Nationalist Rhetoric and Public Legitimacy in Ilham Aliyev’S Azerbaijan

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository NATIONALIST RHETORIC AND PUBLIC LEGITIMACY IN ILHAM ALIYEV’S AZERBAIJAN Benjamin Midas A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of the Arts in the Global Studies department in the College of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Erica Johnson Michael Morgan Chad Bryant © 2016 Benjamin Midas ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Benjamin Midas: Nationalist Rhetoric and Public Legitimacy in Ilham Aliyev’s Azerbaijan (Under the Direction of Erica Johnson) This thesis explores the question of why nondemocratic leaders use nationalist rhetoric in ways very similar to democratic leaders through a case study of Azerbaijan. I argue that Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev uses nationalist rhetoric in order to build public legitimacy for his regime. Despite not needing to build a base of support for legitimate elections, Aliyev needs to legitimate his regime in the eyes of his citizens. To do so he uses nationalist themes in his speeches that resonate with Azerbaijani population to develop popular support. These themes come from applying theories of nationalism to the context of Azerbaijan. I will show the nationalist themes Aliyev utilizes in his speeches and how the use of those themes changes in response to events in Azerbaijan. Aliyev modulates his nationalist rhetoric in response to events in predictable ways, which shows how he manipulates nationalist themes to generate support. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………………...11 CHAPTER 3: CASE STUDY……………………………………………………………………28 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………..47 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………......................50 iv INTRODUCTION Azerbaijan is a small country in the southern Caucasus ruled by President Ilham Aliyev. Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union, but became and independent country after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Officially, Azerbaijan has all the hallmarks of a democracy, but in practice, Azerbaijan functions as an authoritarian state. Its president Ilham Aliyev is virtually guaranteed to win elections through rigging the system against his opposition. Azerbaijan is an example of a hybrid regime, a regime that combines aspects of democratic government with more authoritarian principles.1 The term generally connotes a regime with very weak democracy in which the institutions of democracy exist but do not function properly. Despite these circumstances, President Aliyev devotes a great deal of time and effort to developing nationalist ideology in his speeches. Ilham Aliyev never misses an opportunity to develop the great Azerbaijani nation. In speeches, addresses, and interviews, Aliyev constantly praises the strengths of the Azerbaijani nation as the best, strongest, freest, etc. nation in the world. Aliyev devotes considerable time to the theme of Azerbaijani’s national greatness. At first glance, this might not seem so unusual. Nationalist rhetoric can be an effective tool to build support for an election. Aliyev’s use of nationalist rhetoric is similar to his counterparts in western liberal democracies. The more a politician can ingratiate themselves with a national group, the more they could depend on their 1 Larry Jay Diamond, “Thinking About Hybrid Regimes,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (2002): 21–35.; Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (April 1, 2002): 51–65. 1 group’s support in an election. Building a base of electoral support seems like a basic component of the democratic system. Azerbaijan, as noted above, is not a true democratic system, however. Aliyev does not necessarily need to mobilize a wide base of support to win elections in Azerbaijan because through marginalizing the opposition and possibly altering election results, Aliyev would most likely win the election regardless of who actually supports him.2 As in many hybrid regimes, democracy in Azerbaijan is a shaky proposition at best. The regime frequently intimidates opposition politicians and creates a political framework in which real opposition has no chance of materializing and challenging the regime. The elections are rigged and Aliyev does not necessarily need to spend time trying to win them legitimately. Why then would president Aliyev devote time to trying to win over the public to his cause? I will argue that the Aliyev regime’s stability and Aliyev’s efforts at nation building go hand in hand. Creating a strong sense of nationhood in Azerbaijan helped lead to the situation in which Aliyev currently finds himself. He is unquestionably a corrupt, autocratic president, but many Azerbaijani people approve of Aliyev and his government. Aliyev does not need to create an electoral base of nationalist supporters in the sense that he needs a base to win presidential elections. Nevertheless, creating such a base through his nation-building rhetoric in speeches helps keep his approval ratings high. Azerbaijani citizens who approve of Aliyev, who buy into his proclamations on the greatness of the Azerbaijani nation are less likely to challenge Aliyev politically. Aliyev does not technically need all these supporters to show up at the polls on 2 REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 9 October 2013 OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report; Warsaw December 24, 2013 2 election day and vote for him, but their support offers his regime a level of stability that is unique in the post-Soviet context. Azerbaijan is a unique country in many ways. It is a majority Muslim state that was once part of the Soviet Union. In some ways then, its transition to a corrupt hybrid regime may not seem very unique at all. Many of the post-Soviet states in Central Asia followed a similar trajectory after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In many post-Soviet states, hybrid regimes developed when a leader with autocratic tendencies took power and refused to give it up. What makes Azerbaijan unique is how stable the Aliyev regime has been, stretching back to Ilham’s father, Heydar Aliyev, who served as president before Ilham. The Central Asian states witnessed political violence in several forms after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even Azerbaijan’s neighbors in the South Caucasus experienced various levels of political upheaval. In contrast, Azerbaijan has had relatively little violence since the Aliyevs came to power.3 Ilham Aliyev has not dealt with serious challenges to his regime in his two terms as president. Political opposition exists in Azerbaijan, but it has never gathered much momentum in challenging Aliyev. I argue that part of this regime stability can be explained by public support generated by Aliyev’s nationalist rhetoric. I will use three bodies of literature to help explain why Ilham Aliyev exerts so much time and energy building up the Azerbaijani nation. The first is the literature of nationalism itself. Many scholars have written about nation building form a variety of theoretical perspectives and 3 Süha Bölükbaşı, Azerbaijan : A Political History (London ; New York: Distributed in the U.S. and Canada exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 3 about a variety of cases.4 Nation building and nationalism is an extremely important aspect of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the years following.5 I will show how Azerbaijan and Ilham Aliyev fit into this complex body of literature by exploring how Aliyev’s methods compare to other leaders’ methods of nation building. Does Aliyev’s use of nationalism fit with existing explanations of nation building or are his practices unique? Is such top-down nationalism common or effective? Are there analogous examples of political stability through nation building or is Azerbaijan a more unique case? Nationalism is an integral part of understanding Ilham Aliyev’s speeches. Aliyev uses nationalism to build solidarity in the public and generate legitimacy for his regime. I will also use literature that explores the idea of authoritarian legitimacy. Authoritarian leaders such as Ilham Aliyev are not universally reviled by their citizens. Many are not as popular as Aliyev, but many do seek some kind of legitimacy through elections or other means. I will show how Aliyev’s efforts to build support and legitimacy through nation building rhetoric fit into the wider context of authoritarian legitimacy. Finally, I will explore the literature on hybrid regimes. Azerbaijan certainly fits the mold of a hybrid regime. It combines aspects of both democratic and authoritarian government, most typically through competitive elections which are usually not free or fair. It is important to understand how hybrid regimes tend to function in general and how Azerbaijan compares. Azerbaijan is an interesting case in terms of hybrid regimes again because of how popular and 4 For a broad overview of nationalism see 1. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Verso Books, 2006) and Ernest Gellner and John Breuilly, Nations and Nationalism (Cornell University Press, 2008). 5 Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence : Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: Norton, 2000) 4 stable the Aliyev regime has been. I argue that Aliyev uses nationalism to generate public legitimacy and this helps explain the stability of hybrid regimes. Data and Case Selection Aliyev became president in 2003 after his father, Heydar Aliyev, passed the reins of power to him. He won two subsequent elections and remains Azerbaijan’s president. Heydar Aliyev came to power in 1993 amid the political and economic turmoil of Azerbaijan’s post- Soviet transition. A former Communist Party official during the Soviet era, the elder Aliyev promised the people of Azerbaijan stability and order. After two terms as President and in failing health, Heydar appointed his son, Ilham, as his successor and stepped aside to allow his son to ascend to the presidency.

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