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APSA Comparative Democratization (vol. 13, issue 2)
Glasius, M.
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Reconceptualizing Authoritarianism
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Available from: Marlies Glasius Retrieved on: 21 December 2015 The American Political Science Association APSA Volume 13, No. 2 Comparative Democratization June 2015 In This Issue CD Introducing the Symposium and a Research Agenda “Reconceptualizing Marlies Glasius, University of Amsterdam Authoritarianism” he resurgence of authoritarianism in most Arab countries after the 1 Editorial Board Note uprisings of 2011 has led to a renewed empirical interest in authoritarian Kelly M. McMann rule, with attention shifting from what causes authoritarianism to how 1 Introducing the Symposium and a Research Note Marlies Glasius Tit is sustained today. Robert Kaplan and Dafna Rand have recently put forward 1 Authoritarianism and the “postmodern autocrats” who fear public opinion, rely on social media and consult elites, and Problem of Democratic Distinction Lisa Wedeen Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman discern a “new authoritarianism” based on manipulating 2 Authoritarianism and information rather than on mass violence, whereas Steven Heydemann sees a “decisive shift Democracy: Beyond Regime 1 Types David Beetham in governance” in the MENA region. But this renewed empirical interest has not come 2 Authoritarianism and with renewed attention to the conceptual category of authoritarian rule. If authoritarian Globalization in Historical rule is done differently, operating in a changed context, is it still the same phenomenon, to Perspective Pedro Ramos Pinto be studied in the same way, as the military junta’s and people’s republics of the past, or do 3 Authoritarianism: Learning from Subnational Enclaves Kelly M. McMann 1. Robert D. Kaplan and Dafna H. Rand, “The Postmodern Autocrat’s Handbook,”Bloomberg View, 1 February 3 Like Oil and Water? 2015 (www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-01/the-postmodern-autocrat-s-handbook); Sergei Guriev and Authoritarianism and Daniel Treisman, “The New Authoritarianism,”CEPR’s Policy Portal, 21 March 2015 (www.voxeu.org/article/new- Accountability Andreas Schedler authoritarianism); and Steven Heydemann, “Arab Autocrats Are Not Going Back to the Future,” Washington Post 4 4 Authoritarianism, Democracy, December 2014 (www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/12/04/arab-autocrats-are-not-going-back-to- and Repression Todd Landman the-future/). 26 Section News (click to continue on page 5) 30 New Research 36 Editorial Committee
Authoritarianism and the Problem of Democratic Distinction From the Editorial Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago Board his symposium invites us to move away from an understanding of authoritarian With the Arab Spring now regimes in terms of what they lack, as opposed to what democracies have, some three years behind us, a provocation that impels us to think beyond the specific mechanisms of and challengers to democracy autocratic management. It enjoins us to resist self-satisfication and moral superiority gaining ground in a diverse T as we compare authoritarian and democratic dynamics; it demands instead that we consider the range of countries such as uncomfortable proposition that these regime types may not be as different as we think they are.1 Thailand, Russia, Hungary,
Mali, and Venezuela, the The chronic exclusion of large populations in the United States from the basic privileges (if not study of democracy and always rights) of citizenship, like the subjugation of colonized peoples by European powers, democratization is as suggests that the distinction between democracy and dictatorship may be more equivocal important as ever. As a than most comparisons acknowledge. In this “neoliberal” era of global capitalism, moreover, community, we have always any neat distinction is vulnerable to the effects of new forms of market mediation, which sought to be relevant for policy and continue to be 1. Thanks are owed especially to Michael Dawson, Sofia Fenner, Marlies Glasius, Daragh Grant, Rohit Goel, Ellen Lust, John McCormick, Jennifer Pitts, Don Reneau, Dan Slater and the participants of the June 2014 seminar on committed to understanding authoritarianism at the University of Amsterdam for thoughts on earlier versions of this essay. how peoples across the world (click to continue on page 9) (click to continue on page 4) Vol. 13, No. 2 Comparative Democratization June 2015
Authoritarianism and Democracy: Beyond Regime Types David Beetham, University of Leeds
n this piece I argue that the approach of democracy studies to the subject of authoritarianism is too narrow, because it does not consider the possibility of authoritarianism occurring within a democratic regime. What exactly is the distinctive approach of democracy—and democratisation—studies to the subject of authoritarianism? At the Iexpense of some generalisation, I would say that their distinctive approach consists in three features. First is a definition. This is not so much a definition of authoritarianism as such, but of the authoritarian regime or system, which is defined negatively, through the lack of some feature necessary to a democratic one. So Andreas Schedler lists seven mutually reinforcing conditions for a democratic election, failure to achieve any one of which defines a system as authoritarian.1 And Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way list four central features of democracy, the subversion of one or more of which defines a regime as authoritarian.2 It is significant that in these and many other articles the terms “authoritarian”, “autocratic” and “non-democratic” are used virtually interchangeably. I shall argue below that this definition by opposition fails to get to the heart of what is distinctive about authoritarianism.
A second feature of the approach from democracy studies is a typology of authoritarian regimes, often according to their degree of distance from full democracy. So Larry Diamond distinguishes between competitive authoritarian regimes, hegemonic electoral regimes, and politically closed authoritarian ones.3 These last (sometimes called “full authoritarianism”) reject all electoral competition, while the first two are differentiated by the degree to which electoral competition is subverted, or merely distorted, compromised, or managed in some way. As Diamond admits, these distinctions constitute degrees along a spectrum of distance from democracy, and assigning countries to a particular category of authoritarianism is a matter of fine judgement.
1. Andreas Schedler, “The Menu of Manipulation,”Journal of Democracy 13.2 (2002): 36-50.
2. Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,”Journal of Democracy 13.2 (2002): 51-65.
3. Larry Diamond, “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,”Journal of Democracy 13.2 (2002): 21-35.
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Authoritarianism and Globalization in Historical Perspective Pedro Ramos Pinto, University of Cambridge or historians, just as much as for political scientists, the concept of authoritarianism is deeply bound up with the related ideas of democracy and, in particular, 20th century totalitarianism. In political science this has often evolved into debates over classification, e.g. what regimes were truly “totalitarian” or truly “fascist.” Yet, Fwhile issues of taxonomy are important when comparing nations quantitatively and synchronically, they become less salient when considering dynamics of change over time. Thinking historically about the relationship between authoritarianism and globalization, our attention is drawn away from fixed definitions and towards the ways in which regimes secure their authority over time. The way in which they do so develops in response to changing internal and external contexts and challenges, not least that of globalization. The idea of globalization has also been embraced by historians in recent years, but in ways that emphasize the evolving nature of transnational forces, linkages and flows since (at least) the last five centuries when not one, but several “globalizations” and “de-globalizations” are deemed to have taken place.1
This piece approaches these topics from the perspective of an historian—by focusing on processes of change—and in relation to two important but neglected dimensions: the engagement of authoritarian regimes in international systems, and the interaction between authoritarianism and global population movements.
In meeting the challenges of these transnational processes, the nature of regimes is necessarily transformed. Authoritarian regimes are successful first and foremost because they evolve. To capture these dynamics it is necessary to have more fine- grained tools than the binaries of authoritarian-non-authoritarian allow for, tools capable of taking change into account 1. Emma Rothschild, “Globalization and the Return of History,” Foreign Policy (1999): 106-116; David Armitage, “Is There a Prehistory of Globalization?” In Deborah Cohen, and Maura O’Connor (eds) Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-National Perspective (2004); Christopher Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (2003); and Christopher Bayly, “From Archaic Globalization to International Networks, Circa 1600–2000.” Interactions: Transregional Perspectives on World History” (2005): 1780-1914. (click to continue on page 14)
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Authoritarianism: Learning from Subnational Enclaves Kelly M. McMann, Case Western Reserve University n the first decade of the 2000s scholars focused their attention on not only authoritarian national regimes, but also “authoritarian” enclaves. “Authoritarian” enclaves are subnational territorial units that exhibit some non-democratic characteristics and that exist in countries with democratic, democratizing, or hybrid national regimes. These pockets are more accurately calledI “less democratic enclaves” because they exhibit some elements of democracy. Nonetheless, they are less democratic than the national government and also less democratic than, on average, the other subnational units in the country. Focused on the consolidation of democracy in countries, the study of enclaves has not yet extended to an examination of more democratic enclaves under authoritarian national regimes.
The work on enclaves to date does, however, offers useful insights for understanding authoritarianism. Specifically, it 1) suggests a refinement to the concept of authoritarianism, 2) reveals similarities between subnational and national authoritarianism, and 3) illuminates democratization of authoritarian regimes. This article elaborates on each of these points in order to suggest how the research on enclaves has the potential to enhance our understanding of authoritarianism.
Conceptualization of Authoritarianism The existence of enclaves challenges our conceptualization of authoritarianism as a national regime that exists uniformly throughout a country. Subnational democratization studies have shown that a country can be home to multiple subnational regime types and that a subnational regime type can differ from the national one. It would, therefore, be prudent for authoritarian regime typologies to incorporate the idea of territorial consolidation. In other words, to what extent does the national political regime extend throughout the subnational
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Like Oil and Water? Authoritarianism and Accountabilit y Andreas Schedler, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas A.C.
t first sight, authoritarianism and accountability look like oil and water. They won’t mix. Political accountability, we are inclined to think, is something that happens in democracies, while autocracies are places of opacity, oppression, arbitrariness, and impunity, that have no use and no tolerance for accountability. In the workshop from which thisA symposium developed, Marlies Glasius identified low accountability as a core property of authoritarian regimes. While intuitively appealing, this conceptual proposal needs to be qualified. In this essay, I introduce five qualifications: 1) Authoritarian regimes are defined by the absence of free and fair elections, which implies the absence of electoral accountability (or, at least, its structural weakness). It does not imply, however, the absence (or weakness) of all forms of political accountability. Quite to the contrary, authoritarian regimes tend to operate as dense systems of accountability. Everybody is subject to accountability, with one exception: the supreme ruler.1 2) While authoritarian regimes are unlikely to show high levels of governmental accountability, democracies may operate at low levels of accountability. Authoritarian and democratic regimes do not differ necessarily in their practices, but in their infrastructures of accountability. 3) As I proposed elsewhere, accountability involves answerability, which is, the obligation of power holders to inform about their decisions (transparency) and to explain them (justification). Authoritarian regimes may contain traces of answerability. 4) Accountability also involves enforcement, which is, the capacity to punish power holders for their errors and offenses.2 Authoritarian regimes can contain limited institutional mechanisms for punishing dictators. 5) Though not subject to firm institutional mechanisms of accountability, dictators do face violent threats of removal by state agents or societal actors. In a limited
1. My present discussion of authoritarianism involves two initial simplifications. First, by conceiving authoritarian regimes as a broad residual category, defined by the absence of democratic elections, I treat political regimes in dichotomous terms. On electoral democracy and electoral authoritarianism as intermediate regime types, and on the “essentially contested” nature of the boundary that separates them, see chapter three of Andreas Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting Electoral Authoritarianism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013). Second, I assume that the ultimate decision power in authoritarian regimes lies in the hand of a single person, which I call the ruler or dictator. Genuine collective leadership, I believe, is exceedingly rare in authoritarian regimes.
2. On this two-dimensional conceptualization of accountability as answerability plus enforcement, see Andreas Schedler, “Conceptualizing Accountability,” The Self- Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies, eds. Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999), pp. 13–28.
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Authoritarianism, Democracy and Repression Todd Landman, University of Essex he triumphalism after successive waves of democratization has turned to challenges of democratic consolidation and a renewed interest in the quality of democracy. The Arab Spring brought renewed excitement about the prospects of democracy in a region that had long seemed impervious to such changes. Subsequent developments in the region, however, alongT with the pervasiveness of authoritarian tendencies across old and new democracies, and the recalcitrance of authoritarianism in many parts of the world suggest that the field of comparative politics must not lose sight of the study of repression and coercion.
To frame the need for a much larger reengagement in this field of comparative politics, I present a series of eight stylized facts on repression with illustrative empirical referents. I argue that coercion and repression are common across all states democratic and authoritarian alike, the use of repression varies considerably across different types of authoritarian states, and the use of repression by authoritarian states varies over time. The challenge for systematic research on the contours of authoritarianism is to capture both the within-case and between-case variation in the use of repression.
1. All states use coercion The formation of modern states from smaller sets of political communities, clans, tribes and other aggregations has historically involved the consolidation of authority and ability to monopolise the use of force, coercion and repression. This process and understanding of coercion, and by extension repression, has been most notably expressed by Max Weber, but has appeared in the literature more generally on state formation and the rise of citizenship.1 For Robert Bates, the ability for a larger authority with the capacity to exercise violence over smaller component units provides economic benefit, since fewer resources within the smaller units are required for purposes of defence if a larger authority provides security. The story of European state formation follows this logic and combines the extension of rights protection over time, which are variously contested, negotiated and, mediated through peaceful, and at times, violent struggle.2 For contract theory inspired 1. Reinhard Bendix, Nation Building and Citizenship: Studies of Our Changing Social Order (New York: Wiley, 1964); Reinhard Bendix, Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); J.M. Barbalet, Citizenship: Rights, Struggle and Class Inequality (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1988); Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power: The Rise of Classes and Nation States, 1760-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Joe Foweraker and Todd Landman, Citizenship Rights and Social Movements: A Comparative and Statistical Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); and Robert Bates, Prosperity and Violence (New York: Norton, 2001).
2. Foweraker and Landman, 1997, 1-25. (click to continue on page 23)
From the Editorial Board, continued (continued from page 1)
can become more free in terms of deciding on consider legitimacy. Another line of inquiry of her project with us. their own futures. Many challenges remain, asks to what extent political authoritarianism and thus the study of dictatorships and of is bound to countries or also exists We hope and believe that this set of those who seek to prevent democracy from transnationally and subnationally. Pedro essays will help us to better conceptualize spreading is as important as studying positive Ramos Pinto examines the transnational authoritarianism and thus more effectively developments. angle, and I investigate the subnational one. investigate its manifestations, causes, and consequences. This issue of the newsletter seeks to The contributors first tackled these questions reconceptualize authoritarianism by tackling in a seminar held at the University of Forthcoming issues of the newsletter fundamental questions: to what extent are the Amsterdam in June of last year. The convener will examine internet politics, the role of features scholars have claimed to be distinctive of the seminar and guest editor of this issue, legislatures in stabilizing authoritarian to authoritarianism, such as social control and Marlies Glasius, introduces each of the regimes, and democratization and conflict. repression, also evident in democracies, Lisa essays in greater detail and situates them We hope you will find those issues as exciting Wedeen and Todd Landman ask, respectively. within a larger project she and colleagues as the present one. Conversely, to what degree can “democratic” are undertaking, entitled Authoritarianism characteristics, such as accountability and in a Global Age: Controlling Information legitimacy, be found in authoritarian regimes? and Communication, Association and People On Behalf of the Editorial Team, Andreas Schedler examines accountability Movement. We appreciate Dr. Glasius’ Kelly M. McMann while David Beetham and Dr. Wedeen willingness to share some of the initial fruits
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we need new approaches? reach of these elections through inter- Andreas Schedler and Todd Landman state agreements (such as NAFTA or help us think beyond the residual We redressed the dearth of contemporary the Eurozone), or outside accountability character of authoritarianism, and conceptual work on authoritarian mechanisms through the dictates of an the preoccupation with elections, rule in a seminar at the University of international organization (such as the towards a more substantive definition, Amsterdam (UvA) on 5-6 June 2014. IMF or NATO). Finally, concurrent looking at the specific character The seminar marked the kick-off of a with the trend towards supranational that, respectively, accountability and five-year project Authoritarianism in a decision-making, there is increasing repression take on under authoritarian Global Age: Controlling Information and evidence of the geographic unevenness rule. Schedler and Landman take as Communication, Association and People of democratic elections and respect for their points of departure that there is Movement at the UvA. (See project rights within states. no fundamental difference between website: aissr.uva.nl/authoritarian-global). democracy and authoritarianism when The over-arching question of the project A more conceptual focus on contemporary it comes to levels of accountability, or is: how is authoritarian rule affected authoritarianism reveals three levels of repression. Instead, Schedler by and responding to globalisation interlinked problems with the dominant sees authoritarianism as lacking an of information and communication, conceptualisation of authoritarianism: accountability infrastructure that association, and people movement? In the the fact that it is a residual rather than a democracies possess, but this does seminar, scholars of authoritarianism substantive definition; its reification of not imply that citizens in democratic reflected on whether authoritarian elections as sole touchstone to arbitrate contexts can and will always be calling rule is something besides the residual the division between authoritarian and their rulers to account. Landman argues other of democracy, considered to what democratic systems; and its exclusive that democracies lay greater claim to extent it is characterized by durable focus on the state as the locus of legitimacy for their repression than features or varies in time and space, authority in an age of globalization, authoritarian systems. and whether it makes sense to think of decentralisation and overlapping authoritarianism at levels other than competencies. The contributions to Wedeen in turn disputes this, pointing the sovereign state. This symposium this Symposium all address one or to both conceptual and epistemological presents revised versions of some of the more of these three flaws, opening problems with using legitimacy as the “thinkpieces” presented at the seminar. avenues towards a reconceptualization dividing line between regime types. of authoritarianism that gives greater The greater normative legitimacy of The most common, and little debated, validity and social relevance to the democracies, Wedeen argues, rests definition of authoritarianism remains concept in its contemporary context. on shaky, contested ground, whereas “a national regime type that fails to sociological legitimacy (i.e. consent) organize free and fair elections.” And, The Contributions to This Symposium poses an epistemological problem proponents of a Dahlian rather than The six brief articles in this Symposium because it mistakes an “ex-ante minimalist Schumpeterian version each make a distinctive contribution, psychological orientation of conformity” would add, “that fails to guarantee the and speak to each other in different for a “post-facto acceptance…by the rights necessary to enable elections to be ways, but they can be thought of voter.” Moreover, she contends, the free and fair.” But today, authoritarian as three pairs. David Beetham and contemporary manifestation of global regimes operate in a democratic age, Lisa Wedeen critically revisit the capitalism appears to be generating new causing many supposedly authoritarian classification of authoritarianism and mechanisms of social control, which are regimes to organize and manipulate, democracy as mutually exclusive regime common to both systems of rule. yet occasionally lose, elections. Other types, drawing attention to latent regimes such as Iran or Venezuela authoritarianism within established This is in keeping with the notion of heavily repress the enabling rights, democracies. Pedro Ramos Pinto a convergence between the formerly but nonetheless offer the electorate a and Kelly McMann highlight the opposite poles of democracy and meaningful choice between alternatives. temporal and spatial variation within authoritarianism under the influence of the authoritarian regime type, allowing “the increased globalization of the world At the same time, this is also a global age, us to see them as continually evolving economy under capitalist structures.”2 in which democratic regimes hold free and uneven, and containing hints as 2. Francesco Cavatorta, “The Convergence of Governance: Upgrading Authoritarianism in and fair elections but important areas to where and when democratization the Arab World and Downgrading Democracy of policy-making are placed beyond the and de-democratization originate. Elsewhere?” Middle East Critique (2010): 217-232.
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Another interpretation could be that the Rajapakse government in Sri authoritarian enclaves. Whereas economic globalization is not just Lanka (2005-2014) as an authoritarian Beetham and Ramos Pinto have drawn causing convergence, but also eroding mode (on Beetham’s metrics), that was attention to temporal variation within both authoritarian and democratic halted by the surprise victory of the what is ostensibly one regime type, rule in its familiar, twentieth century, opposition’s common candidate. McMann focuses on spatial, and indeed nationally-embedded form,3 giving spatial-temporal variation. While there rise to new forms of governance that The contribution by Ramos Pinto, is an increasing body of work on how we can apprehend under the rubric of a historian, helps us recognize the subnational authoritarian enclaves authoritarianism or democracy only by limitations of political science’s function, which is just beginning to re-examining these categories. static and statist understanding of move away from the “easy target” of authoritarianism. His answer to the federal states, we still know very little The examples Beetham provides in question “what explains authoritarian about whether democratic enclaves his piece also allude to an association survival?” is “authoritarian evolution in authoritarian states are viable. between de-democratisation and and adaptation.” Hence the study of She derives three lessons from the neoliberalism. Like Wedeen, he authoritarianism should prioritize the subnational literature for the study of moves away from authoritarianism dynamics of change over time rather authoritarianism more generally. First, and democracy as mutually exclusive than taxonomy. He also suggests a she counsels us not to be over-focused national regime types, but he takes a more substantive understanding of the on what happens in the capital, but different approach to characterizing variation between authoritarianism and instead, to think of a regime as the sum the distinctiveness of authoritarianism. democracy, reminding us of Charles of its parts. On that basis, the United He distinguishes authoritarianism from Tilly’s somewhat forgotten historic States, for instance, should be counted authoritarian regimes, and defines the model, which contains not just the as an “anocracy” in Polity’s terms or former as “a mode of governing which two familiar metrics of electoral choice “partly free” according to Freedom is intolerant of public opposition and and civil rights (or in Tilly’s terms, House for most of the twentieth dissent” and which works through consultation and protection), but two century due to the lack of free and fair repression and exclusion, but without, others as well: breadth, or the extent to elections in the South. But beyond at least at first, interfering with free which citizens are actually reached and such crude labels, Tilly’s metrics of and fair elections. He calls attention included by the state (bringing to mind breadth and equality might provide a to the governing project of such modes O’Donnell’s brown and blue zones) better basis for classifying such mixed of governing, i.e. the ideological and equality of treatment.4 In relation regimes. Second, the variation need motivations behind it, because this will to the statist charge, Ramos Pinto not be static: democratization and help us predict where the repressive draws attention to the untold history de-democratization may initially be and exclusionary tendencies will be of authoritarian diffusion and learning: subnational processes, which become concentrated: on the opposition found the transnational circulation of ideas, national via diffusion as much as via most threatening to the project. The technologies, expertise and experts, for intervention from the capital. The focus on authoritarianism as a possible instance but not exclusively, between relation between China and Hong Kong mode of governing within formally authoritarian regimes in what could has been a particularly eye-catching democratic electoral systems allows us to be called the “Latin Atlantic” between recent case of this tension. It can still spot trends of de-democratization and 1930 and 1980. turn into either a tolerated subnational possible re-democratization before they democratic enclave, or an instance of flip into a change of regime type. Thus McMann reflects on wider lessons forced subnational de-democratisation. we could for instance have recognized from the one exception to the national Third, the initially most obvious See also Oliver Dabène, Vincent Geisser, Gilles and residualist orientation of political difference between subnational and Massardier, Autoritarismes démocratiques et démocraties autoritaires au XXIe siècle (La Découverte: Paris, science research on authoritarianism: national authoritarianism, sovereignty, 2008). the burgeoning research on subnational may actually be less important in the
3. See Heydemann, cited above, making this 4. Charles Tilly, Democracy (London: Cambridge real world than political scientists have argument for authoritarianism, while Merkel, among University Press, 2007), 11-15 and Guillermo made it. On the one hand, while a others, has made it for democracy: Wolfgang Merkel, O’Donnell, “On the State, Democratization and state at the central level may have legal “Is Capitalism Compatible with Democracy?” Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft (2014) with Glances at Some Post-communist Countries” authority to intervene in the affairs of 8:109–128. World Development (1993): 1355-1369.
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a subnational enclave, it may not in constraints and underpinning legal Taking up transnational aspects of fact have the capacity to do so. In the systems together. Still, Landman sees authoritarian rule, Emanuela Dalmasso, other hand, states in the international more parallels than differences between Adele del Sordi, Marcus Michaelsen system may have formal sovereignty, regime types in how repression fits and Aofei Lv are investigating (1) but as Colonel Muammar Gaddafi within a broader spectrum of means how different authoritarian states most recently found, the weaker of control. Overt repression gets organize cooptation and repression of ones are not insulated from foreign used in crisis times, when stability is overseas citizens, (2) how, paradoxically, intervention aimed at regime change. challenged, but gives way to consensus authoritarian states cooperate at the Conversely, democratic tolerance of and bureaucratic government in calmer supranational level to achieve a more authoritarian entities also occurs both times. He also discerns variation not nationally controllable global Internet at the international level and within just in the level of repression but in its architecture and (3) how authoritarian states. institutionalization, i.e. the extent to and democratic states collaborate in the which it is arbitrary or systematized. war on terror, and how anti-terrorist Schedler applies his own classic This relates to the point about state cooperation affects our classifications. conceptualization of accountability, capacity, or Tilly’s breadth, also made originally developed to help gauge by McMann. Yet, problematizing A reconceptualization of authoritarianism the quality of democracy, explicitly his own pinpointing of legitimacy as should provide a yardstick by which to to authoritarianism, finding a much the difference between democratic judge claims such as the one that “the more complex relation than might and authoritarian use of repression, World Bank is authoritarian,” in a more be expected. He deviates from the Landman ends his contribution by meaningful way than concluding either previous writers (thereby conforming, drawing attention to international a) that the World Bank is not a state, in fact, to the dominant paradigm in cooperation—between formally democratic so the term does not apply, or b) the the literature) in that he does take as his and authoritarian states—in repression. World Bank does not hold free and fair point of departure that democracy and The most comprehensive and alarming elections, hence the characterization is authoritarianism are mutually exclusive phenomenon in this respect has been correct. If we think of authoritarianism national regime types. But while electoral what the Rendition Project has justly as a substantive rather than a residual accountability may be lacking, he shows termed the “global rendition system.”5 term, we should develop positive us that authoritarian regimes do have indicators that help us recognize it. various mechanisms of accountability, A Research Agenda While going beyond elections, we should especially upward and horizontal Together, these contributions begin to be able to distinguish authoritarianism accountability, with only the dictator show us the contours of a new research from neopatrimonialism and corruption largely exempt. In their practices, they agenda that would develop the concept from lack of state capacity or from do not necessarily do much worse than of authoritarianism in two directions: shortfalls in the rule of law. some democracies. The difference first, to give it more substance, focusing lies in the extent to which there is an on what authoritarianism is and does, Personally, I think that both denial of accountability infrastructure, which is rather than what it lacks or fall short downward accountability (or perhaps, much weaker, but not altogether absent, of; and second, to enable application of as Schedler insists, the absence of in authoritarian contexts. For Schedler, the concept to systems of governance an accountability infrastructure) and although many other institutions may other than states. This dovetails the violation of human rights most flow from them, this infrastructure in neatly with some of the empirical intimately connected to such denial democracies still begins and ends with work on which the researchers in the of accountability should be core free and fair elections. Authoritarianism in a Global Age project ingredients of such a redefinition. have embarked. Jos Bartman focuses My own thinking on this point is not Landman posits that repression is on repression within subnational completed, and certainly not ready to a crucial element of all statecraft, uncompetitive systems, whereas Kris move to operationalization. But there are but unlike Wedeen he believes that Ruijgrok considers the relationship literatures that can help with defining legitimacy for repression is what sets between new virtual tools for exercising authoritarianism in these directions. off democracies from authoritarian and circumventing surveillance and Conceptual research on transnational systems; this legitimacy is made up of repression, and protest behavior. accountability has developed criteria for representation, accountability, executive 5. www.therenditionproject.org.uk judging when there is an accountability
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relationship between power wielders to assess the quality of democracy experience of authoritarianism to and potential accountability holders, or to be developed and how complex a dummy variable, or even a single in other words ascertaining who, in a some of these measures have become. aggregated scale such as Polity or given case, might constitute the demos There are several decades and many Freedom House? I am hopeful that of particular decisions.6 Discerning efforts between the eight criteria for eventually, the effort to reconceptualise such a relationship is a prior step democracy developed by Downs or the may actually facilitate the development to determining what obligations two dimensions with eight institutional of a quality of authoritarianism scale, accountability entails, and recognizing guarantees developed by Dahl, and perhaps not at the level of sophistication whether it is being denied. Human recent projects such as the guide to of the democracy measurements cited, rights scholars (and even some human assessing democracy developed by but better than the residual measures rights jurisprudence) are clearing a path Beetham et al. or the Varieties of than we currently have. Such a scale towards recognizing rights violations Democracy (V-Dem) project.8 The should reflect the core commitments by systems of governance other than former discerns four categories in which of the reconceptualization, specifically the state.7 democracy should be assessed, with that authoritarianism is not a shortfall, fifteen over-arching questions, leading but a particular form of governance and Objections to a reconceptualization to 75 actual questions. Moreover, it still that systems of governance other than in both more transnational and more gives flexibility to in-country assessors the state can be authoritarian. substantive directions may raise doubts as to what to compare themselves as to whether it would ever lend itself to, and it refuses to aggregate the For now, the intention of this to operationalization. But this may just components. The V-Dem project, a symposium is to raise a debate, and to be a matter of investing more time and work in progress, distinguishes seven encourage scholars of authoritarianism effort. The social world is complex, and principles of democracy, consisting of to give more thought to what they requires complex concepts. Let us make 30 interlocking components, generating believe authoritarianism is, before the comparison to democracy studies a total of more than 400 indicators. jumping to investigating what causes, here, and call to mind just how long it erodes, or sustains it. has taken for more sophisticated efforts In the face of these developments, 6. See for instance Jennifer Rubenstein, does it still make sense to reduce the Marlies Glasius is Professor of “Accountability in an Unequal World” Journal of International Relations at the University Politics (2007): 616-632 and Matthias Koenig- 8. Anthony Downs, “An Economic Theory of Archibugi, “Accountability in Transnational Political Action in a Democracy” The Journal of of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on Relations: How Distinctive Is It?” West European Political Economy (1957): 135-150; Robert A. Dahl, authoritarianism, global civil society, Politics (2010): 1142-1164. Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971); David Beetham, international criminal justice, and human 7. See for instance Robert McCorquodale and Edzia Carvalho, Todd Landman & Stuart Weir, security. Richard Fairbrother, “Globalization and Human Assessing the Quality of Democracy: A Practical Guide Rights” Human Rights Quarterly (1999): 735-766; (Stockholm: International IDEA, 2008); and Robert McCorquodale and Rebecca La Forgia, Michael Coppedge et al., Varieties of Democracy “Taking off the Blindfolds: Torture by Non-State Methodology v2 September 2014-last update Actors” Human Rights Law Review (2001): 189-218; [Homepage of Varieties of Democracy Project: and John Gerard Ruggie, “Business and Human Project Documentation Paper Series], [Online]. Rights: The Evolving International Agenda”American Available: https://v-dem.net/ DemoComp /en/ Journal of International Law (2007): 819-840. reference/version-2-september-2014.
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generate important mechanisms of social part because autocracies tend on average to film, John Nada (Spanish for “nothing,” control common to both systems of rule. be poorer. And, in this market-dominated as Zizek amusingly notes) is a homeless era, it is not unusual for autocrats to laborer who finds work on a Los Angeles My objective here is thus two-fold. become brazen predators, treating nation- construction site. A coworker takes First, although authoritarian regimes are states like family tax farms, without him to a local shantytown to spend the more blatantly intolerant of dissent than the redistributive commitments of night. While being shown around, Nada democracies, these brief remarks invite 1950s authoritarianism, which provided observes strange behavior at a small consideration of the comparative efficacies significant social support to citizens. church. Investigating the next day, he of authoritarian versus democratic It would remain a mistake, however, to discovers boxes of sunglasses hidden in a modes of control. Second and relatedly, overdraw regime-type distinctions by secret compartment in the wall. When he I want to explore certain elements that ignoring the relevant dynamics of socio- tries on a pair, he sees that a billboard for authoritarian regimes and democracies political reproduction common to both. the company Control Data, which used have in common. Neither regime type to read, “We’re creating the transparent tolerates much dissent that falls outside In the contemporary period, we have seen computing environment,” now displays its respective definition of what counts as strategies of control based on obedience, the single word, “OBEY.” Another “loyal opposition,” although democracies’ whether in Eastern Europe or Southeast advertisement depicting a woman in a strategies of social control are often Asia or the Middle East, give way in red bikini with a wave breaking over more subtle and insidious. In the U.S. varying degrees to the discipline of market her, no longer urges the viewer, “Come historically, anarchist movements, mechanisms. Here novel modes of what to the… Caribbean,” but simply says, communist ideas and organizations, and Althusser called interpellation—new “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Paper civil rights or anti-war activists have ways of ‘hailing’ citizens, of constituting money bears the phrase “THIS IS mounted foundational challenges to the selves invested in novel forms of political YOUR GOD.” Unlike the rose-tinted regime. At the beginning of the uprisings domination and participation—emerge variety, these glasses force the wearer to in the Arab world, to take an especially across what seem to be authoritarian see, literally, the black-and-white truth. vivid contemporary example, foundational and democratic divides. The disciplinary It turns out that signs all around the threats came from crowds demanding the effects that may have originated in city enjoin people to “consume,” “buy,” toppling of regimes. In both cases, dissent the market orientation of modern and “conform.” Moreover, they say to deemed sufficiently dangerous to status democracies—the endless cultivation of people, “do not question authority.” quo stability was treated as intolerable, consumerist desire, driving ambitions for and then targeted by strategies of upward mobility, even the proliferation Nada’s sunglasses may block the sun, but preemptive cooptation, infiltration of so- of philanthropic organizations that they allow us to bear having our eyes opened called subversive organizations, and at champion citizen empowerment by to the glaring appearance of “dictatorship times violence and outright elimination. affirming the limits of citizens—have IN [a] democracy.” Seeing dictatorship become to a serious extent independent in democracy offers an antidote to the Snuffing out the dissent that breathes of regime type. New forms of contestation self-satisfactions and sense of superiority life into radical oppositional politics may are brought into being by these same that has informed some diagnoses of be easier for liberal democracies, which market generated effects, including the authoritarianism, ones that position the rely not only on brutal forms of coercive sort of millennial commitment that has West as the model and also, for some, the control such as maximum security prisons propelled young men from as far afield rescuer. The film demands recognition and capital punishment, but also on a as, say, Belgium, to go to Syria to fight of the authoritarian compulsions plethora of market-oriented dramas in on behalf of an ill-defined Islamic state, within nominally democratic systems. which pleasure “payoffs,” debt worries, motivated presumably by conditions of promises of upward mobility, and appeals alienation that traverse regime difference. Seeing the light in this way has to individual responsibility work to Commonalities of autocracy and democracy implications for our research agendas. generate attachments to the system even in the current era of consumer capitalism We need to counter a variety of scholarly when that system no longer affirms the are captured compellingly in Slavoj predilections (at least in political well-being of those who remain invested Zizek’s reading of John Carpenter’s science). I have in mind the penchant in it.2 Authoritarian counterparts usually 1988 film, They Live.3 The hero in the for privileging elections in circumstances repress without the same degree of 3. Slavoj Zizek calls the film, in a moment of where electorates are themselves cowed seductive efficacy democracies enjoy, in unfortunate hyperbole, “one of the neglected and choices significantly constrained; for masterpieces of the Hollywood Left,” a film attentive 2. See Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism (Durham and to class conflict that offers a “true lesson” in the study http://www.lacan.com/essays/?page_id=397, last London: Duke University Press, 2011). of ideology, Zizek “Denial: The Liberal Utopia,” accessed 11 April 2015.
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celebrating the freedom we find in the occasioned some of the most flagrant personal, and fetishized powers to United States, with the largest number instances of intolerance for dissent on reproduce their rule. The predilection of of incarcerated people in the world;4 the part of “democratic” regimes, the Weberians to call authoritarian regimes for failing to unpack theoretically the subsequent rise of neoliberal capitalism “neo-patrimonial” or “traditional” does a proliferating euphemisms that signal since the end of the Cold War has allowed disservice to the legal-rational dimensions their opposite—such as “no child left institutionally disparate regimes to rely of autocratic rule (including cynical behind,” or homophobic groups calling on novel and similar market-based tools deployments of the rule of law) while also for “human rights,” “tea parties” in of control. An emphasis on social control foreclosing considerations of how personal which the point of representation is to also enables us to chart processes of power connections turn the “revolving door” of try to do away with taxation, or judicial that are insinuating and yet fundamental, government-business relations in nominal arguments that in the name of racial bridging the divide between regimes that democracies, guaranteeing that regulators equality reproduce the conditions of adhere to procedural democracy and those and regulated are often one and the same. racial oppression.5 In addition to noting that might be termed “second-generation” the way such misleading political autocracies. This is not to argue that Moreover, as important as the term language resembles the more blatantly there are no persistent differences or that legitimacy was to Weber, it is beset by a fictitious claims of authoritarian rule, we differences are politically unimportant. number of problems, both conceptual and also need to think about the institutional Drawing attention to market orientations ethical, which social scientists continue mechanisms operating in democracies, toward the “good life,” as Lauren Berlant to reproduce. A key problem is the way which effectively discourage the very urges us to do, nevertheless permits us to Weber’s attempt to render legitimacy, dissent we admonish autocracies for see how citizens in both regime types can in Hanna Pitkin’s words, a “pure label, combatting more overtly. Demonstrations be, in Zizek’s example of Nada, coerced neutral with respect to the speaker’s in the United States against the war in to conform, slumber, fail to question position and commitment” winds up Vietnam achieved the magnitude they did authority, and obey. Market liberalization obscuring the difference between what in large part because of the draft. Looking also seems to be structuring the terms is lawful, exemplary, and binding and back from our point of view in the within which much protest takes place. what is commonly considered lawful, present, the effect of the demonstrations Demonstrations against austerity exemplary, and binding.6 The result can was not to do away with the military measures or the ways in which political be troubling, for in failing to take on “the industrial complex, but to prompt a organizing can be increasingly likened to commitment and responsibility implied new system of military recruitment, and “branding” make a visionary oppositional in the word’s signaling functions,” social as a result, to encourage the cessation politics rare because it is now so difficult scientists using the term have seemed to of sustained protest against militarism. to imagine alternatives to capitalism. And suggest that even a regime as oppressive Authoritarian regimes are more likely strategies perhaps coincident with but as Nazi Germany’s can be deemed to continue to conscript and punish— importantly somewhat distinct from the legitimate because the system was often an unabashedly cruel and arguably less market, as in the example above about considered to be lawful and binding. effective way of managing populations. ending the draft after Vietnam, have Social scientists assume the position also helped reproduce militarism without of an outside observer looking in, and To summarize thus far, before thinking as much risk to American lives which is legitimacy really comes to be “so-called of authoritarianism as fundamentally what at one time generated conditions legitimacy” or what informants, subjects, other to democracy, we need to consider for far-reaching, profound rebellion. respondents, natives call legitimacy. the mechanisms of social control through As Pitkin writes: “it is as if Weber has which people in both systems are A tempting counter argument to the one defined ‘red’ to mean ‘having the status of interpellated into systems of risk, pleasure, above might call on Weber’s exceptionally being considered red’, or ‘false’ to mean and quiescence. Although the Cold War influential typological distinctions in ‘having the liability of being considered 4. International Centre for Prison Studies, “Prison Economy and Society: that is, whatever contrary to truth.’” In at least one passage, Population Total,” http://www.prisonstudies.org/ highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total, accessed the apparent similarities, authoritarian Weber explicitly makes this equation 15 January 2015. and democratic regimes tend to rely on himself, apparently without any sense different types of legitimacy. But Weber 5. Consider Chief Justice John G. Roberts’ famous 6. Hanna Fenichel Pitkin, Wittgenstein and Justice sentence from his 2007 opinion that limited the use himself recognized that legal-rational, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993 of race to achieve integration in public schools in the traditional, and charismatic forms could (with new preface), 281-282. See also John H. Schaar, U.S.: “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of be blended in actual regimes, which in “Reflections on Authority.”New American Review 8 race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” (1970), pp. 44-80, especially p. 48. And his Legitimacy Thanks are owed to Jennifer Pitts for reminding me truth rely on a variety of proceduralist, in the Modern State (Transaction Books, 1981). of this example. 10 Vol. 13, No. 2 Comparative Democratization June 2015
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of the slippage. He writes that the state Weber (and for many who use his notion of attached to even its flagrant fictions, “is a relation of men dominating men, a legitimacy) state sovereignty in particular however little they may believe in them, relation supported by means of legitimate is elided with ethical notions of the good. and active in various forms of what Jean violence (i.e. violence considered to be In a social scientific version of the old Comaroff has aptly called “fascism lite.” legitimate).”7 To put it differently, Weber adage, “might makes right,” might is at takes a term whose signaling functions once the state (in all of its coercive glory) The easy identification of legitimacy were legal-ethical (based on an external and people’s presumed endorsement of it. with consent is problematic for our standard) and makes them sociological understandings of democratic order as well, (based on what is locally, or in a specific These ethical concerns are amplified by because the conflation tends to mistake historical epoch, considered to be methodological ones. Defining legitimacy the willingness of people to conform with appropriate), and in doing so produces as “being considered binding” begs the the trappings of majority rule, thereby a host of problems for social science. questions: On whom? By whom? By confusing an ex-ante psychological what means can the researcher know orientation of conformity for a post-facto Of course Weber did not invent this what people consider binding, or which acceptance of that standard by the voter. redefinition out of whole cloth. The term populations do so? Few researchers Social scientists who attempt to focus “legitimacy” whose Latin etymology and who invoke legitimacy pose such on democratic legitimacy by treating it ongoing uses refer to law and legality questions or see them as thorny. For in terms of electoral procedures likewise offers no external standard that is objective those accustomed to conducting opinion neglect issues central to the maintenance or independent of context. Indeed, even polls, such questions might seemingly of contemporary political order—issues “red” relies on some agreement about be answered by simply asking people— of apathy and despair, for example, or the how we make reference to colors, how but that just takes us back to the ethical ways in which democratic regimes also rely variations in light are distinct from each dimension of the problem, the collapse on potent mechanisms of coercive control. other in terms of what we call them, as of moral authority into public opinion. Pitkin surely knows. More importantly, In this sense, the problem is not that social the critique may not get at the tensions in Finally, the conceptual and methodological scientists are too normatively disengaged, the very concept of “legitimacy” prior to problems bedeviling legitimacy come to but rather that they are not sufficiently Weber, the ways in which its associations be intertwined with an epistemological aware of their normative commitments. with law have always made it suggestive problem: Scholars understand subjects Strategies used by autocratic regimes of a universal standard and its parochial as considering a government or a law to cultivate obedience and manage instantiations—where the question of legitimate if they act as if they do. This subversion may appear especially blatant say, the Law or natural law or the law of conflation of legitimacy with manifest and brittle, but unwitting normative nations is itself tethered to parochial laws obedience, which might signal acceptance, commitments stand in the way of needed or local statutes. Despite these caveats, acquiescence, consent and/or, indeed, work on the forms of temporally specific what remains relevantly troublesome for outward obedience, is troublesome for socio-political regulation common our purposes here is two-fold: first, that research on any political regime. In to autocracies and democracies alike. a concept signaling normative standards the context of studying authoritarian Generating a language that at least can be made to seem neutral, thereby regimes, the problem with thinking in acknowledges discomfiting homologies masking the scholar’s convictions and this way may be particularly stark. Such across regime type may help to make clearer the responsibility of judgment these studies often fail to distinguish between the stakes in the analytic distinction— commitments entail. Second, that for public dissimulation of loyalty or belief, forcing us to confront and analyze the on the one hand, and real loyalty or gap between scholarly idealizations and 7. Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and eds. From Max belief—however that might be measured the troubled worlds to which they refer. Weber (New York: Galaxy, Oxford University Press, or determined—on the other. That all 1958), p. 78. The original German is “auf das Mittel citizens are capable of reproducing a Lisa Wedeen is the Mary R. Morton der legitimen (das heist: al legitim angesehnen) Gewaltsamkeit gestütz, also cited in Pitkin 282 and regime’s formulaic slogans, for example, Professor of Political Science and the College from “Politik als Beruf,” in Johannes Winckelmann, tells us mainly that the regime is capable and the Co-Director of the Chicago Center ed., Gesammelte Politische Schriften (Tubingen; J.C. B Mohr [Paul Siebeck], p. 1958, p. 493. Thanks of enforcing obedience on the level of for Contemporary Theory at the University are owed to Don Reneau for his help in thinking outward behavior. This insight is not meant of Chicago. Her works include Ambiguities through the subtle differences between the English to imply that citizens under autocratic of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and and the German. Arguably, the German is even more forceful in demonstrating Pitkin’s point than the rule cannot be devoted to the regime, Symbols in Contemporary Syria (1999). English.
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A third distinctive feature of the occurring in a democratic political system. some claim, only ones that can hinder or democracy studies approach is an analysis My definition of it would be a mode of frustrate its governing project. As Andrew of transition, in particular of which types governing which is intolerant of public Gamble has ably shown in his book The of authoritarian regime are most likely to opposition and dissent. Such a mode of Free Economy and the Strong State, a neo- transit to a democratic one, as opposed governing is likely to occur whenever rulers liberal agenda is only possible where the to remaining stably authoritarian or believe that public opposition will unduly state enjoys a decisive concentration of collapsing into another authoritarian limit either the extent of their power or power, both to neuter sources of opposition regime. Here more qualitative typologies the prospects for its perpetuation. It is a and to deal with the consequent social of authoritarian regime are needed, reasonable assumption that all rulers, in unrest.6 As a Chilean friend of mine not ones based solely on their distance whatever kind of system, dislike limits remarked with some amazement, what in from democracy. So Barbara Geddes on their power and wish to ensure its Chile required the Pinochet dictatorship distinguishes between personalist, durability. Yet a shift to authoritarianism to achieve, in Britain could be carried out military, and single-party regimes; and only happens where rulers see public within a formally democratic system. But she shows from comprehensive country opposition as a major threat to the extent the ejection of Mrs. Thatcher from office data that military regimes are the most or continuation of their power, and in 1990 at the hands of her own ministers fragile and single-party regimes the believe that they can work to undermine under the prospect of electoral defeat most enduring, with personalist regimes it with relative impunity. We do not showed that the integrity of the electoral falling somewhere in between the two.4 have to assume that they are necessarily system was still respected. Axel Hadenius and Jan Teorell combine motivated by a desire for power for its these distinctions with Diamond’s own sake, much less that their actions Other more contemporary examples of “distance from democracy” criterion stem from an “authoritarian personality.” authoritarianism within a democracy to arrive at a five-fold typology of It is enough that they believe that their would be those of President Recep Tayyip autocratic (i.e. authoritarian) regimes: governing project, whatever that happens Erdogan in Turkey and Prime Minister monarchy, military, no-party, one-party, to be, is essential to the country, and Narendra Modi in India (or more precisely and limited multi-party. They conclude that it requires them to remove potential his time as chief minister in the state of from comparative regime data that the limits on the extent or duration of their Gujarat). I have read numerous journal one most likely to transit to democracy power. (They may of course be mistaken and newspaper articles describing their is “a limited multi-party system without a in these beliefs). mode of governing as “authoritarian.” We dominant party.”5 are all familiar I am sure with Erdogan’s It follows that an authoritarian mode of treatment of opposition and dissent in Now I do not wish to deny the value of governing is possible within a democratic Turkey. Here is what one Indian academic these approaches to authoritarian regime system, though it only remains democratic writes about Modi’s method of governing analysis from a democracy perspective. so long as elections are genuinely “free in Gujurat, from which he deduces how Yet their starting point, of defining an and fair”, and formal civil and political he can be expected to govern India as a authoritarian regime by the absence rights are respected. Margaret Thatcher’s whole: “It involves a form of capitalism of some key democratic feature, seems government would be one example. After which promotes and incentivises big to me inadequate. Not all deviations the election of 1983 her rule became business, keeps wages low and suppresses from democracy make a political increasingly authoritarian as she moved workers” action, represses popular regime authoritarian (consider, for to demobilise all sources of opposition— movements and cracks down on dissent.”7 example, limitations on the suffrage, the within the trade unions, local authorities, The governing project of both premiers gerrymandering of district boundaries, cultural institutions, the civil service, the is in fact similar, and can be described or other deviations from “free and fair” cabinet, and her own party. She achieved as “breakneck capitalist development electoral practice). Moreover, if we are this through a combination of repression combined with a strong element of to take the term authoritarianism as (the trade unions) and exclusion— religious revivalism.” Other examples our subject, rather than “authoritarian exclusion from positions of influence of of authoritarianism within a genuinely regime,” then it is possible to envisage it all those who were “not one of us.” She competitive electoral regime would be the would have seen this as necessary for what administrations of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki 4. Barbara Geddes, “What Do We Know about Democratization after Twenty Years?” Annual Review became her governing project: to drive in Iraq and Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, of Political Science 2 (1999): 115-44. through a neo-liberal agenda on a largely 6. Andrew Gamble, The Free Economy and the Strong sceptical electorate. Authoritarianism State (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988). 5. Axel Hadenius and Jan Teorell, “Pathways from Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy 18.1 (2007): is not hostile to all forms of freedom as 7. Jayati Ghosh, “A bullying sort of win,” The 143-56. Guardian, 17 May 2014, 34. 12 Vol. 13, No. 2 Comparative Democratization June 2015
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both devoted to securing hegemony for in which the rulers do not have to worry authoritarianism to take place within a their mode of Islam by means of the about any electoral price or penalty to be democratic system where the conditions repression and exclusion of dissenting incurred by their authoritarianism because I have outlined above exist. Most of the forces. the electoral opposition is either weak or examples I have given relate to political divided, or both, and there is therefore no systems at the national level, though What is meant by “exclusion” in this compelling need for interference in the relatively autonomous regions may also context? What makes authoritarian integrity of the electoral system. That was show the same features, as the example of exclusion different from an established the situation of Thatcher after 1983; of Modi in Gujarat demonstrates. This leads process in some democracies whereby Erdogan, as the most recent local elections me to a final question: what implications an elected government has the right to results in Turkey show; and of Modi in does my analysis of authoritarianism have change the personnel throughout the Gujurat, and then with the stunning for the study of authoritarian regimes? administration on taking up office, to the national electoral victory and the disarray Some brief points will suffice: exclusion of opposition sympathisers? The of the Congress Party in India. Morsi and difference is that this is a rule-governed Maliki both felt themselves secure enough • It makes better sense to define process, which has the consent of all that they could only be removed by extra- authoritarianism as I have done as political actors. Authoritarian exclusion, constitutional intervention, domestic and intolerance of opposition or dissent, by contrast, is not based on rules or external respectively. rather than by the particular institutional consent. It seeks to render dissenters instrumentalities through which that impotent by denying them access to any Of course authoritarianism within an intolerance is realised, because these influence on the political process; it even impeccably democratic electoral regime instrumentalities may well vary from goes so far as to define them as non- can be regarded as exceptional, and one case to the next, and lead to legitimate players in the country’s affairs also time-bound. In most countries the insoluble disagreements about how (as, for example, Margaret Thatcher disabling of opposition by government authoritarianism should be defined. categorised the striking miners and even is only possible where limits on that the opposition Labour Party itself as “the opposition are effectively institutionalised, • We should pay attention to the substance enemy within”). It is no coincidence that through formal restrictions on civil of authoritarianism rather than just its strongly majoritarian democratic systems, and political rights (particularly the procedures or instrumentalities—to what with no effective separation of powers freedoms of expression and association), I have called its governing project— between executive and legislature, are subordination of the judiciary to the because this may well help us understand particularly prone to a “winner takes all” executive, or manipulation of the electoral which forms of opposition are likely to mentality, and vulnerable to authoritarian process, or a combination of all three. be seen as most threatening, and what deformations. And this has particularly Usually these three forms of institutional the instrumentalities are that can best fateful consequences in countries divided constraint are found together, as even demobilise it. by relatively permanent identities based elections which appear to be formally on language, religion, or ethnicity, as the “free and fair” within the electoral • Finally it suggests the possibility examples of Iraq and Egypt demonstrate. period cease to be so if the opposition of a fruitful comparison between is constantly hampered in campaigning authoritarianism in democratic and non- These significant examples allow or its key personnel are charged with democratic systems, in which the former us to postulate what are the typical offences of doubtful validity. It is these stand out as not requiring infringements of circumstances in which an authoritarian institutionalised constraints which turn electoral integrity to ensure continuance mode of governing can take place within an authoritarian mode of governing into of the governing project, while the latter an impeccably democratic electoral an authoritarian regime. can only ensure its continuation through regime. It requires a combination of push various forms of electoral malpractice or and pull. The pull factor is an ambitious So in summary I would argue that suppression. governing project which requires for its the relation between authoritarianism success the disabling if not the suppression and democracy is not exhausted by an David Beetham is Emeritus Professor of of those social forces that stand in its way. antithesis between the authoritarian Politics at University of Leeds. The second It is this project that explains the social regime and the democratic one, as edition of his book The Legitimation of oppositions which have to be disabled. the writers summarised on the first Power was published in 2013. The push factor is a political situation page assert. It is perfectly possible for
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even as regimes continue to retain their to the critical issue of change dear to The particular arrangements of essential authoritarian nature. historians. Historical sociologists, more each regime depend on its historical than historians tout-court, have been trajectory, on the balance of forces Thinking historically about globalization particularly attentive to the historicity between social actors within it, and also directs our attention to the shifting of regime forms. While Barrington on the capacity of the state to enforce position of nations in a global system Moore’s foundational work in this its authority. All of these factors are, and the changing nature of the flows area focused more on the origins of naturally, liable to be influenced by and interactions between them, so that authoritarianism than its evolution or external factors that could come under we can say that global processes affect nuances, the challenge of accounting the heading of globalization, from war to states differentially according to their for dynamics of change has been taken trade to environmental change. At some location: migration, for instance, raises up in two extensive bodies of work point when a given regime conducts distinct challenges for labor-exporting that take a global perspective on such these four types of relationships countries and for those which are themes, those of Michael Mann and towards the ‘more’ end (more breadth, importers of labor, as discussed below. Charles Tilly. The latter’s relational more equality, more protection and Equally, challenges facing regimes regime model offers a particularly useful more consultation) we begin to differ according to their place in broader framework with which to approach the describe them as democratic. Yet the geo-strategic systems such as the global issue of authoritarian evolution in a boundary between authoritarianism and Cold War—Cuba’s relationship to the global context.3 Tilly’s model sees both democracy conceived in these terms is USSR was naturally distinct from that authoritarian and democratic regimes as fluid, and nations can de-democratize of Albania’s. The variability across variations on a spectrum combining at as well democratize while remaining in time and space of the influence of a least four areas of relationship between the zone of authoritarianism. particular type of globalization on any states and populations: regime, authoritarian included, means The temporality inherent in that their responses will be equally a) the degree of inclusivity of the Tilly’s model is particularly useful diverse. ‘citizen’ category (breadth) when considering the responses of authoritarian regimes to the challenges Highlighting issues of change, b) the extent to which citizens are of globalization; in adapting to them variability, and the importance of equal/unequal in relation to both each regimes may become more inclusive context are some of the means by which other and treated as such by the state or responsive in one area as a means historians can contribute to the way the (equality) of securing legitimation (both external social sciences engage with the more or internal), whilst preserving abstract concepts of authoritarianism c) the degree to which citizens are authoritarian power in other areas. The and globalization.2 Yet, the historical protected from arbitrary action from model is also neutral as to causes— perspective’s ambition to map the the state (protection) being more of a dynamic typology particular and historians’ aversion than a theory of regime types and to generalization can, if taken to an d) the extent to which there are change—which also allows us to use it extreme, result in the kind of project mechanisms of binding consultation in an open-ended way to develop and satirized in Umberto Eco’s essay on the (consultation) compare multiple causal hypothesis and difficulties of creating a 1:1 map of the broader theories. world. At any one point in time a given regime can be characterized by how it The paragraphs that follow explore some Focusing on what regimes do, rather conducts each of these relationships— of the ways in which we can use Tilly’s than what they are is a way out of this how inclusive it is and the terms of model to think historically about the problem of perspective, allowing us to that inclusion, comprising both issues effects of globalization on authoritarian relate the ideal types of political science of distribution and legal process; and regimes. Yet, a word of warning—this 2. For a lucid statement of the importance of the the extent to which it is responsive to cannot be taken as a comprehensive historical perspective to understand contemporary interests and demands of its population. survey of History’s engagement with global processes, including in the ways highlighted here, see Michael Woolcock, Simon Szreter, and 3. This model is presented in a number of his the questions of authoritarianism Vijayendra Rao. “How and Why Does History works, but perhaps most succinctly in Charles Tilly, and of globalization, both extensive Matter for Development Policy?” Journal of Democracy (London: Cambridge University Press, Development Studies 47.1 (2011): 70-96. 2007), pp.11-15. subjects of scholarship. Not even of the
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field of the history of authoritarianism the international order of the two power include healthcare, pensions and other and globalization which, although blocs was of critical importance in forms of social insurance or protection. much smaller, is still wider than this creating, supporting and (in some cases) The introduction of social policies short essay allows. Instead, as a way transforming authoritarian regimes in by authoritarian regimes can expand of example it explores two topics their orbit has been the subject of recent the category of citizen, by covering within globalization—internationalism syntheses that also draw attention to new populations (Tilly’s dimension and global migrations—seldom the capacity of the periphery of the of breadth); it can alter the internal considered but relevant to contemporary Cold War to influence developments in dynamics of relations between citizens authoritarianisms. the “core.”5 But of increasing resonance (equality). Of course, authoritarian in a multipolar world are cases of welfare systems can, and often are, used Authoritarian Internationalism “horizontal internationalism” between to generate new types of inequality, even Nationalism was a key axis for authoritarian regimes. On one hand, as they include a broader proportion authoritarian legitimation and political this describes diplomatic and political of the population and, in some cases, mobilization in the 19th and 20th interactions between regimes on a more ameliorate the overall impact of social centuries, as it was for liberal, civic even plane than the vertical influence deprivation. For instance, authoritarian nationalism. It was also a political of the global superpowers, as in the welfare systems can help legitimate language that became quickly global, cases of the mid-20th century non- and sustain authoritarian regimes, aided by the reach of European aligned movement or pan-Africanism. establishing clientelistic relations with empires. But while nationalism is On the other, it also describes a much that Partha Chatterjee has termed today understood as a transnational broader transnational circulation of “political society” as opposed to the phenomenon, we have been perhaps ideas, policies, and expertise between western liberal ideal of a “civil society.”7 slower at exploring the history of authoritarian states. authoritarianism in a similar light. My own current research explores The universalism of democracy This second mode of horizontal the transnational circulation of ideas, and the diffusion of democratic internationalism is as critical as technologies, expertise and experts constitutionalism are well-rehearsed the first when thinking about between authoritarian regimes in what topics, but the way in which authoritarian adaptation and long- could be called “Latin Atlantic” between authoritarian regime forms have crossed term survival. One area provides 1930 and 1980—Brazil, Argentina, the national boundaries and been adapted an apt example encompassing both Iberian countries and Italy (until the and transformed into local contexts is issues of transnational diffusion and fall of Mussolini).8 Regimes in this less well studied—with the possible regime transformation—authoritarian transnational political and social space exception of work on global dimensions social policy. A recent survey shows suffered significant transformations of communism and international how, globally and historically, non- in this half century that took them socialism. Examination of the question democratic regimes have most often through various forms of state-society of what could be called “authoritarian been the first to introduce welfare relations that would be difficult to internationalism” has been rare. systems in their territories.6 These pin down to even rather sophisticated 5. Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, models of regime-type—personalism, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism Like other states, authoritarian regimes (New York: Macmillan, 2006); Melvyn P. Leffler and bureaucratic authoritarianism, military have had to negotiate their position and Odd Arne Westad (eds.) The Cambridge History of Buffett Center for International and Comparative the Cold War, Vols 1 and 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge Studies, Northwestern University, accessible at: exchanges in a globalizing world. To do University Press, 2012); Odd Arne Westad, The http://www.bcics.northwestern.edu/documents/ so, internationalism—understood as Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the workingpapers/CHSS-12-005-Forrat.pdf. “an idea, a movement, or an institution Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); and Odd Arne Westad, 7. Partha Chatterjee, The Politics of the Governed: that seeks to reformulate the nature of Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750 (New Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World relations among nations through cross- York: Basic Books, 2012). (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004). national cooperation and exchange”— 6. Isabela Mares and Matthew E. Carnes. “Social 8. The international dimensions of fascism have is not a strategy available exclusively Policy in Developing Countries,” Annual Review of been the subject of a few studies, the most recent 4 Political Science 12 (2009): 93-113. For a survey of being Federico Finchelstein, Transatlantic Fascism: to liberal regimes. The ‘top-down’ political and social sciences (lack of ) engagement Ideology, Violence and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, internationalism of the Cold War, where with the ‘authoritarian welfare state’ see Natalia 1919-1945 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010) 4. Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Forrat, “The Authoritarian Welfare State: a and David Aliano, Mussolini’s National Project in Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Marginalized Concept,” Working Paper No. 12-005 Argentina (Madison: Farleigh Dickinson University 1997), p.3. (2012) CHSS Working Paper Series, the Roberta Press, 2012).
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dictatorship, or populist presidentialism. now) when international organizations entitlements, in this case between rural It would be easy to get tied up in placed a low premium on democracy and urban populations, and tied them categorization and periodization of as a condition for membership or as a to local systems of state provision. regime types without acknowledging necessary part of development. (Benefits were more generous in the fundamental continuities and evolutions urban areas so as to reward managerial in these regimes. One of the evolving Authoritarianism and Global Migration and skilled working-class workers). In features of these regimes was their Another topic linking the evolution of the last twenty or so years, the explosion construction of systems of welfare and authoritarian regimes to transnational of rural to urban migration, tolerated economic management that, aside from processes is global migration. In my and necessary, but not officially specificities of regime type, evolved own area of expertise, three features sanctioned, has left millions in the grey to condition state-society relations appear relevant. There is no doubt that area of not being officially local citizens and social inequalities throughout the Southern European dictatorships of the of the areas they moved to, and therefore middle of the 20th century, shaping twentieth century relied on emigration unable to access welfare, housing, the legacies that have endured beyond as an escape valve for social tensions legal system, and at the mercy of the democratization. Elsewhere I have in their countries. Officially illegal, authorities who often deport large argued that the development of migration was nevertheless tolerated as groups back to the provinces when they systems of social citizenship combining way of relieving unemployment and rural become troublesome. In this case, Tilly’s influences from fascist corporatism poverty and a welcome source of foreign dimensions of breadth and equality of and from international organizations currency in the form of remittances. citizenship came into play. Inequality, partially account for the persistence Migrant communities (Portuguese in initially designed by the Communist of the Iberian authoritarianism in the Brazil, Italians in Brazil and Argentina) Chinese state to incorporate and gain the second half of the 20th century.9 were also important in supporting the loyalty of professional and managerial kinds of transnational authoritarianism groups, was overtime transformed into The key question my works follow discussed above by creating local a system with different functions. After is how the production of a form of “chapters” devoted to the dissemination a rapprochement with the West in the authoritarian internationalism in this of authoritarian ideology. Yet, at the 1970s, when China entered the global period shaped the evolution of the same time emigration was not without economy and re-directed its efforts political regimes that connected to these its risks: it was in some ways an exercise towards export-led growth, the hukou global processes. The welfare regimes of in “exit,” in Albert Hirschman’s sense of was used to ensure that a growing countries in the “Latin Atlantic” have the term, that also revealed the failure industrial labor force would place often been noted for their structural of the regimes to address the problems only limited demands on the state by similarities. But the origins of these that provoked. Migration is also rarely a excluding them from more generous similarities lies not in a primordial one-way ticket, and returning migrants ‘urban’ rights. At the same time hukou shared culture, but in the way in which bring with them ideas, information, was a means to control the industrial the countries in question were embedded and expectations that can also be a labor force, since troublemakers could in multiple global networks, not all of challenge to authoritarian regimes. always be removed from cities on account which were “authoritarian”. Besides of not possessing the required residence the authoritarian internationalism Migration within and into nations permit, even as millions around them mentioned above, they were also shaped controlled by authoritarian regimes were tolerated for the sake of staffing in interaction with North America and is another important area to consider, China’s booming economy. China has Europe powers, or with international namely bringing large populations also recently announced sweeping organizations, from the United Nations under the jurisdiction of states that reforms to the hukou system, which will to the World Health Organization. deny them the status (and rights) of make it easier for many to access urban Critically, however, these regimes citizenship. We can observe this in citizenship, especially in smaller, mid- engaged with them as authoritarian the contemporary Gulf States, but sized cities.10 These measures were to regimes albeit at a time (perhaps like also in the Chinese hukou system of 10. Dorothy J. Solinger, Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State and the 9. Pedro Ramos Pinto “Everyday Citizenship under registration. Created in 1958 as a tool Logic of the Market (Berkley: University of California Authoritarianism: the Cases of Spain and Portugal,” of development planning, hukou was Press, 1999); Feng Wang, “Boundaries of Inequality: in Francesco Cavatorta (ed.) Civil Society Activism a system that established categories Perceptions of Distributive Justice Among Urbanites, under Authoritarian Rule: A Comparative Perspective Migrants, and Peasants’”Centre for the Study of (2012). of citizens with differentiated Democracy Working Papers, UC Irvine (2007),
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a large extent driven by the fear that longer histories of migration have the evolution of regimes in response growing inequality would undermine affected authoritarian regimes are not to challenges—both internal and the regime’s legitimacy, but even as a way to diminish the novelty of the external—and towards analytical tools China expands the breadth of its most challenges posed by contemporary sensitive to such processes of change. inclusive mode of citizenship and seeks processes of globalization. Yet neither to generate a degree of equality, party does looking to the past interaction Perdo Ramos Pinto is Lecturer in rule remains an untouchable feature of between local powers and global International Economic History at the the regime, at least for the time being. processes offer ready-made models University of Cambridge. He is co-editor for their future development. But of The Impact of History: Histories Closing Remarks this exercise does help us understand at the Beginning of the 21st Century Looking at past instances of the genealogies of present-day (2015) and author of Lisbon Rising: authoritarian internationalism or how authoritarianism and how their nature Urban Social Movements in the http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1v62q8pw [accessed has been influenced by past forms of Portuguese Revolution, 1974-1975 23 December 2014]. Charlotte Goodburn, “The End of the Hukou System? Not Yet” University of engagement with global processes. (2013). Nottingham China Policy Institute Policy Papers And, this may offer clues as to the ways 2014, No.2: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cpi/ they do so in the present. Perhaps most documents/policy-papers/cpi-policy-paper-2014-no- 2-goodburn.pdf [accessed 23 December 2014]. importantly, it directs our attention to
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McMann, continued (continued from page 3)
units of a country? At a certain threshold of the selection of countries, scholars tend to seem to differ substantially from authoritarian of territorial non-consolidation, a national perpetuate untested assumptions about the national regimes because subnational units political regime requires a different label. existence of enclaves as related to federalism are not sovereign entities. Yet, sovereignty For example, a national political regime in a and country size. Information is also scant might be less influential than we initially country with democratic enclaves in half its because these studies have gathered data think, especially when we consider national subnational units deserves a label different about only a small number of subnational regime capacity. Following this line of from the label for a national political regime units in each country, with the exception reasoning, subnational and national levels are in a country with no democratic enclaves. of the few investigations—of Argentina, similar conceptually, so findings from each Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, and Russia—which will be helpful to the other. While this refinement seems logical, it examine all or most provinces in each is unclear how pressing it is because we country.2 Scholars conducting subnational democratization do not know how common enclaves are. studies have emphasized how subnational Subnational democratization studies have Additional information about the existence political units are not sovereign entities. found undemocratic enclaves in countries of enclaves will clarify the importance of Countries’ constitutions constrain with national regimes typically labelled refining authoritarian regime typologies. subnational leaders more than international democratic, democratizing, or hybrid. They More information is on the horizon from law and norms limit national leaders. have not searched for democratic enclaves. studies that use the case study approach in Furthermore, national governments have An obstacle to the study of democratic other regions of the world, such as Africa more tools to bring recalcitrant subnational enclaves has been the conventional wisdom, and Southeast Asia, and from the Varieties leaders into line than international espoused for example by Juan Linz and of Democracy project (https://v-dem.net/), organizations have to use against national Alfred Stepan, that a democratic enclave which includes subnational indicators of leaders. In short, scholars contend that could never exist because an authoritarian democracy for countries worldwide.3 a truly authoritarian subnational regime national leader would crush it. Yet scholars, could not exist in a democratizing country including Jennifer Gandhi, Beatriz Similarities in Subnational and National or a democracy; whereas, truly authoritarian Magaloni, and Andreas Schedler, have Authoritarianism national regimes do, of course, exist in shown that democratic institutions can exist At first glance authoritarian enclaves would the international system. As Jacqueline within authoritarian national regimes and Comparative Development 48.1 (2013), 51-80; Kelly Behrend notes, the subnational regimes M. McMann, Economic Autonomy and Democracy: can contribute to their endurance. Perhaps Hybrid Regimes in Russia and Kyrgyzstan (New “are embedded in nationally democratic the same is true of democratic territorial York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Robert regimes, which limits what subnational enclaves; however, currently we do not have W. Mickey, Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization rulers can and cannot do. It means that local of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South relevant evidence. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015); rulers cannot govern in isolation from the William A. Munro, “The Political Consequences national democratic polity and that they Information about undemocratic enclaves of Local Electoral Systems: Democratic Change cannot sustain conventionally authoritarian and the Politics of Differential Citizenship in 4 has been limited too, in their case, by the small South Africa” Comparative Politics 33.3 (2001), regimes.” Carlos Gervasoni elaborates, number of countries studied. Most of the 295-313; John T. Sidel, “Economic Foundations of “open and visible violations of political rights Subnational Authoritarianism: Insights and Evidence work has been done in large countries with, from Qualitative and Quantitative Research” attract much negative national attention, at the time, federal systems of government— Democratization 21.1 (2014), 161-184. Maya Tudor which both hurts the provincial leaders’ (often Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, and the and Adam Ziegfried, “Subnational Democratization national) career ambitions, and increases the in India: Colonial Competition and the Challenge to United States. There are also single studies Congress Dominance.” In Multiple Arenas: Territorial likelihood that the federal government will of other large federal countries, India and Variance within Large Federal Democracies, Eds. use its formal or informal powers to remove South Africa, and two small, unitary states, Laurence Whitehead and Jacqueline Behrend. them. As a result, even the less democratic 1 Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines. As a result 2. Gervasoni, 2010; Agustina Giraudy, Democrats provincial regimes contain significant doses 1. See, for example: Jacqueline Behrend, “The and Autocrats: Pathways of Subnational Undemocratic of both authoritarianism and democracy.”5 In Unevenness of Democracy at the Subnational Regime Continuity within Democratic Countries (New Level: Provincial Closed Games in Argentina” Latin York: Oxford University Press, 2015); and McMann, short, because a national government would American Research Review 46.1 (2011), 150-176; 2006. dismantle an authoritarian subnational Carlos Gervasoni, “A Rentier Theory of Subnational regime, subnational leaders would never Regimes: Fiscal Federalism, Democracy, and 3. Kelly M. McMann, The Problem of Subnational Authoritarianism in the Argentine Provinces” World Unevenness in Democracy (Stockholm: International 4. Behrend, 2011, cited p. 152. Politics 62.2 (2010), 302-340; Edward L. Gibson, IDEA, 2014); Kelly M. McMann, “Improving Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism Theories of Regimes, Regime Continuity, and 5. Carlos Gervasoni, “Measuring Variance in in Federal Democracies (New York: Cambridge Regime Change through Subnational Research: Subnational Regimes: Results from an Expert-Based University Press, 2012); Agustina Giraudy, “Varieties The Utility of the Varieties of Democracy Dataset,” Operationalization of Democracy in the Argentine of Subnational Undemocratic Regimes: Evidence American Political Science Association Comparative Provinces” Journal of Politics in Latin America 2.2 from Argentina and Mexico” Studies in International Democratization Newsletter 10.2 (2012): 4, 24-27. (2010), 13-52, cited p. 17.
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establish one. Incidentally, this thinking regimes at one level might improve our national authoritarian regimes. A few has led some of these researchers to avoid understanding of authoritarian regimes at published studies have examined how the term “authoritarian” enclave and use another level. national intervention and diffusion can “undemocratic” or “hybrid” instead. democratize particular authoritarian Democratization of Authoritarian Regimes enclaves; however, this work has been The existence of truly authoritarian enclaves Despite their primary focus on the limited to a few countries—Argentina, is, however, an empirical question that maintenance of subnational regimes, Mexico, Russia, and the United States.7 requires study of many countries. We studies of subnational democratization These studies aim to explain the collapse of know full authoritarian subnational regimes have highlighted a few factors contributing individual authoritarian enclaves, not the have not existed at the provincial level in to their erosion, namely the interests complete democratization of a country’s Argentina or state level in Mexico in recent and capacity of the national government. territory, which may or may not be identical years, based on Gervasoni’s and Agustina Scholars have argued that a local crisis processes. Current research expands the Giraudy’s work. But, it would be unwise that challenges the national government’s focus to examine how subnational variation to generalize from these relatively similar interests can encourage the government to in democracy was overcome, specifically countries and time periods. intervene in the affairs of an enclave. Of during the first wave. Other research-in- course, the national government must have progress will examine the extent to which The logic for why a truly authoritarian the capacity to do so.6 Thus, it is likely that subnational political liberalization results in enclave cannot exist assumes that a national the extent of subnational democratization national political openings.8 This work should government has the capacity or can appear within authoritarian states depends on illuminate the issue of limits to subnational to have the capacity to dismantle subnational the capacity and interests of the national democratization within authoritarian states. authoritarian regimes. This assumption government. may be sound for established states with In conclusion, our understanding of developed capacity and party systems that A national authoritarian regime that has authoritarianism can benefit from existing national leaders can harness to ensure little control over a subnational unit is and future research on enclaves. Work on democracy, but does the assumption hold unlikely to be able to halt its democratization, enclaves can help refine the concept of for new states and those where parties are and a national authoritarian regime that authoritarianism, illuminate how it works absent or weak? Might some of these states has little control over many subnational subnationally and nationally, and provide be as weak as the international community units is unlikely to be able to stem a wave insight into how authoritarian regimes in addressing authoritarianism? Moreover, of subnational democratization. Even if a democratize. many studies have found that hybrid national authoritarian regime has the capacity subnational regimes are in national leaders’ to quash subnational democratization, it Kelly M. McMann is Associate Professor of interests to maintain. It is plausible that a might be in its interest to allow democracy Political Science at Case Western Reserve fully authoritarian subnational regime would in at least some units. Subnational University. Her publications include be in national leaders’ interest too, as, we democratic institutions and processes might Corruption as a Last Resort: Adapting to have found, foreign dictators are often in assist national authoritarian leaders, just as the Market in Central Asia (2014) and democratic countries’ interest. On the other national democratic institutions have been Economic Autonomy and Democracy: hand, we may find that truly authoritarian shown to do. Hybrid Regimes in Russia and Kyrgyzstan enclaves were more common in first (2006). and second wave democracies when the The focus on maintenance among scholars of practice of government leaders introducing subnational democratization has meant that 7. Gibson, 2012; Jonathan Hiskey and Damarys democratic institutions in order to appear to we do not have studies that directly examine Canache, “The Demise of One-Party Politics in meet international norms was less common. the limits to subnational democratization Mexican Municipal Elections” British Journal within authoritarian states. To date, any of Political Science 35.2 (2005), 257-284; Tomila Lankina and Lullit Getachew, “A Geographic The implication of this line of reasoning is attention to change has been attention Incremental Theory of Democratization: Territory, that national and subnational authoritarian to the democratization of authoritarian Aid, and Democracy in Postcommunist Regions,” World Politics 58.4 (2006), 536-582; Mickey, 2008. regimes might not be so distinct that studies enclaves, rather than democratic enclaves of one type cannot inform studies of the as precursors to the democratization of 8. Kelly M. McMann, “Democratization Beyond other. Currently, there seems to be little to no National Capitals: Clues From The First Wave,” 6. Behrend, 2011; Allyson L. Benton, “Bottom-Up Paper presented at the International Conference of interaction across the two areas of research. Challenges to National Democracy: Mexico’s (Legal) Europeanists, Washington, D.C., March 14, 2014; Exploring theories and evidence about the Subnational Authoritarian Enclaves” Comparative Kelly M. McMann, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond origins and maintenance of authoritarian Politics 44.3 (2012), 253-271; Gibson, 2012; and research grant to the Varieties of Democracy project, Giraudy, 2010. 2014.
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sense, some of these threats may count as not acting, dictators are subject. Acts of from actually guaranteeing accountability, instruments of accountability. The rest of transitional justice typically apply to regime they only afford structural opportunities for the essay elaborates on each of these points. actors after their fall, when their capacities accountability. In contrast to authoritarian of extortion are insufficient to prevent regimes, they contain the institutional 1. Varieties of Authoritarian Accountability justice from being pursued, but sufficient to infrastructure that permits holding public Authoritarian regimes are often arenas of prevent it from being pursued fully. officials accountable, such as constitutional extensive accountability. Most of it runs divisions of power, judicial independence, from higher to lower levels of hierarchy. Contemporary authoritarian rulers also face agents of oversight, civic liberties, and Regime agents hold citizens accountable international demands of accountability. party and media pluralism. Yet institutions (citizen accountability). The governing External accountability is often mild and do not act, only actors do. Unless citizens, elite hold state agents accountable (agent elusive. Nevertheless, it does oblige rulers voters, opposition actors, journalists, judges, accountability). Rulers hold their elite allies to respond to uncomfortable questions and other agents of accountability act upon accountable (elite accountability). All three from international actors and renders the institutional opportunities they are forms of vertical, top down accountability them liable to certain forms of punishment granted, democracies can very well settle can be massive enterprises. Think of Joseph through international sanctions. Still, into routines of low accountability. Stalin’s Gulag, that devoured ordinary neither posterior nor external demands citizens, lower-level officials and party of accountability alter the fundamental In sum, what distinguishes authoritarian agents as well as top members of the freedom from domestic accountability from democratic regimes are not their political elite. Or of contemporary China, dictators tend to enjoy during their terms low levels of accountability, but their which invests huge administrative and in office. weak opportunities for governmental technological resources to keep citizens, accountability. Nevertheless, even though state officials, party agents, and elite 2. Variance of Democratic Accountability structural opportunities for holding members on a short political leash. While democracies and autocracies are dictators accountable are weak, they are not unlikely to coincide at the high end of entirely inexistent. Even dictatorships may The position that seems to be exempt from the accountability scale, they may find contain traces of dictatorial answerability demands of accountability, the one and themselves together at its low end. In all and punishment. only in authoritarian regimes, is the peak democracies, chief decision makers take of power. In the ideal-typical authoritarian uncountable decisions for which they are 3. Authoritarian Answerability regime, all actors are subject to oversight by never held accountable: decisions nobody The typical tyrant who unleashes his fury the dictator. But the dictator himself is not ever learns about, decisions nobody ever asks against all messengers of bad news creates an answerable to anybody and not punishable about, harmful decisions they get away with atmosphere of submissive silence in which by anybody. Accountability to the dictator, without punishment. In all democracies (or none of his allies or subordinates dares to in which the supreme ruler acts as agent at least in all I know), critical observers pose uncomfortable questions or introduce of accountability, is a basic principle of complain about multiple deficiencies uncomfortable facts. Nervously attuned authoritarian governance. By contrast, of accountability. Their complaints are to the delicate imperatives of dictatorial accountability of the dictator, in which incisive, persistent, and often dramatic. correctness, everyone collaborates in the authoritarian ruler acts as addressee of They complain about things like imperial suppressing anything that might irritate accountability (and which I will refer to as presidencies, prime ministerial dominance, the irascible tyrant. “dictatorial accountability”), is exceptional. rubber stamp legislatures, overpowering bureaucracies, technocratic insulation, Needless to say, such silence is a less Authoritarian rulers tend to fancy themselves patriarchal collusion, failures of electoral than ideal breeding ground for political as being subject to transcendental forms accountability, and a long etcetera. answerability. Fear of arbitrary power of accountability: answerable to higher prevents subjects from raising critical entities, like God or history, yet free from The point is quite simple: democracies questions; the arrogance of secure power any obligations to account for their actions vary among themselves as well as within prevents the dictator from listening and to their earthly subjects. Reflecting rulers’ themselves – across governments, state answering to critical questions, should they sovereign freedom from accountability, institutions, policy fields, and levels of happen to arise. The twin question is then: political as well as academic debates on governance – in the degree of accountability Under what conditions does authoritarian dictatorial accountability usually refer to they practice. They are not, by definition or governance allow subjects to formulate ex post accountability to which former, by nature, systems of high accountability. Far critical questions about political decision-
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making? And what are the conditions that autocracies the latter.4 removed by the Council of Experts. Yet, as oblige rulers to listen and respond to them? a rule, these impeachment procedures lie In theory, rational rulers should be dormant in normal times and get activated The core structural condition of political answerable to such countervailing powers. only in moments of crises. If such formal criticism is rather obvious: liberty. To the They should strive to inform them about rules exist, one tends to think, they must extent that authoritarian regimes engage their decisions and to persuade them that serve some purpose. Up to now, though, in in violent repression of dissidence, they they merit support. In practice, however, the comparative study of authoritarianism, inhibit its expression. To the extent that we know very little about dictatorial we have not paid them much attention. they grant civil liberties, such as freedom answerability to either formal or informal With one major exception: authoritarian of expression and freedom of association, veto players. To the extent that it takes place multiparty elections. they permit irritating facts and opinions to within secretive decision-making bodies, enter the public sphere. Yet, holding rulers such as politburos or security councils, we In democracies, elections are the core to account involves more than the liberty cannot know about it. Only in rare cases, institution of political accountability. of asking them nasty questions. It involves like the Chilean military junta under While not guaranteeing effective their obligation to respond. Pinochet, in which these collective bodies accountability, democratic elections do record their deliberations and preserve guarantee the structural possibility of The structural conditions that create such their records for posterity, we can trace effective accountability. To hold democratic an obligation are less clear. Authoritarian their internal dynamics.5 To the extent rulers accountable, voters can either punish rulers usually do not respond to critical that processes of dictatorial answerability them at the ballot box (if they are unhappy) questions by providing reasoned public take place within the public sphere, we or reward them (if they are happy). answers. They respond with silence, can reconstruct them through analyses of Under authoritarian conditions, electoral disdain, fury, or hollow rhetoric. At best, public discourse. I am not aware, though, of disapproval is constrained by electoral they react by adjusting their actual policies any such empirical reconstruction. manipulation, while voter approval is to public demands. But responsiveness observationally equivalent to manipulative is not answerability. The former can be 4. Authoritarian Punishment self-approval by the regime. Does the done by stealth, without providing public Genuine accountability requires the authoritarian manipulation of elections justifications. The latter demands a public capacity to punish misbehavior. To what thus preclude any possibility of electoral exchange of arguments. It denies rulers extent are authoritarian rulers subject to accountability? a monopoly of truth, which is harder to punishment for misconduct in office? Do accept than tactical changes of policy authoritarian regimes foresee institutional Electoral authoritarian regimes hold regular course. venues for fining, jailing, or dismissing the multiparty elections that expose the chief dictator? Usually, they do not have any executive, the so-called dictator, to the risk Intuitively, authoritarian rulers should institutions that could even establish the of removal from office. His risk of losing be willing to publicly inform about their difference between good and bad dictatorial office through authoritarian multiparty actions and defend them in the face of conduct in the first place. The ideal-typical elections is lower than his counterfactual criticism if one of two conditions holds: a) dictator is free to judge everybody else, risk of losing office through democratic State agents, such as military juntas, royal but is himself beyond judgment. The same elections. That is, after all, the point of councils, legislatures, or courts, are capable applies to punishment. authoritarian manipulation: reducing and willing to modify or revert decisions electoral risks.6 These risks nevertheless taken by the ruler. b) Societal actors, such Many contemporary autocracies include are significantly different from zero. While as firms, labor unions, or mass movements, formal venues for removing the supreme hegemonic regimes are almost immune are capable and willing to block, slow down, ruler, such as legislative impeachment to electoral alternations in power, about a or erode the implementation of decisions procedures. Even the lifetime Supreme fifth of elections in competitive regimes taking by the ruler. Egypt’s Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for lead to decisive defeats of the ruling party.7 Constitutional Court under Mubarak instance, can, on constitutional paper, be 6. In addition to reducing the risks of electoral exemplified the former,3 taxpaying elites alternations, authoritarian multiparty elections 4. See Dan Slater, Ordering Power: Contentious Politics also reduce the risks of violent alternations in Southeast Asia’s post-independence and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia (New through military intervention. See Gary W. Cox, York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). “Authoritarian Elections And Leadership Succession, 3. See Tamir Moustafa, The Struggle for Constitutional 1975–2000,” San Diego, CA: Department of Political Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development 5. See Robert Barros, Constitutionalism and Science, University of California, San Diego, 2007, in Egypt (New York: Cambridge University Press, Dictatorship: Pinochet, the Junta, and the 1980 unpublished typescript. 2007). Constitution (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 7. See Andreas Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty,
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Against the odds and despite their limits, influence each other, but destroy each other. Conclusion authoritarian elections do seem to work, to Accountability presupposes some common The preceding reflections allow us some uncertain extent, as mechanisms of ground, some shared criteria for judging to describe the relationship between dictatorial accountability. political behavior. Battles between enemies authoritarianism and accountability more are not disputes over the appropriateness precisely. Authoritarian regimes are defined 5. Accountability by Violence of political decisions, but confrontations by the absence of certain institutions, not Authoritarian rulers live under the perennial between actors who deny each other by the absence of certain practices. They threat of violence.8 Should we comprehend recognition as political interlocutors. lack, above all, democratic elections, but the violent threats they face as informal can nevertheless experience restricted instruments of dictatorial accountability?9 Even when violence is motivated by forms of electoral accountability. Rather Should we conceive generals who launch political grievances against the dictator, it than defining authoritarian regimes tout a coup attempt as agents of “horizontal” may not primarily aim at his policies, but court as systems of low accountability, accountability, or guerrilla fighters who at his very position as a dictator. Democrats we should conceive them as systems that assault the presidential palace as agents who take the arms against him do not want preclude effective opportunities for holding of “vertical” accountability, to borrow to replace him by another, more benevolent rulers, the supreme agents of authoritarian Guillermo O’Donnell’s terms? To what dictator, but by a democratically elected accountability, accountable. Formal as well extent do violent attempts to topple the head of government. They do not want to as informal mechanisms for making them dictator constitute punishments for his hold the dictator accountable, but to end answerable to critics and for punishing policies? dictatorship. Striving to abolish an office is them for their conduct in office are either one thing, striving to hold the office holder absent or structurally weak. Whether Often violent campaigns against the accountable another. authoritarian regimes practice other forms dictator are simple means of competition of accountability is an empirical question, for power in which one ambitious Finally, even in those cases in which rulers not a conceptual one. As a matter of fact, man strives to replace another. Or they anticipate violent actions as potential they are likely to institutionalize multiple are strategies of warfare in which one punishments for their conduct in office, forms of vertical accountability that render social group strives to replace another. they have ample leeway in neutralizing subordinate actors accountable to their Neither personal competition nor warfare these threats: they may silence their political bosses. Very often, though, these are mechanisms of accountability. In carriers (repression), they may strive to will be lopsided practices that privilege competitive struggles, competitors do not convert them into unthinking supporters the punitive dimension of accountability judge their mutual behavior, but measure (propaganda), or they may buy them (enforcement) over its deliberative their abilities. One wins, the other loses, individually (cooptation) or collectively dimension (answerability). and that’s it. The victor does not hold (policy concessions). Even if they come the loser accountable, but triumphs over to fear violent punishment, they may still Andreas Schedler is Professor of Political him. In warfare, enemies do not strive to manage to hold on and escape it. And even Science at CIDE in Mexico City. His most p. 247. if they do suffer punishment, it would be recent book is The Politics of Uncertainty: 8. See e.g. Milan W. Svolik, The Politics of hard to conceive it as anything other than Sustaining and Subverting Electoral Authoritarian Rule (New York: Cambridge University an impoverished form of accountability that Authoritarianism (2013, paperback edition Press, 2012). renounces the critical public dialogue that 2015). 9. See e.g. Abel Escribà Folch, The Political Economy characterizes democratic accountability. of Growth and Accountability under Dictatorship (Madrid: Instituto Juan March, 2007).
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Landman, continued (continued from page 4)
by Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, individuals “mass passive acceptance’” ensues and 1973 and 1976. As the regime matured sacrifice their own liberty in exchange for can see long periods of authoritarian and developed its security apparatus protection from the state. This notion of rule in which coercion is primarily (most notably through the Directorate protection requires the authority, capability implicit and covert.3 The development of of National Security, or DINA), the use and resources to use repression as and when security bureaucracies and the state police of killings as a strategy declined, while it is needed. apparatus maintain the presence of threat the use of arbitrary detention and torture and coercion that compels compliance in remained.4 The decline in the resort to Repression is thus a crucial element of ways that do not require batons on the outright violence suggests a consolidation, all statecraft; however, the key difference streets. This understanding of mass passive professionalization and bureaucratization between democratic and authoritarian acceptance was used by Juan Linz to of repression that achieves mass compliance states is the question over the legitimate use describe the Franco regime in Spain once over time. Although the case of Chile in of repression, where democracies lay greater it had consolidated its authority after the the 1980s shows that, even after over 10 claim to legitimacy based on representation, Spanish Civil War. Such an understanding years in power, the regime had to declare accountability of leaders, constraints on could also apply to China, where there is a state of siege and exercise emergency executives, and legal systems for upholding a well-developed security bureaucracy powers after the outbreak of widespread individual rights and freedoms. It is and large number of state agents as well protests and demonstrations. precisely around the question of legitimacy as mass acceptance of the regime. Like over the use of coercion and repression that democracies, however, when challenged, 4. Repression can be privatised authoritarian states differ. While they claim authoritarian states of this nature will This point does not relate to private authority for its use, they struggle to claim deploy repression in a calculated way, where violence, private militias, or the existence legitimacy. the cost of violence is weighed against the of death squads, which in my view threat to the stability of the state. The represent a significantly different set of 2. Repression is one form of coercion Chinese response to the 1989 Tiananmen primarily non-state actors, but rather State use of coercion can be explicit or Square demonstrations provides a suitable the phenomena where the intense use of implicit. Democratic states tend to use example in which violent repression was intelligence, security forces, and the sheer implicit coercion as periods of democratic used definitively, and the prolonged clashes arbitrary nature of state repression creates foundation or transition have established and encounters in Hong Kong in 2014 a total sense of fear and distrust in the ground rules and consensus around suggest that the government calculations populace. Repression is thus something democracy being the “only game in in Beijing weighed international reaction that transcends the public-private divide town,” and the need for overt use of force against using enough repression to defeat in ways that atomise society and make declines through a period of democratic social mobilisation for free elections. individuals retreat within themselves. consolidation. Democratic states also Repression carried out to this extent can establish bureaucratic mechanisms that 3. Repression evolves under periods of lead to family members informing against embody the coercive power of the state, authoritarian rule one another or creating circumstances which over time develops into compliance This is a significant variant and expansion in which family members and networks and societal peace. When challenged, of the previous point. Early years of of friends and family are unwilling to however, democratic states may resort authoritarian consolidation may use more discuss anything that would be remotely to the outright use of force. Notable overt forms of repression as well as more construed as political. This notion of the examples of repressive response under violent forms of repression. With time, privatisation of repression can be found democracy include the Kent State conflict however, the use of repression can become in Guillermo O’Donnell’s observations of in the U.S. or the police responses to mass more targeted, varied and less violent life during the Dirty War in Argentina in demonstrations, such as the miner strikes while producing the same impact of social which he deploys many of the ideas found in the U.K. control. For example, in the early period in Albert Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and of the Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile, Loyalty and Shifting Involvements.5 In this A similar dynamic is evident in the security forces engaged in extra-judicial 4. Randy B. Reiter, M.V. Zunzunegui, and Jose authoritarian states. Early periods of killings, disappearances, exile, mass arrest, Quiroga, “Guidelines for Field Reporting of Basic Human Rights Violations” in Thomas B. Jabine and authoritarian consolidation may well and arbitrary detention; whereas outright Richard P. Claude (eds) Statistics and Human Rights: involve the use of overt repression but killings dominated the period between Getting the Record Straight (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992): 116-120; Foweraker with time, the need for such repression 3. Juan J. Linz, “An Authoritarian Regime: Spain,” and Landman, 1997, 90-95. subsides and a culture of compliance or in Erik Allardt and Stein Rokkan (eds) Mass Politics (New York: Free Press, 1964): 252-283. 5. See http://kellogg.nd.edu/publications/
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way, repression becomes unseen yet known and is thus highly corrosive of the fabric of society. Arbitrary and extreme Systematic and forms of repression extreme repression 5. Repression varies by type of High authoritarian state The work of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan
on types of authoritarian states and Neil
Mitchell on principal-agent models of leadership Arbitrary and less Systematic and less governance and the use of force suggest extreme forms of extreme forms of that repression will vary considerably Low repression repression across different kinds of authoritarian 6 states. For Linz and Stepan states range Level of personalistic and charismatic charismatic and personalistic Level of from authoritarianism to sultanism and vary across different dimensions including Low High (1) the degree of pluralism, (2) strength and nature of ideology, (3) level of mobilization, and (4) type of leadership. The configuration of these different dimensions Degree of institutionalisation within different authoritarian states will be related to the different deployment of repression. These different dimensions also map well onto Mitchell’s three types of leaders (or principals): (1) the tolerator, who likely to engage in arbitrary and extreme varies from less extreme to more extreme is opposed to the use of violence in the face forms of repression, while more forms. Less extreme forms include of threat, (2) the opportunist, who is willing institutionalised and less personalised activities like censorship, spying and to use repression in a measured fashion to authoritarian regimes are more likely to intelligence gathering, and denial of the respond to threats, and (3) the inquisitor, engage in less arbitrary and more systematic right to assembly and association, while whose overriding ideology makes him or forms of repression. more extreme forms of repression include her engage in extreme levels of repression arbitrary detention, torture, disappearance, in a more blanket approach. These three 6. Repression is a toolkit extra-judicial killings, and genocide. ideal types interact with the agents who are In “The Game of Torture,” Leonard These types of repressive acts also vary responsible for carrying out repression and Wantchekon and Andrew Healy argue that in degree (extent of use) and systematic whose motivations, interests, and levels of torture is used for gathering information nature (arbitrary, routine, and/or widely information differ significantly from those and securing social control.7 For them, systematic). of their leaders. The varied combinations of torture is rational and is part of a larger principals and agents in the face of diverse toolkit of statecraft available to leaders, to This continuum or scale of repression threats thus produce great variation in both be deployed by the opportunist, described as a toolkit in many ways underpins the the use and severity of repression, and a above. (The tolerator would not use torture political science approach to studying differentiation of regimes necessary for a and the inquisitor would use it for non- and measuring repression. Indeed, the comparative politics of authoritarianism. rational purposes). Even though torture may standards-based scales of civil and political be carried out by agents who are motivated rights, such as the political terror scale or The combination of regime typeby rational interests to carry out orders the David Cingranelli and David Richards and principal-agent relations varies within larger institutional frameworks or human rights dataset (CIRI), specify coding greatly across what have been broadly sadists who simply enjoy meting out pain cut-off points according to the degree to defined as non-democratic states. Less on individuals, the assumption of their which repressive practices are systematic institutionalised and more personalised and model is one in which torture is a means to and widespread. Such a determination of charismatic authoritarian regimes are more an end. Repression being a means to an end the systematic nature of repression also suggests that it is a toolkit for leaders and features in the various reports filed by U.N. workingpapers/WPS/058.pdf. 6. Neil Mitchell, Democracy’s Blameless Leaders (New 7. Leonard Wantchekon and Andrew Healy, “The actors under the auspices of the Special York: New York University Press, 2012); Linz and Game of Torture,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 43.5 Stepan, 1996, 38-54. (1999): 596-609.
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Procedures of the international human control alongside sequential uses of state awaited Senate report on torture under the rights regime. terror makes for a complex landscape George W. Bush administration shows that of repression for empirical analyses, the at least 20 cases of torture of terror suspects 7. Some forms of repression are sequential methods of analysis for which continue to led to no actionable intelligence, and that Not only does a state have a continuum be developed and refined. the practice was in fact used between 2001 of repressive tools at its disposal, but also and 2009, where 119 people were illegally many sets of repressive acts actually occur in 8. Repression can be internationalised detained of whom over 40 were subjected sequence. For example, a victim of multiple The final stylised fact I provide concerns the to enhanced interrogation techniques.10 human rights violations may be detained internationalisation of repression, where it arbitrarily, tortured while in custody, and transcends borders as states either pursue As the world continues to see the then assassinated or disappeared. The their own national security doctrine within persistence of authoritarianism alongside severity of violation increases sequentially the jurisdiction of other states (e.g. the new democratic developments, the over time, which ultimately results in the Letelier assassination in Washington D.C. comparative study of repression needs to death or disappearance of the victim. by the Chilean DINA) or in collaboration be sensitive to the varied and nuanced ways This understanding of the sequencing with other states (e.g. Operation Condor in which repression is used by different of violations must be taken into account in the South American states of Argentina, regimes, the way in which it evolves over when conducting any empirical analysis Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and time, and how it must be seen as a crucial of repression using either events-based Brazil). The post 9/11 use of extraordinary element of all statecraft. It is the legitimacy, or standards-based data.8 Less extreme rendition under the auspices of the War on accountability, and oversight of the use forms of repression, however, may proceed Terror harks back to the Condor Years in of repression, however, that differentiate alongside this sequence of more extremes the Southern Cone and has seen alliances the use of repression in democracies and forms of repression. Intelligence gathering, between democracies and autocracies in authoritarian states. spying, and censorship can all be in place, the pursuit of terrorists. Available data on while a sequence of detention, torture, and flights that took place during the most Todd Landman is Professor of Government assassination commences. The combination intense period of rendition suggest that and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Social of everyday forms of repression and social between 54 and 138 states were involved Sciences at the University of Essex. He is 8. Patrick Ball, Herbert F. Spirer, and Louise Spirer, in extraordinary rendition. The practice author of Studying Human Rights (2006) Making the Case: Investigating Large Scale Human Rights Violations Using Information Systems and Data includes arbitrary detention, torture in and Protecting Human Rights (2005). Analysis (Washington, DC: American Association transit, and then torture while in captivity for the Advancement of Science, 2000); Todd 9 Landman, Studying Human Rights (London and in the destination country. The much 10. http://www.scribd.com/doc/249651730/ New York: Routledge, 2006) ; Todd Landman and 9. see http://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/index. CIA-Torture-Report; http://www.nytimes.com/ Edzia Carvalho, Measuring Human Rights (London: html interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia-torture-report-key- Routledge, 2009). points.html
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Call for Applications: Jason Brownlee, associate professor of political science, University of The Electoral Integrity Project (EIP) of of government, University of Texas Gothenburg, and Lucía Tiscornia The University of Sydney is announcing at Austin, Tarek Masoud, associate entitled, “Varieties of Democratic a call for applications to the project’s professor of public policy, Harvard Diffusion: Colonial Networks” at a 2016 EIP Visiting Fellowship cohort. University, and Andrew Reynolds meeting of the International Studies EIP is seeking senior academics and published The Arab Spring: Pathways of Association in New Orleans, LA in graduate students to work on data Repression and Reform (Oxford University February and at the Kellogg Institute of and publications of the project over Press, 2015). The book accounts for the the University of Notre Dame, Centro a minimum three-month period. The full range of variance in the success de Investigación y Docencia Económicas application deadline is Tuesday, June 30, of Arab democratic movements and (CIDE), and Instituto Tecnológico 2015. examines the deep historical and Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico strucural variables determining the City in April. In their paper, the authors NEWS FROM MEMBERS balance of power between incumbents examine the net effect of colonial rule Claire Adida, assistant professor of and opposition in the region. on the pace of democratization for both political science, University of California, colonizing countries and colonies and San Diego, David D. Laitin, and Marie- Melani Cammett is now a professor of former colonies. Anne Valfort published “Religious government at Harvard University. She Homophily in a Secular Country: also recently co-authored the fourth Javier Corrales, Dwight W. Morrow Evidence from a Voting Game in France” edition of Political Economy of the Middle 1895 Professor of Political Science, in the April 2015 Economic Inquiry. In East (Westview Press, 2015) with Amherst College, and Michael Penfold an effort to determine which dimension Ishac Diwan, Alan Richards, and John published the second edition of Dragon of homophily drives association, the Waterbury. This new edition includes in the Tropics: Venezuela and the Legacy article introduces an experimental game new chapters: one charting the growth of Hugo Chávez (Brookings, 2015). designed to expose subjects to diverse of oil economies, another reviewing The book includes two new chapters partners to determine which dimension the growth of the private sector and its and a reworked chapter devoted mostly dominates. effects in the region, and a third focusing to Venezuela’s political economy and Adida also published “Do African on the rise of “crony capitalism.” government-opposition relations after Voters Favor Coethnics? Evidence Chávez. Corrales also published “The from a Survey Experiment in Benin” in Jeffery Conroy-Krutz,assistant professor Authoritarian Resurgence: Autocratic the April 2015 Journal of Experimental of political science, Michigan State Legalism in Venezuela” in the April Political Science. in which she examines University, and Devra Moehler, 2015 Journal of Democracy, in which the extent to which ethnicity shapes assistant professor of communication, he argues that Venezuela’s turn toward political support for politicians by University of Pennslyvania, published greater authoritarianism occurred measuring the independent effect of “Moderation from Bias: A Field through autocratic legalism: the coethnic cues in boosting support across Experiment on Partisan Media in a state’s use, abuse, and disuse of law coethnic groups. New Democracy” in the April 2015 to disempower veto players. Finally, Journal of Politics. Theorizing that Corrales published “LGBT Rights Gerardo Berthin, senior democracy partisan media may cause moderation and Representation in Latin America and governance associate, Tetra in postliberalization settings, this article and the Caribbean: The Influence of Tech International Development, examines evidence of moderation by Structure, Movements, Institutions, published “Youth Participation in Local cross-cutting broadcasts on Ghanian and Culture” as a policy paper with the Governments: Initial Evidence from tro-tros (commuter minibuses) featuring University in North Carolina-Chapel Latin America” in the September 2014 live talk-radio from progovernment, Hill LGBT Representation and Rights Social and Economic Studies Journal. pro-opposition, politics-neutral, or no- Research Initiative in April 2015. In a special issue dedicated to youth radio conditions. and development, Berthin focuses on Ana Lorena De La O, associate analyzing youth political participation Michael Coppedge, professor of professor of political science, Yale in the Latin American local space. political science, University of Notre University, published Crafting Policies Dame, presented a paper co-authored to End Poverty in Latin America: The with Staffan I. Lindberg, professor Quiet Transformation (Cambridge
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University Press, 2015). The book Democratic Countries (Oxford University technological change. examines governments’ initial decisions Press, 2015). The book analyzes in adopting conditional cash transfer subnational undemocratic regime (SUR) Ray Kennedy is now senior electoral programs and whether such programs in continuity in Latin American states, expert with the United Nations Latin America are or are not insulated and concludes that SURs not only differ Development Programme in Papua New from political manipulations. among each other but that they also Guinea, supporting preparations for maintain different relations with the the May elections in the Autonomous John P. Entelis, professor of political federal government. Region of Bougainville. science, Fordham University, published “Algeria: The Outlier State?” in Political Paul Goode, University of Bath, will Maria Koinova has been promoted to and Constitutional Transitions in North be senior lecturer of Russian politics Reader at Warwick University. Africa: Actors and Factors (Routledge, beginning in Fall 2015. 2015), edited by Justin O. Frosini and Maiah Jaskoski will become assistant Francesco Biagi. The chapter explains Kenneth F. Greene, associate professor professor of politics and international the causes, conditions, and consequences of government, University of Texas affairs at Northern Arizona University of Algeria’s ‘outlier’ status in the context at Austin, edited Mexico’s Evolving this fall. She published “Environmental of post-Arab Spring developments. Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Licensing and Conflict in Peru’s Mining 2012 Elections (The Johns Hopkins Sector: A Path-Dependent Analysis” in Jonathan Fox, professor of international University Press, 2015) with Jorge the December 2014 World Development service, American University, will pubish Domínguez, Chappell Lawson, and and “The Military Protection Markets in “Social Accountability: What Does the Alejandro Moreno. The book assesses Peru and Ecuador: A Detailed Analysis” Evidence Really Say?” in the upcoming three elections between 2000 and 2006 in Markets for Force: Privatization of August 2015 World Development. The in Mexico to evaluate the Institutional Security across World Regions, edited by article reinterprets empirical evidence of the Revolutionary Party’s rehabilitation and Molly Dunigan and Ulrich Petersohn impacts of social accountability to make the eventual electoral success. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). distinction between tactical and strategic approaches to promoting citizen voices to Guy Grossman, assistant professor Calvert Jones will become assistant improve public sector performance. of political science, University of professor of goverment and politics at Pennslyvania, published “Renewalist the University of Maryland-College Vladimir Gel’man, professor of political Christianity and the Political Saliency Park in August of 2015. She published science, European University at St. of LGBTs: Theory and Evidence from “Seeing like an Autocrat: Liberal Social Petersburg, and Finland Distinguished Sub-Saharan Africa” in the April 2015 Engineering in an Illiberal State” in Professor, University of Helsinki, Journal of Politics. The article argues Perspectives on Politics (Vol. 13, no. 1). published Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing that the rise of political saliency of The article uses an ethnographic study Post-Soviet Regime Changes (University LGBTs is closely related to two recent of Persian Gulf elites and discovers that of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). The book political processes: the rapid growth of personal and emotional experiences can explains how and why Russia failed to Pentecostal, Evangelical, and related influence the way elites act, challenging become a democracy after the collapse Renewalist or Spirit-filled churches and assumptions of rational self-interest. of the Soviet Union while analyzing a democratization process leading to Jones also published “Exploring the the causes and consequences of its heightened political competition. Microfoundations of International authoritarian drift. He also published Community: Toward a Theory of “Political Opposition: A Troubled Mary Alice Haddad, associate professor Enlightened Nationalism” in the Transformation” in the March 2015 of government, Wesleyan University, Decmeber 2014 International Studies Europe-Asia Studies. edited NIMBY is Beautiful: Cases of Local Quarterly. Activism and Environmental Innovation Agustina Giraudy, assistant professor Around the World (Berghahn, 2015) with Eileen McDonagh, professor of political of international service, American Carol Hager. The book analyzes Not science, Northeastern University, was University, published Democrats and in My Backyard (NIMBY) protests awarded the Best Comparative Policy Autocrats: Pathways of Subnational from around the world and their Paper Award by the Midwest Political Undemocratic Regime Continuity within effect on broader political, social, and Science Association (MPSA) for her
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paper, “Ripples from the First Wave: Rachel Beatty Riedl’s Cambridge The Monarchical Origins of the Welfare Pippa Norris, McGuire Lecturer in University Press book Authoritarian State,” presented at the 2014 MPSA Compartive Government, Harvard Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Annual Conference. The paper examines University, edited a book entitled Africa (2014) was awarded the Best the role of monarchies in creating the Contentious Elections—From Ballots to Book Award by the African Politics social protections usually associated Barricades (Routledge, 2015) in which Conference Group of the American with more modern states. she and contributors compare alternative Political Science Association. In theoretical frameworks explaining the addition, she was awarded a Fulbright James Melton, senior lecturer in causes of contentious elections and Scholar grant to conduct research on comparative politics, University College apply those insights to understand cases “Religious Political Engagement in London, edited Magna Carta and Its of global comparisons. Francophone Africa” and will be based Modern Legacy (Cambridge University at Sciences Po Bordeaux, France for the Press, 2015) with Robert Hazell. The Olukunle Owolabi, assistant professor, academic year 2015 - 2016. book collects essays exploring the Magna of political science Villanova University, Carta’s enduring historical relevance. was been awarded a visiting fellowship Raul Sanchez Urribarri, lecturer, La at the Kellogg Institute for International Trobe University, co-convened the Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach, research Studies at the University of Notre Dame international workshop “Informal assistant, University of Wuerzburg, for the spring 2016 semester, where Networks in Non-Western Judiciaries” published “Open and Closed Electoral he will work on a book manuscript with Alexander Stroh and Bjoern Autocracies in the (Semi) Periphery entitled “The Colonial Origins of Dressel at the Australian National from 1996 to 2010: Democratization (Under) Development, Dictatorship, and University in Canberra from March 25 and Foreign Aid Flows” in the January Democracy: West Africa and the West to 27. The workshop brought together 2015 Global Humanities-Studies in Indies in Comparative Perspective.” leading scholars of judicial politics in Histories, Cultures, and Societies, with Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Oliver Schlenkrich. Marc F. Plattner, vice president Africa and offered a comprehensive for research and studies, National picture of the role of judicial networks Cas Mudde, associate professor of Endowment for Democracy, led a in comparative perspective across regime international affairs, University of seminar on “Is Democracy in Decline?” types. Georgia, won the Friedrich Wilhelm at the Institute for Human Sciences in Bessel Research Award of the Alexander Vienna, where he was based as a visiting Andreas Schedler, professor of political von Humboldt Foundation, given fellow in April 2015. The talk was based science, Center for Economic Research for “outstanding accomplishments in on his January 2015 Journal of Democracy and Teaching, released a paperback research and teaching.” Awardees come article, “Is Democracy in Decline?” edition of The Politics of Uncertainty: from all areas of the social sciences, the Sustaining and Subverting Electoral humanities, and the natural sciences Yvette Peters, post doctor, University Authoritarianism (Oxford University and are nominated by German scholars. of Bergen, published “Differential Press, 2013). The book uses cross- Mudde will spend the next three Responsiveness in Europe: The Effects national data to examine the political summers conducting research in Berlin of Preference Difference and Electoral dynamics of electoral authoritarianism. with German scholars. Participation” in the third issue of the 2015 West European Politics with Sander Michael Seeburg, assistant professor, Katsuo Nishikawa is now associate Ensink. The article uses time-series University of Southern Denmark, was professor of political science at Trinity data to examine political responsiveness awarded the Frank Cass 2014 Award University. His paper with Kiku Huckle, to different socioeconomic classes in for Best Article by a Young Scholar “Can Places of Worship Help Politically European democracies. in Democratization for his article, Socialize Immigrants,” presented at “Mapping Deviant Democracy,” the 2014 Western Political Science Jenny Pribble is now an associate published in Democratization (Vol 21, no. Association Annual Meeting, won professor of political science and 4). The article uses a large-N analysis to the 2014 Western Political Science international studies at the University of identify democracies whose development Association Best Paper in Latino Richmond. trajectories defy expectations and Politics Award. therefore deserve closer study.
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Landry Signé is now an assistant Conflicts in the Modern World” at Korea publish “Getting to Sweden, part I: professor of political science at the University’s department of political science. War and Malfeasance, 1720-1850” and University of Alaska at Anchorage. He On May 8 he presented “Comparative “Getting to Sweden, part II: Breaking was bestowed the 2014 Chancellor’s Authoritarianism: Institutions, Structural with Corruption in the Nineteenth Award for Excellence in Teaching Determinants and Methodological Issues” Century” in the forthcoming for his “exceptional commitment to at the East Asian Institute in Seoul. Scandinavian Political Studies. advancing student achievement,” and Teorell will spend the academic year of the 2014 Chancellor’s Award for Several papers were published in 2015-2016 as a Fernand Braudel Fellow Excellence in Academic Research and early 2015 as part of the Varieties at the European University Institute in Creative Activity for his “outstanding of Democracy (V-Dem) project: Florence, Italy. and significant impact in the field of “The Structure of the Executive in study and to the University of Alaska Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes: Gunes Murat Tezcur, associate Anchorage.” Landry also received Regime Dimensions across the Globe, professor of political science, Loyola the Claude Masson Award from the 1900-2014,” by Jan Teorell, professor of University Chicago, published “Catholic government of Quebec. He was recently political science, Lund University, and and Muslim Human Rights Activism in invited to discuss his research at the Staffan I. Lindberg, associate professor, Violent Internal Conflicts” in the March Wharton Business School, Cornell University of Gothenburg; “Institutional 2015 Politics and Religion. The article University, the World Policy Conference Subsystems and the Survival of offers the first comparison of human (South Korea), and Atlantic Dialogues Democracy: Do Political and Civil rights activism by religious organizations (Morocco). Signé published “Intérêts, Society Matter?” by Michael Bernhard, in civil wars. He also published “Soft- stratégies des acteurs et innovation Raymond and Miriam Ehrlich Eminent Power, Religion, and Anti-Americanism politique en Afrique” in the most recent Scholar Chair, University of Florida, in the Middle East” in the January 2015 Revue Politique et Sociétés. and Allen Hicken, Christopher Foreign Policy Analysis wth Sabri Çiftçi. Reenock, and Staffan I. Lindberg; “Vote The article shows the importance of David Siroky, assistant professor of Buying Is A Good Sign: Alternate religious identity in shaping foreign political science, Arizona State Tactics of Fraud in Africa 1986-2012,” policy views and the limits of democracy University, published “Two States in by Carolien van Ham and Staffan I. promotion as a foreign policy tool. the Holyland? The Israeli-Palestinian Lindberg; “Evaluating and Improving Finally, he published “Violence and Conflict and International Recognition” Item Response Theory Models for Nationalist Mobilization: The Onset of in the June 2015 Politics and Religion Cross-National Expert Surveys,” by the Kurdish Insurgency in Turkey,” in with Nikola Mirilovic. He also Daniel Pemstein, Eitan Tzelgov and Yi- Nationalities Papers (Vol. 43, no. 2). published “The Empire Strikes Back: ting Wang; and “Women’s rights in the Ethnicity, Terrain and Indiscriminate Middle East – New Data Show Both Christian Welzel, professor of Violence in Counterinsurgencies,” in Improvement And Impasse” by Valeriya political science, Luphana Universität the June 2015 Social Science Quarterly Mechkova, Frida Andersson, Aksel Lüneburg, published The Civic Culture with Valeriy Dzutsev. Siroky published Sundström and Abdalhadi Alijla. Transformed: From Allegiant to Assertive “Lost Autonomy, Nationalism and Citizens (Cambridge University Press, Separatism,” in the January 2015 Jan Teorell, professor of political 2014) with Russell J. Dalton. The book Comparative Political Studies with John science, Lund University, will examines a major shift toward “assertive Cuffe. publish “Linking Genes and Political citizenship” in the political culture of Siroky received a $980,000, four- Orientations: Testing the Cognitive democratic societies. year grant from the National Science Ability as Mediator Hypothesis” in Foundation to study “Interdisciplinary the forthcoming Political Psychology Matthew S. Winters, assistant professor Behavioral and Social Sciences” with with Sven Oskarsson, David Cesarini, of political science, University of Carolyn Warner and Steven Neuberg. Christopher T. Dawes, James H. Fowler, Illinois, published “The Challenges of Magnus Johannesson, and Patrik K. E. Untangling the Relationship between On May 7 Benjamin Smith, associate Magnusson. Participation and Happiness” in the professor of political science, University of Teorell and Bo Rothstein, August February 2015 Voluntas with Ashlea Florida, presented “History and Rebellion: Röhss Chair in Political Science, Rundlett. The article discusses panel The Origins of Self-Determination University of Gothenburg, will also data methods for studying changes in
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individual life satisfaction related to South Korea” in the January 2015 Journal more fragile and endangered than its defenders changes in political participation. of Contemporary Asia, in which they claim. Winters and Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro, identify abuse of criminal defamation Stanley J. Bernstein Assistant Professor as a major contributing factor for the IV. “Iran Abroad” by Alex Vatanka of Political Science, Brown University, country’s declining freedom of the press The Iranian regime has sought to recast also published “Political Corruption and Internet. conventional principles of human rights and and Partisan Engagement: Evidence political participation by forging alliances with from Brazil” in the January 2015 like-minded regimes and by broadcasting its Journal of Politics in Latin America. The New Research narrative to an international audience. article provides evidence that voters may be more likely to identify with Journal of Democracy V. “Saudi Arabia’s Anxious Autocrats” by an opposition party in surveys if they Frederic Wehrey have heard information about corrupt The April 2015 (Vol. 26, no. 2) Journal Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth sustains the members of mainstream parties. of Democracy features clusters of articles antidemocratic policies that a nervous royal on “The Authoritarian Resurgence” and regime uses to defend against the threats and Joseph Wright, associate professor, of “Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement,” as problems that confront it. political science, Pennsylvania State well as individual case studies on Burma, University, published “Human Rights Mozambique, and East Asia. “Exits from Military Rule: Lessons for Prosecutions and Autocratic Survival” Burma” by Zoltan Barany in the Spring 2015 International “Transitional Justice and Its Discontents” by Burma’s troubled transition is imperiled by Organization with Abel Escriba-Folch. Duncan McCargo the reluctance of the military to loosen its grip. The article argues that personalist The impulse to have crimes against humanity What lessons can the Burmese learn from other dictatorships are less likely to investigated and punished, like the impulse East Asian countries that have emerged from democratize if they are being prosecuted behind “truth and reconciliation” commissions, is military rule? for human rights abuses, though more understandable. But legalism cannot supersede institutionalized dictatorships are not. the hard and messy work of politics. Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement He also published “Oil and Autocratic I. “Beijing’s Broken Promises” by Michael C. Regime Survival” in the April 2015 The Authoritarian Resurgence Davis British Journal of Political Science with I. “Forward to the Past in Russia” by Lilia China has gone back on its well-documented Erica Frantz, and Barbara Geddes and Shevtsova vow (and solemn treaty obligation) to allow “Foreign Aid Allocation Tactics and Even if Vladimir Putin were to lose his grip Hong Kong genuine universal suffrage. Democratic Change in Africa” in the on office, the ‘Russian system’ might only Abrogated commitments and fake democracy are January 2015 Journal of Politics with wind up exchanging one form of personalized not the path to a thriving Hong Kong that feels Simone Dietrich. power for another in its endless search for self- at home within the People’s Republic of China. perpetuation. Jon-Sung You, senior lecturer of Asia II. “The Protests and Beyond” by Victoria and Pacific Affairs, Australian National II. “Autocratic Legalism in Venezuela” by Tin-bor Hui University, published Democracy, Javier Corrales The demonstrations of late 2014 captured the Inequality, and Corruption: Korea, Why do some hybrid regimes remain stable over world’s attention with their scale, passion, and Taiwan, and the Philippines Compared time, while others become more authoritarian? resourcefulness, but in the end were unable to (Cambridge University Press, 2015). The Venezuela’s autocratic turn has been driven by move dug-in local and national authorities. Yet book explores how inequality increases the ruling party’s declining electoral fortunes time is still on the side of the demonstrators. electoral clientelism, bureaucratic and by a foreign policy that has shielded it from patronage, and elite capture through international scrutiny. The Freedom House Survey for 2014 cross-national quantitative analysis and “A Return to the Iron Fist” by Arch a comparative historical investigation of III. “Iran’s Paradoxical Regime” by Abbas Puddington three East Asian Countries. Milani In a year marked by escalating terrorism, the You and Stephen Haggard also Iran’s authoritarianism is more flexible and use of more brutal repression by authoritarian published “Freedom of Expression in more durable than its detractors would hope, yet regimes, and Russia’s annexation of a
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neighboring country’s territory, the state of “Islamism and the State after the Arab “Clientelism and the Classification of freedom worsened significantly in nearly every Uprisings: Between People Power and State Dominant Party Systems” by Aris Trantidis part of the world. Power” by Frédéric Volpi and Ewan Stein “Campaign Appeals in Nigeria’s 2007 “Patching Things Up in Mozambique” by “Class Forces, Transition and the Arab Gubernatorial Elections” by Michelle Elisabete Azevedo-Harman Uprisings: A Comparison of Tunisia, Egypt Kuenzi and Gina Lambright Although elections take place on schedule in and Syria” by Jamie Allinson Mozambique, they are of dubious quality, and “Political Decentralization and the the most recent one was held amid an uneasy “Back to the Future: The Arab Uprisings Strengthening of Consensual, Participatory peace following renewed outbursts of civil strike. and State (Re)formation in the Arab World” Local Democracy in the Republic of Major new gas and mineral finds promise a shot by Adham Saouli Macedonia” by Aisling Lyon at greater prosperity, but also hold the threat of a “resource curse.” “Globalization, Democratization, and the “Long-Term Monarchical Survival in Arab Uprising: The International Factor the Middle East: A Configurational “Millennials and East Asia’s Democratic in MENA’s Failed Democratization” by Comparison, 1945-2012” by André Bank, Future” by Yun-han Chu and Bridget Welsh Raymond Hinnebusch Thomas Richter and Anna Sunik East Asia’s millennials have grown up in an age of rapid socioeconomic progress, allowing them “Conclusion: Agency, Context and to become better educated, more urbanized, and Emergent Post-Uprising Regimes” by SELECTED JOURNAL ARTICLES more technologically connected than previous Raymond Hinnebusch ON DEMOCRACY generations. Will they use their collective power to become agents of democratic change? African Affairs,Vol. 114, no. 455, April The Volume 22, no. 1 (2015) issue of 2015 Democratization Democratization features articles on China’s “Land Grabbing and NGO Advocacy foreign relations, ethnopopulism in Africa, in Liberia: A Deconstruction of the The Volume 22, no. 2 (2015) issue of Nigeria, Montenegro, the Pacific Islands, ‘Homogeneous Community’” by Kieran Democratization is a special issue on “From and Macedonia. Gilfoy Arab Spring to Arab Winter: Explaining the Limits of Post-Uprising Democratisation,” “The Political Economy of External “Peacekeeping Abroad, Trouble Making at with guest editor Raymond Hinnebusch. Exploitation: A Comparative Investigation Home: Mutinies in West Africa” by Maggie of China’s Foreign Relations” by Julia Bader Dwyer “Introduction: Understanding the Consequences of the Arab Uprisings—Starting Points and “Ethnopopulism in Africa: Opposition “Power, Patronage, and Gatekeeper Politics Divergent Trajectories” by Raymond Hinnebusch Mobilization in Diverse and Unequal in South Africa” by Alexander Beresford Societies” by Nic Cheeseman and Miles “Reflections on Self-Reflections—OnLarmer American Political Science Review, Vol. 109, Framing the Analytical Implications of no. 2, May 2015 the Arab Uprisings for the Study of Arab “‘Everybody Knows Everybody’: Practising “Islamists and Nationalists: Rebel Politics” by Morten Valbjorn Politics in the Pacific Islands” by Jack Motivation and Counterinsurgency in Corbett Russia’s North Caucasus” by Monica Duffy “Social Movements, Protest Movements Toft and Yuri M. Zhukov and Cross-Ideological Coalitions—The “Political Dynamics of the Post-Communist Arab Uprisings Re-appraised” by Vincent Montenegro: One-Party Show” by Ivan “Nation-Building through War” by Nicholas Durac Vuković Sambanis, Stergios Skaperdas and William C. Wohlforth “Fragmenting States, New Regimes: “Democracy in Microstates: Why Smallness Militarized State Violence and Transition in Does Not Produce a Democratic Political “Informal Institutions, Collective Action, the Middle East” by Joshua Stacher System” by Wouter P. Veenendaal and Public Investment in Rural China” by Yiqing Xu and Yang Yao
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American Political Science Review, Vol. 109, “(Sub)national Principals, Legislative Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 48, no. 5, no. 1, February 2015 Agents: Patronage and Political Careers in April 2015 “Does Electoral Competition Exacerbate Mexico” by Yann P. Kerevel “Does Welfare Conditionality Reduce Interethnic or Interpartisan Economic Democratic Participation?” by Sara Watson Discrimination? Evidence from a Field “Ideologues, Partisans, and Loyalists: Experiment in Market Price Bargaining” by Cabinet Ministers and Social Welfare Comparative Politics, Vol. 47, no. 3, April Kristin Michelitch Reform in Parliamentary Democracies” by 2015 Despina Alexiadou “The Politics of Minister Retention in “Competing for Transparency: Political Presidential Systems: Technocrats, Partisans, Competition and Institutional Reform in Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 48, no. 7, and Government Approval” by Marcelo Mexican States” by Daniel Berliner and June 2015 Camerlo and Aníbal Pérez-Liñán Aaron Erlich “Credibility Versus Control: Agency Independence and Partisan Influence in “Former Military Networks and the Micro- Communist and Post-Communist Studies, the Regulatory State” by Laurenz Ennser- Politics of Violence and Statebuilding in Vol. 48, no. 1, March 2015 Jedenastik Liberia” by Anders Themnér “Why Is Interregional Inequality in Russia and China Not Falling?” by Thomas F. “Incorporating Marginal Citizens and East European Politics, Vol. 31, no. 1, 2015 Remington Voters: The Conditional Electoral Effects “Where Do Parties Go When They Die? of Targeted Social Assistance in Latin The Fate of Failed Parties in the Czech “Key Sectors in the Post-Communist CEE America” by Matthew L. Layton and Amy Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary 1992– Economies: What Does the Transition Data Erica Smith 2013” by Elisabeth Bakke and Nick Sitter Say?” by Henryk Gurgul and Łukasz Lach “Government Turnover and the Effects of “The Europeanisation of Interest Groups: “Between Institutional Political and Policy Regime Type: How Requiring Alternation EU Conditionality and Adaptation of Agenda: An Analysis of Issue Congruence in Power Biases Against the Estimated Interest Groups to the EU Accession in the 2004–2008 Election Cycle in Economic Benefits of Democracy” by Carl Process in the Republic of Macedonia” by Slovenia” by Samo Kropivnik and Simona Henrik Knutsen and Tore Wig Lidija Hristova and Aneta Cekik Kustec Lipicer “The Durability of Presidential and “The Exploitative Function of Party “Selections before Elections: Double Parliament-Based Dictatorships” by Tyson Patronage: Does It Serve the Party’s Standards in Implementing Election L. Roberts Interest?” by Clara Volintiru Registration Procedures in Russia?” by Håvard Bækken Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 48, no. 6, “Foreign Ministries and Limits to May 2015 Organisational Learning in Central Eastern “How Far Is Too Far? Circassian Ethnic “Elections, Information, and Policy Europe” by Karolina Pomorska Mobilization and the Redrawing of Internal Responsiveness in Autocratic Regimes” by Borders in the North Caucasus” by Marat Michael K. Miller “The ‘Party of Power’ as a Type” by Nicklaus Grebennikov Laverty “Deliberate Indiscretion? How Political “Nicolae Ceauşescu and the Origins of Corruption Encourages Discretionary “Appearances Are Deceptive: Credibility of Eurocommunism” by Cezar Stanciu Policy Making” by Matt W. Loftis the Russian Election Commission” by Ivan Jarabinský Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 48, no. 8, “Random Walk or Planned Excursion? July 2015 Continuity and Change in the Left–Right “Governing the Governors: Legitimacy “Does Reform Prevent Rebellion? Evidence Positions of Political Parties” by Russell J. vs. Control in the Reform of the Russian From Russia’s Emancipation of the Serfs” by Dalton and Ian McAllister Regional Executive” by Helge Blakkisrud Evgeny Finkel, Scott Gehlbach, and Tricia D. Olsen
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International Political Science Review, Vol. “Voting for Democracy: Campaign Effects “After Qadhafi: Development and 36, no. 3, March 2015 in Chile’s Democratic Transition” by Taylor Democratization in Libya” by Edward “Media Framing in Religious–Secular C. Boas Randall Conflict in Turkey and Israel” by Matt Evans and M. Selcan Kaynak “A Natural Experiment in Political “Iran’s Strategy for Saving Asad” by W. Decentralization: Local Institutions and Andrew Terrill “How Politics-News Parallelism Invigorates Citizens’ Political Engagement in Uruguay” Partisanship Strength” by S. Nechama by Fernando Rosenblatt, Germán Bidegain, “Print Media Liberalization and Electoral Horwitz and Lilach Nir Felipe Monestier, and Rafael Piñeiro Coverage Bias in Kuwait” by Kjetil Selvik, Rodríguez Jon Nordenson, and Tewodros Aragie “Rising Regional Powers Meet the Global Kebede Leader: A Strategic Analysis of Influence “Understanding Presidential Failure in Competition” by Sung Eun Kim and South America” by Margaret E. Edwards Middle East Policy, Vol. 22, no. 1, Spring Johannes Urpelainen 2015 Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 57, “Oil, Secession and the Future of Iraqi Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 53, no. 1, Spring 2015 Federalism” by Philippe Le Billon no. 2, June 2015 “The Second Wave of Incorporation in “Regional Sanctions against Burundi: The Latin America: A Conceptualization of the “Syrian and Iraqi Kurds: Conflict and Regime’s Argumentative Self-Entrapment” Quest for Inclusion Applied to Argentina” Cooperation” by Till F. Paasche by Julia Grauvogel by Federico M. Rossi “Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey: Temporary “Formalising Land Rights Based “The Disarticulated Movement: Barriers Marriage?” by David Romano on Customary Tenure: Community to Maya Mobilization in Post-Conflict “The Foreign-Policy Tools of Small Powers: Delimitation and Women’s Access to Land Guatemala” by Manuel Vogt Strategic Hedging in the Persian Gulf ” by in Central Mozambique” by Randi Kaarhus Yoel Guzansky and Stefaan Dondeyne “Intergovernmental Politics of Fiscal Balance in a Federal Democracy: The “Turkey’s Counterrevolution: Notes from Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 53, Experience of Brazil, 1996–2005” by Ozge the Dark Side” by Jeremy Salt no. 2, March 2015 Kemahlioglu “Militant Islamists or Borderland Party Politics, Vol. 21, no. 3, May 2015 Dissidents? An Exploration into the Allied “Shifting the Status Quo: Constitutional “Preference for Radical Right-Wing Democratic Forces’ Recruitment Practices Reforms in Chile” by Claudio Fuentes Populist Parties among Exclusive- and Constitution” by Lindsay Scorgie- Nationalists and Authoritarians” by Kris Porter “Gender Gaps in Civic and Political Dunn Participation in Latin America” by Rosario “The Battle for Zimbabwe in 2013: From Espinal and Shanyang Zhao “Closed-List Proportional Representation Polarisation to Ambivalence” by Julia in Russia: The Fates of Former District Gallagher “Political Clientelism in Mexico: Bridging Deputies” by Bryon Moraski the Gap Between Citizens and the State” Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 57, by Turid Hagene “Alone or Together? How Institutions no. 2, Summer 2015 Affect Party Entry in Presidential Elections “Participation Under Lula: Between Middle East Journal, Vol. 69, no 2, Spring in Europe and South America” by Jae-Jae Electoral Politics and Governability” by 2015 Spoon and Karleen Jones West Hernán F. Gómez Bruera “The July 2012 Libyan Election and the Origin of Post-Qadhafi Appeasement” by “Do Political Parties Matter for Turnout? “Deciding on the Electoral System: Chile’s Jason Pack and Haley Cook Number of Parties, Electoral Rules and Adoption of Proportional Representation Local Elections in Brazil and Bolivia” by in 1925” by Ricardo Gamboa and Mauricio Carew Boulding and David S Brown Morales
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“Presidential Coattails: A Closer Look” by SELECTED NEW BOOKS ON Incomplete Democracies in the Asia- Heather Stoll DEMOCRACY Pacific: Evidence from Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. Edited by “Candidate Campaigning in Parliamentary ADVANCED DEMOCRACIES Giovanna Maria Dora Dore, Jae H. Ku, and Systems: Individualized vs. Localized Inequality in America: Race, Poverty, and Karl D. Jackson. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Campaigning” by Rune Karlsen and Eli Fulfilling Democracy’s Promise.By Stephen 281 pp. Skogerbø M. Caliendo. Westview, 2015. 270 pp. Moral China in the Age of Reform. By Jiwei “Political Sophistication in Central and Judicial Politics in the United States. By Ci. Cambridge University Press, 2014. 230 Eastern Europe: How Can Parties Help?” Mark C. Miller. Westview, 2015. 432 pp. pp. by Sebastian Adrian Popa The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Social Policy. Religious Practice and Democracy in India. “Measuring the Electoral Mobilization Edited by Daniel Béland, Christopher By Pradeep K. Chhibber. Cambridge of Ethnic Parties: Towards Comparable Howard, and Kimberley J. Morgan. Oxford University Press, 2014. 204 pp. Indicators” by Oliver Strijbis and Michal University Press, 2015. 668 pp. Kotnarowski EASTERN EUROPE AND THE Writing Democracy: The NorwegianFORMER SOVIET UNION Party Politics, Vol. 21, no. 2, March 2015 Constitution, 1814–2014. Edited by Karen Corruption as a Last Resort: Adapting to “The Political Economy of Party Building: Gammelgaard and Eirik Holmoyvik. the Market in Central Asia. By Kelly M. Theory and Evidence from Peru’s Berghahn, 2015. 276 pp. McMann. Cornell University Press, 2014. Infrastructure Development Programme” 182 pp. by Carlos Costa AFRICA The Limits of Democratic Governance Engineering Revolution: The Paradox of “Party Change, Social Media and the Rise of in South Africa. By Louis A. Picard and Democracy Promotion in Serbia. By Marlene ‘Citizen-Initiated’ Campaigning” by Rachel Thomas Mogale. Lynne Rienner, 2015. 277 Spoerri. University of Pennsylvania Press, K. Gibson pp. 2015. 242 pp. Gleichschaltung: Authoritarian Consolidation “Party Registration Rules and Party Systems Oxford Street, Accra: City Life and the in Ukraine, 2010–2012. By Mykola in Latin America” by Yen-Pin Su Itineraries of Transnationalism. By Ato Riabchuk. K.I.S. Publishing, 2012. 191 pp. Quayson. Duke University Press, 2014. 297 “Measuring Parties’ Ethnic Appeals in pp. Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy Democracies” by Elena Gadjanova in Russia. By Valerie Sperling. Oxford ASIA University Press, 2015. 360 pp. World Politics, Vol. 67, no. 2, April 2015 Cities and Stability: Urbanization, “Democratic Limits to Redistribution: Redistribution, and Regime Survival in LATIN AMERICA AND THE Inclusionary versus Exclusionary Coalitions China. By Jeremy L. Wallace. Oxford CARIBBEAN in the Knowledge Economy” by Torben University Press, 2014. 252 pp. The Invention of the Brazilian Northeast. By Iversen and David Soskice Durval Muniz de Albuquerque, Jr. Duke Communism in India: Events, Processes and University Press, 2014. 277 pp. “Explaining the Oil Advantage: Effects of Ideologies. By Bidyut Chakrabarty. Oxford Natural Resource Wealth on Incumbent University Press, 2014. 314 pp. The Great Depression in Latin America. Reelection in Iran” by Paasha Mahdavi Edited by Paulo Drinot and Alan Knight. Democratic Local Governance: Reforms and Duke University Press, 2014. 362 pp. “Ethnic Voting and Accountability in Innovations in Asia. Edited by G. Shabbir Africa: A Choice Experiment in Uganda” by Cheema. United Nations University Press, Political Empowerment of the Cocaleros of Elizabeth Carlson 2013. 211 pp. Bolivia and Peru. By Ursula Durand Ochoa. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 230 pp.
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Resource Extraction and Protest in Peru. By Democracy Declassified: The SecrecyJuan J. Linz: Scholar, Teacher, Friend. Edited Moisés Arce. University of Pittsburgh Press, Dilemma in National Security. By Michael by H.E. Chehabi. T^y Aur Press, 2014. 568 2014. 171 pp. P. Colaresi. Oxford University Press, 2014. pp. 379 pp. The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating The Lessons of Ranci`ere.By Samuel A. Modernity, Nation and Democracy in Democratic Militarism: Voting, Wealth, and Chambers. Oxford University Press, 2013. Nineteenth-Century Latin America. By War. By Jonathan D. Caverley. Cambridge 223 pp. James E. Sanders. Duke University Press, University Press, 2014. 306 pp. 2014. 339 pp. Leviathan 2.0: Inventing Modern Statehood. A Different Democracy: American Government By Charles S. Maier. Belknap Press of MIDDLE EAST in a Thirty-One-Country Perspective. By Harvard University Press, 2012. 370 pp. Assessing MENA Political Reform, Post-Arab Stephen L. Taylor et al. Yale University Spring: Mediators and Microfoundations. Press, 2014. 378 pp. Monitoring Democracy: When International Edited by Brian Robert Calfano. Lexington, Election Observation Works, and Why It 2014. 239 pp. Divided Sovereignty: International Institutions Often Fails. By Judith G. Kelley. Princeton and the Limits of State Authority. By Carmen University Press, 2012. 338 pp. Gaza: A History. By Jean-Pierre Filiu. E. Pavel. Oxford University Press, 2015. 211 Oxford University Press, 2014. 422 pp. pp. Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization Moroccan Women, Activists, and Gender Fateful Transitions: How Democracies of Democracy. By Francis Fukuyama. Farrar, Politics: An Institutional Analysis. By Eve Manage Rising Powers, from the Eve of Straus and Giroux, 2014. 658 pp. Sandberg and Kenza Aqertit. Lexington, World War I to China’s Ascendance. By Daniel 2014. 171 pp. M. Kliman. University of Pennsylvania The Power of Memory in Democratic Politics. Press, 2015. 234 pp. By P.J. Brendese. University of Rochester Political Islam in the Age of Democratization. Press, 2014. 210 pp. By Kamran Bokhari and Farid Senzai. Help or Harm: The Human Security Effects Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 258 pp. of International NGOs. By Amanda Murdie. Scholars, Policymakers, and International Stanford University Press, 2014. 303 pp. Affairs: Finding Common Cause.Edited by COMPARATIVE, THEORETICAL, Abraham F. Lowenthal and Mariano E. GENERAL The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind: Bertucci. John Hopkins University Press, Corruption in the Contemporary World: How Self-Interest Shapes Our Opinions and 2014. 303 pp. Theory, Practice, and Hotspots. Edited Why We Won’t Admit It. By Jason Weeden by Jonathan Mendilow and Ilan Peleg. and Robert Kurzban. Princeton University Selected Writings of Thomas Paine.Edited Lexington, 2014. 271 pp. Press, 2014. 363 pp. by Ian Shapiro and Jane E. Calvert. Yale University Press, 2014. 676 pp. Cutting the Gordian Knot of Economic How Global Institutions Rule the World. By Reform: When and How International Josep M. Colomer. Palgrave Macmillan, Trust in the Capacities of the People, Distrust Institutions Help. By Leonardo Baccini and 2014. 219 pp. in Elites. By Kenneth Good. Lexington, Johannes Urpelainen. Oxford University 2014. 271 pp. Press, 2015. 267 pp. Inside the Politics of Self-Determination. By Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham. Oxford Working with the Grain: Integrating Deliberative Mini-Publics: Involving University Press, 2014. 290 pp. Governance and Growth in Development Citizens in the Democratic Process. Edited Strategies. By Brian Levy. Oxford University by Kimmo Grönlund, André Bächtiger and Press, 2014. 288 pp. Maija Setälä. ECPR, 2014. 255 pp.
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Editorial Committee
is the official newsletter of the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization section. Formerly known as CompDem, it has been published three times a year (October, January, and May) by the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies since 2003. In October 2010, the newsletter was renamed APSA-CD and APSA-CDexpanded to include substantive articles on democracy, as well as news and notes on the latest developments in the field. The newsletter is now jointly produced and edited by faculty members of the V-Dem Institute and the International Forum.
The current issue of APSA-CD is available here. A complete archive of past issues is also available.
To inquire about submitting an article to APSA-CD, please contact Staffan I. Lindberg or Melissa Aten.
Editorial Board Members Executive Editor Staffan I. Lindberg is professor of political science Yi-ting Wang is a post-doctoral fellow in the Varieties and heading the V-Dem Institute at University of of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, Department of Gothenburg; is one of four principal investigators Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. Her for Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem); Wallenberg work primarily focuses on legislative institutions and Academy Fellow; selected member Young Academy of Sweden; politicians’ accountability strategies with an emphasis and a Research Fellow at the Quality of Government Institute. on questions of conditions for democratic stability. Her dissertation He is author of Democracy and Elections in Africa and editor of addresses how and why legislative committees differ in their Democratization by Elections: A New Mode of Transition?, and abilities to exert policy influence across democracies. Her current has also worked on women’s representation, political clientelism, project explores the consequences of different legislative capacities voting behavior, party and electoral systems, democratization, to participate in law making and monitor the executive for the popular attitudes, and the Ghanaian legislature and executive- quality of democracies. legislative relationships. Brigitte Zimmerman recently obtained her PhD from Members the University of California, San Diego and is currently Kelly M. McMann is an associate professor a post-doctoral fellow in the Varieties of Democracy of political science at Case Western Reserve (V-Dem) Institute, Department of Political Science at University and the Varieties of Democracy project the University of Gothenburg. Her research agenda examines manager for subnational government. She currently is conducting accountability institutions in consolidating democracies, with a research on how democracy develops within countries, initially by geographic focus on sub-Saharan Africa. In her dissertation, she examining contemporary cases in Africa, Asia, and the former analyzed the strategic responses of political officials to anti- Soviet Union and historical cases in Europe. Her earlier research corruption interventions, documenting patterns of corruption focused on corruption and activism and has been published in substitution through extensive fieldwork. Other current research the books Corruption as a Last Resort: Adapting to the Market addresses discrimination in petty corruption, incumbency in Central Asia and Economic Autonomy and Democracy: Hybrid advantage in diverse institutional contexts, the political economy Regimes in Russia and Kyrgyzstan. of FDI and foreign aid, and the ethics of field research.
Eitan Tzelgov is a post-doctoral fellow in the Varieties Managing Editor of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute, Department of Melissa Aten is the senior research and conferences Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. He officer at the National Endowment for Democracy’s studies legislative institutions and political parties. His International Forum for Democratic Studies and dissertation, awarded the Carl Albert Award by the Legislative associate director of the Network of Democracy Research Studies Section of the American Political Science Association, Institutes. She earned an M.A. from The George Washington examines the strategic use of parliamentary speeches by the University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where she legislative opposition. focused on foreign policy and Central Europe.
The International Forum for Democratic Studies 1025 F Street, NW, 8th Floor Washington, DC 20004
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