸ But an elite with great material resources that belongs to those in this class

19 ▸ Not linked to job, as with soldiers, state managers, or all but a few corporate executives Key Points

▸ Wealth defence

▸ JW sees this as “central political dynamic” for oligarchs

▸ Use their wealth to defend their wealth

▸ Use the resource they have the most of

▸ Can be direct: active involvement in ruling

▸ Where oligarch has to defend property directly

▸ Or indirect

▸ Where property is secure

▸ Through other institutions

▸ Power capacity—familiar concept;

▸ Oligarchs have material power

▸ Others can have rights, positional, coercive, mobilizational

▸ Argues the advantages of material power

▸ Does not always carry the day

▸ Not Winters but Fred Block, 1977, “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule”

▸ Not repeated this time round – oligarchs stronger? Comment

▸ In practical terms – about what the 1% do to preserve their wealth and the system of inequality that generated their position

▸ JW takes pains to underline that this conventionally happens in democracies

▸ Thus democracy doesn’t disable oligarchy  civil oligarchies

▸ Term used in other ways by other authors

▸ Only some forms of oligarchy are authoritarian – warring, ruling and sultanistic – but all resolutely anti-egalitarian

20 ▸ Hatfields and McCoys

▸ How dominant they were

▸ How they preserved their dominance

▸ Their social origin:

▸ Were they really feudin’ mountain boys?

▸ They also existed within a relatively, for its time, democratic order

▸ Should that worry us? Ruling Oligarchies

▸ Most interesting are Greeks and Romans

▸ Note the Material Power Index (78, 92)

▸ Relative wealth

▸ Cf. the Athenians 2.4k times to Romans 400k And to US (217) 109k

▸ Coercion

▸ Who threatens oligarchs? Who protects them?

▸ In Athens? Slaves threatened; oligarchs protected selves

▸ In Rome? Slaves and urban poor; oligarchs against slaves on farms; the state against urban poor

▸ In US and similar: state is both  Income Defence Industry

▸ JW stresses that oligarchy is a political system used by the extremely wealthy to defend their wealth

▸ Keep this in mind when reading his book

▸ Also when looking at Gandhi and Levitsky & Way

▸ Keep asking how what the latter two describe differs from the former

▸ Are the tools used all dictators open to oligarchs? Certain classes of oligarch?

▸ Can oligarchs be competitive authoritarians?

▸ Finally, ask how you get rid of oligarchs

21 ▸ Has anybody done it?

▸ Who?

▸ How?

▸ With what results?

Authoritarians and Institutions

▸ How we (PS + History + other SS + journalism + independent researchers) have studied non-democratic G&P

▸ Treated as case apart

▸ Totalitarians

▸ Tendency to dichotomize democratic and non-democratic

▸ Focused on policies and policy instruments

▸ How the governed, with what tools, to what ends

▸ Partly because that was obvious

▸ Everything else hard to detect

▸ We didn’t know a lot

▸ Except by anecdote and rumour

▸ Think of what Vargas Llosa tells us about Trujillo

▸ Still don’t

▸ One difference

▸ Try understand not just what authoritarians do

▸ But also how they do it

▸ Frantz and Ezrow on what lets dictatorships persist or makes them fail

▸ Gandhi on the specific role of institutions Institutions

▸ What are they?

22 ▸ Some attributes – conventional connotative definition

▸ Bricks & mortar: physical presence

▸ Legal charter

▸ Table of organization: formal internal structure

▸ Informal, too; not a concern for us now

▸ Stable and long-lived – designed to be around when everyone now part of the institution has left

▸ Examples

▸ MUN, House of Assembly, Royal Bank, General Motors, etc.

▸ Formal social science denotative definition

▸ A repeated pattern of interactions

▸ Very abstract

▸ What does it call attention to?

▸ Any of the stuff we normally think of?

▸ Actually a lot of what makes up the observable constitutive parts

▸ What this has to do with authoritarian regimes

▸ NB: Gandhi (and F&E) limit focus to dictatorships

▸ No hybrids or semi-authoritarian/semi-democratic

▸ Simplifies; minimizes fuzzy cases; makes a clear answer more likely

▸ Formal social science denotative definition

▸ A repeated pattern of interactions

▸ Very abstract

▸ What does it call attention to?

▸ Any of the stuff we normally think of?

▸ Actually a lot of what makes up the observable constitutive parts

▸ What this has to do with authoritarian regimes

23 ▸ NB: Gandhi (and F&E) limit focus to dictatorships

▸ No hybrids or semi-authoritarian/semi-democratic

▸ Simplifies; minimizes fuzzy cases; makes a clear answer more likely

▸ Maintain a functioning economy

▸ Beyond material sustenance

▸ Jobs

▸ Produce material rewards

▸ Various forms of infrastructure

▸ Money for government

▸ ≠ functioning economy or $ for people

▸ Control a valuable resource—coltan, diamonds, rubber, oil + monopolize trade

▸ Rent seeking

▸ Keep most/enough people happy

▸ Unless ruling by utter terror

▸ Then it’s only the security forces

▸ Still want to limit opposition/discontent

▸ Co-opt: cheaper in mid-term

▸ Long run: Gaddafi?

▸ Benefits/mobility for key groups

▸ No sure prescription for how

▸ Lots of ways have worked

▸ Some overtly authoritarian

▸ Some beneficent but not democratic

▸ Some democratic

▸ Democracy is not the only answer

▸ For many & for a long time it was not the best answer

24 ▸ We know what authoritarians do

▸ Concentrate power

▸ Unaccountable

▸ Disregard law

▸ Limit civil society and opposition

▸ Monist > pluralist

▸ Prone to use coercion

▸ What institutions do they need to rule like this?

▸ Sometimes very few

▸ Guns and people ready to use them

▸ Failed states, power vacuum

▸ Fairly common in 18th c. Lat Am

▸ Also appears to apply to Samuel Doe’s coup in Liberia in 1980

▸ First African failed state

▸ More often need administrative structure

▸ Formal security forces

▸ Financial administration

▸ Public health—or else foreign investment flees

▸ Public works “ “

▸ Can be minimum needed to keep $ in country

▸ Open airport—may have to leave…quickly

▸ As time passes need more

▸ Especially if ruler needs to win support of critical groups

▸ More complex, developed country

▸ More groups with political interests

▸ More diversity  harder for govt to meet demands 

25 ▸ Harder to generate support

▸ But that may not be enough to save a leader or regime

▸ Egypt

▸ Chile, Pinochet; Brazil, military regime, 1964-85

▸ But cf. PRC or VN

Readings

▸ Gandhi

▸ What she focuses on: parties and legislatures

▸ Why not elections or courts?

▸ Both can figure in power-sharing pacts that leave dictator in place

▸ Link to clientelism – co-optatation

▸ How she defines dictatorship and why

▸ Her three cases

▸ What does she show with them?

▸ What determines the use of standard democratic institutions in dictatorships?

▸ Note: Legislatures and parties (as organized factions)=pre-democratic

▸ Elections too

▸ Institutions to co-opt

▸ What does this mean? Does it occur in democracies?

▸ Latter matters

▸ Granting concessions: Quotas of power

▸ Why these matter to opponents

▸ Why these matter to dictators

▸ Argues that personal dictators may have greater need to co-opt, Why?

▸ Develops model, 82-100, to predict when dictators co-opt

26 ▸ What she says in formal terms is basically a set of common sense hypotheses about how dictators act and how and why they use parties and legislatures

▸ Based on her 3 cases

▸ Winters

▸ Sultanism, (135-136): Personal ruler; uses control over access to material rewards to control; also controls state coercive instruments as ultimate ruling instrument

▸ Would this fit Trujillo?

▸ Institutions Suharto, Indonesia, and Marcos, Philippines, used to govern.

▸ Need not be formal, official institutions

▸ Sultans, caudillos and big men all like to concentrate power in own person

▸ Don’t build conventional institutions

▸ Think Trujillo, his party and the DR’s Congress

▸ Suharto –Breaks down old legal system: Why?  result?

▸ Building support: How?

▸ Is this like what F&E are getting at about elites?

▸ Is this a co-opting mechanism?

▸ An unarmed oligarchy

▸ Why this matters

▸ Are there elements of clientelism?

▸ Suharto’s kids: A “loaded dice” faction

▸ What did they do to the relation Suharto had with the oligarchs?

▸ What did the oligarchs do?

▸ What happened to Suharto

▸ What happened to Indonesia and the oligarchs?

▸ Marcos – different story (193): 2 reasons

▸ First: Philippine oligarchs armed and used to defending selves

▸ Even worked under electoral democracy

27 ▸ Turns in office

▸ Not unique; Spain, 1878-1923; many LA countries had one-term limits for presidency,

▸ Second, Marcos violated non-re-election norm

▸ Imposed martial law & had main opponent assassinated

▸ Used army to check oligarchs

▸ Overthrown, 1986, by popular movement led by widow of man he had killed

▸ What happened next? See Table 4.3, p. 205

▸ Different style of sultanistic rule Levitsky & Way

▸ JG and F&E don’t look at elections; JW does

▸ Non-competitive elections have been studied for a while

▸ More in last 12-15 yrs than before

▸ L&W’s hypothesis: successful democratic transition w/fully competitive elections more likely when

▸ Linkage to democracies is high

▸ Democracies have significant leverage over govt

▸ Authoritarians’ organizational strength is relatively low*

▸ What’s behind their research

▸ Transitions producing flawed democracies or hybrids, even new authoritarians

▸ Look for an explanation that combines domestic + international factors

▸ Central concept: Competitive Authoritarianism

▸ Elections held – only way to gain power legitimately

▸ Oppositions compete actively

▸ But odds favour govt: playing with loaded dice

▸ Case study chapters test hypothesis

▸ Give background about specific transitions.

28 ▸ Compare their stories to Gandhi’s and Winters’s

Vargas Llosa II • Put Trujillo into context as personal ruler • Recall the attributes: • Power in one person’s hands; may be delegated • Practically, always; officially, sometimes • Political choices determined by leader • There is, though, a clique of personal advisors • Dictator doesn’t trust them and keeps them insecure • No checks on leader • No autonomous state institutions, though some routinely function without interference; • e.g. lower courts or routine bureaucratic tasks • May use elections, parties, legislature to co-opt or for show • No independent parties or civic organizations • Unless licensed • Business may have some autonomy; religion too • No/few autonomous media • Security forces under leader’s control • Police and military • Secret police • Paramilitary • Party thugs • Use force freely • May use terror to maintain control • Generally patrimonial – state is theirs to loot • Often paternalistic and clientelistic

29 • Sultanistic • Official political party that never lost • But might share trappings of power • e.g., the Somozas and their pacts • How does Trujillo, as depicted by Vargas Llosa, fit the model? • The model is abstract and doesn’t cover every dictator perfectly • How does reading this novel help us understand personal dictators? • Your Job: • Tell readers that • Plot and fictional characters • To the extent that they help explain dictators • Vargas Llosa’s depictions of Trujillo et al • To the extent that they help explain dictators • Not a book review for English • Not an academic book review – as for a journal • It’s a political book review

• Authoritarians and Institutions – 2 Readings – Gandhi

▸ Gandhi

▸ Remember that she says

▸ Dictators “hold power w/o the legitimacy of having been chosen by their citizens” thus need to “thwart challenges to their rule”

▸ Is this latter point different from elected officials?

▸ Other forms of legitimacy?

▸ Autocrats need cooperation & compliance

▸ Any surprises?

30 ▸ To “organize policy concessions” need a forum

▸ Parties and legislatures

▸ Not elections, as they don’t facilitate deal-making

▸ P&L aid dictator in co-opting needed support

▸ May not apply to “totalitarians” like the Kims or Castros

▸ We don’t know

▸ Presumably they make deals inside the party

▸ Recall further that JG

▸ Argues P&L do NOT make dictatorships more democratic;

▸ Just more open

▸ They are inclusive authoritarians

▸ Others have used term in similar way

▸ And recall that her definition of a dictatorship is any government whose head – however styled – is not elected by the people

▸ Too narrow?

▸ Too broad?

▸ Why would she choose this? But

▸ Do dictators need to make policy concessions?

▸ Do legislatures in dictatorships make policy?

▸ Would it make more sense to let co-opted MPs tend to pork and pocket-lining than to policy?

▸ What are the benefits of having a opposition voice in policy-making?

▸ Better policy  less discontent?

▸ Being able to blame opposition for negative results? JG, ch. 4

▸ JG tests more hypotheses

31 ▸ Dictatorships w/legislatures and parties produce different policies than those w/o

▸ Reasons that opponents would not participate if they had no impact on anything

▸ Political survival? Patronage?

▸ Remember what we said about pacts

▸ Look at where her data come from and how she constructs her indicators

▸ Her findings re-influence of oppositions in authoritarian legislatures

▸ Looks at

▸ Rights and freedoms—free expression

▸ Your hypothesis?

▸ Military spending

▸ Your hypothesis?

▸ Social spending

▸ Your hypothesis?

▸ More freedoms, less defence spending, but not more social spending

▸ Tries to figure out why and get hypotheses for next study

▸ Very typical of social research

▸ Frequently don’t get everything right

▸ Try to puzzle out what some alternative “right” answers could be JG, ch. 5

▸ Economic outcomes

▸ Inclusive, “broadened”, dictatorships will produce better economic results

▸ Institutions provide mechanisms to smooth relations between govt and non-govt groups

▸ Yields more stability  conditions more favourable to economic growth

▸ Intuitively sensible:

▸ Where there is instability investors won’t invest and economy won’t grow

32 ▸ Hypothesis is sustained

▸ Finding suggests institutions help produce compromise

▸ Overall do better than single-party dictatorships

▸ JG thinks that leadership/other non-institutional factors count in single party regimes econ fate

▸ Spain, post-1958– no functioning legislature

▸ S. Korea

▸ How would we take non-institutional factors into account?

▸ What would we look at?

▸ Could we devise a strategy that would apply to many cases? JG, ch, 6

▸ Regime survival

▸ This is what she wants to know about

▸ Does adopting institutions to include some opponents of the regime contribute to the regime’s survival?

▸ She predicted it would

▸ Inst let dictator manage key parts of society

▸ Relay information about state of pub. opinion

▸ So can even rigged elections

▸ Let dictator adjust behaviour

▸ But she was wrong – they don’t stay in power longer – and her hypothesis was disconfirmed

▸ She asks why the initially plausible explanation did not hold – What social research does.

▸ What she proposes as possible explanations and starting points for future research

▸ Maybe L&P don’t count for much in survival

▸ Dictators who offer L&P may face more problems than those who don’t, thus more prone to fall

▸ But there is the counter-example of Ecuador

33 ▸ If junta had built institutions it might well have lasted longer

▸ Problem of survival of dictatorships is more complex than JG initially thought

Further Thoughts

▸ Parties & what they can do

▸ Official or Regime Parties (aka Parties of Power)

▸ Mobilize citizens

▸ Can warn opponents off – see high public support

▸ Distribute patronage

▸ Two-way info transmission mechanism

▸ Jobs for militants: MPs + staff + officials

▸ Spending – campaigns  money distributed

▸ Opposition – Govt’s viewpoint

▸ Legitimacy

▸ Co-opt

▸ Monitor

▸ Opposition’s viewpoint

▸ Access to resources

▸ Patronage

▸ Survival

▸ Especially true if there is some freedom to act Legislatures and Authoritarians

▸ Assume small policy role; i.e., like Canada

▸ Patronage: MPs, staff, people who keep the building up

▸ Legitimacy: especially if there is some debate and oversight – don’t have to change legislation

34 ▸ Membership in IPU and regional PU

▸ Can host foreign parliamentary delegations

▸ Way to keep contact with opponents who tolerate the regime: co-opt or just have friendly contacts

Competitive/Authoritarian Elections

▸ Three options

▸ Without competition – mobilize voters to show support for dictator or single party

▸ With licensed opposition: Can compete but cannot win

▸ Proscribed either by law (vanguards) or practice

▸ Opposition victory possible/imaginable but improbable

▸ Loaded dice: electoral system manipulation

▸ Do all these belong together?

▸ Is one concept – competitive or electoral authoritarianism – enough?

▸ Would more be too much?

▸ So what? Elections in authoritarian regimes Barbara Geddes, 2005, found that authoritarians that held elections lived longer

Regular elections Some elections No elections (years) (years) Years Military dictatorship 20 9 6 Personal dictatorship 21 10 12 1-Party dictatorship 33 N<4 N<4

Why elections matter so much

▸ Follows Geddes

▸ Can’t judge these like democratic elections

▸ Though they look much the same

▸ Parties

35 ▸ Big expenditures

▸ Intense voter mobilization

▸ Even though the winner is nearly always pre-determined

▸ Elections give govt a chance to mobilize its members

▸ This shows strength

▸ Even if support is bought

▸ Being able to mobilize a lot of people send message to opponents

▸ Even potential coupsters

▸ Why

▸ For civilian opponents lots of mobilized says govt hard or impossible to beat

▸ For military opponents lots of mobilized says a coup will meet mass opposition

▸ Will military risk mass casualties and even civil war?

▸ Will soldiers fire on civilians?

▸ This explains why parties of authoritarian govt roll up big margins in elections

▸ Even if they are often manufactured

▸ Can even apply to turnout, as mass participation seen as mass support

▸ Starting a party is expensive and if there are elections costs rise more

▸ But a party  lots of jobs and lots chances to link more citizens to the govt

▸ May be totally opportunistic

▸ But allying with govt to get jobs or contracts  identifies you with govt  you’re theirs Overall

▸ Parties and elections work for authoritarians; elections do too.

▸ It makes sense for a dictator to invest in these even if they won’t be used as they are in democracies

▸ That’s a good thing, because electoral authoritarianism, with accompanying parties and legislatures, is a hard system to manage.

36 ▸ Lots can go wrong but longer life expectancy seems to justify investment in time, money and energy

Cases Brazil

▸ Nature of the system

▸ Military

▸ Rotate leadership

▸ Transformational – long-term changes

▸ Part of autocratic wave in ‘60s and ‘70s in South America

▸ Grouped with Argentina (1966-73, 1976-83);Uruguay (1973-84) and Chile (1973-89)

▸ Bureaucratic authoritarians

▸ These last three all suspended parties, legislatures and elections

▸ Though there were referendums in Chile (2) and Uruguay (1)

▸ Brazil was different

▸ Authorizes two parties in 1966

▸ ARENA – Official, government, Natl Renewal Alliance

▸ Created by govt

▸ MDB – official opposition: Brazilian Dem. Movement

▸ Pre-existing party

▸ Legislative elections every 4 years, 66-82 (86=free)

▸ ARENA won handily, 66-70; very tight 78-82

▸ When MDB started to show strength military govt changed rules and reduced legislature’s powers to protect ARENA

▸ Starting in ‘79L Distensão: relaxing restraints

▸ Indirect presidential elections, 1985

▸ Govt candidate loses 73-27

37 ▸ 1986 free legislative elections

▸ 1988: democratic constitutions

▸ 1989 free presidential elections

▸ Why would military govt allow parties and elections?

▸ Nigeria tried the same thing under Babangida, 1989

▸ National Republican Convention & Social Democratic Party

▸ Abolished under next mil govt—Abacha, 1993 Mexico, 1929-1994 (2000)

▸ The Official Party: 1928-38 – PNR; 1938-46 – PRM; now PRI

▸ Lost first state in 1989, Baja Califonia; los control of Federal Chamber of Deputies in 1997; lost presidency, 2000; regainde presidency, 2012.

▸ BeaPRI = hegemon: used fraud

▸ But until 1977, at least, not to win but to roll up margin

▸ Show strength to

▸ Opposition

▸ Voters who need party

▸ Patronage

▸ Value stability

▸ Unhappy party elites

▸ They also used patronage

▸ Huge state sector + friendly private sector firms

▸ Stops after 1982  massive, open fraud in 1988 presidential election

▸ Managed the electoral business cycle

▸ Spending + infrastructure

▸ Reminded voters of PRI’s power

▸ Huge campaigns

38 ▸ Mobilize voters

▸ Link them to party

▸ Big vote margins  leg. majorities big enough to amend constitution w/o others’ support

▸ Naming judges and the electoral commission, too

▸ Breakdown starts in ‘82

▸ Structural adjustment  sale of state firms  less patronage

▸ Grows after ‘88 and especially after ‘94

▸ Peso crisis  voters see PRI not such a good econ mgr

▸ Assassination of PRI presidential candidate + Zapatistas  PRI not so great at security and stability

▸ Post-94: Deals with opposition parties  independent electoral commission

▸ Opposition parties growing stronger

▸ Deal to keep them from protesting election results

▸ Why it fell

▸ Poor management since 1982

▸ Opposition disposed to cooperate to some extent to oust PRI

▸ Why it’s back

▸ PAN governments not astonishing successful

▸ Other alternative party, PRD, had leader who didn’t inspire confidence

▸ So Enrique Peña Nieto is president-elect – only got 38% of vote

▸ New ball game? Nicaragua, 1979-present

▸ Evolution

▸ Somocismo, 1936-79: Hegemonic; official party of dictators = PLN – Nationalist Liberal Party; licensed opposition parties – could run but never win; if a boycott entered its own opposition party

▸ Sandinistas, 1979-90, 2006-: FSLN – Sandinista National Liberation Front; 5 stages

39 ▸ 1 st, 1979-82: Leninist, licensed opposition

▸ 2 nd , 1982-1990: Dominant; free competition; loses

▸ 3 rd , 1990-2000: Opposition; effective mix of parliamentary, electoral, and mobilizational opposition;

▸ 4 th , 2000-2011: Junior members in pact with PLC, Constitutional Liberals; dominate courts, controller’s, electoral commission; electoral engineering to exclude 3rd parties; still competed electorally and often opposed each other in National Assembly (NA)

▸ 5 th , 2007-now: Hegemonic;

▸ May have stolen 2008 municipal elections; final tally never published; won in places party was weak; used violence by party toughs to “defend the vote”

▸ Probably inflated tally in 2011; enough seats in NA to amend constitution on own

▸ Evolution: Functional One-Party to Dominant to Competitive to Pacted Dominance to Hegemonic

▸ Thus from sure wins to possible losses to probable losses with some power assured back to sure wins

▸ Electoral democracy not a good thing if you can lose!

Two More Backsliders: Ukraine and Zambia

▸ Ukraine: 2012 legislative election declared tainted by international observers.

▸ Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe said it reversed democracy

▸ In 2010 the same bunch declared the presidential vote “transparent, unbiased and an ‘impressive display’ of democracy” (BBC 2012)

▸ What happened?

▸ 1991-2004: Independent again

▸ Kravchuk and Kuchma

▸ First rapid economic decline (Kravchuck)

▸ Recovery but with cronyism, restrictions on freedom and government power grabs (Kuchma)

▸ 2004: Orange Revolution to 2010

40 ▸ Mass protests, media revolt against controls, electoral fraud  rerun election, Kuchma’s party loses, Yukashenko wins

▸ Yukashenko, president, and Tymoshenko, PM, squabble  gridlock

▸ 2010, Yankulovych, loser in 2004, wins cleanly

▸ Then jails Tymoshenko

▸ Strengthens ties to Russia

▸ Fraud

▸ Control legislature and electoral process

▸ Does he have enough resources to keep buying and winning?

▸ Zambia

▸ 1964-1991: Era of Kenneth Kaunda

▸ 1972-91: one-party state, United National Independence Party

▸ 1990: rise of Movement for Multiparty Democracy; strong enough to convince Kaunda to hold competitive vote in’91

▸ 1991-2001: Frederick Chiluba

▸ Used massive parliamentary majority to engineer exclusion of Kaunda and UNIP in 1996 and win massively

▸ 2001: moots const amdt to permit a 3rd term – bad idea

▸ Stands down; backsliding halted at least temporarily

▸ 2001: MMD narrowly wins presidency (controverted) and narrowly loses parliament; retakes via by-elections

▸ New president, Levy Mwanawasa, allows Chiluba to be charged with corruption; died in office; emergency election returns his VP, Rupiah Banda

▸ But in 2011 a new party, Patriotic Front wins elections marred by violence

▸ Michael Sata, 74, populist and admirer of Mugabe is president

▸ Defected from MMD

▸ In Zambia there seems to have been enough room for opposition forces, parties and civil society to form and manoeuvre.

▸ Govt control less sure and extensive, at least ostensibly

41 ▸ And cost of defection from governing party not too high

▸ Should we expect backsliding? Or be surprised? Or see it as possible under some conditions?

▸ If the last then what sorts of conditions?

▸ A govt or leader that likes governing?

▸ An opposition that is either too weak to win or so strong it worries govt/leader?

▸ And with a govt that controls enough resources to pull off fraud?

▸ A majority able to amend constitution to extend partisan control?

▸ How much structure? How much agency?

42