Chapter 6 CPO2002 Lecture

Authoritarianism
Chapter Six

Pearson Publishing 2011

• Is democracy appropriate for all countries? Or is
authoritarian rule sometimes necessary?
• If so, are some kinds of authoritarian rule more successful
than others at improving capabilities?
• Premise of this chapter: The persistence of authoritarian
regimes in the last half-century makes the study of their
nature and resilience worthwhile. Increasingly,
authoritarian legitimacy relies on claiming democratic
and market system characteristics. Authoritarian systems
do not fully build people’s capabilities, however.

Authoritarianism

• A type of political system
in which a single
individual or small elite
rules without
constitutional checks on
their power.
• Citizens cannot hold
rulers accountable
because there are no
independent courts of law
or effective free and fair
elections.

• The primary form of
government through most
of recorded history (e.g.:
czars, emperors, kings,
sultans)
• Early authoritarianism was
based on the “divine right
of kings” where authority
was derived from a
hereditary bloodline
• Modern authoritarianism
increasingly claims to
represent the will of the
people - a show of
democratic principles.

Authoritarianism

• Between 1974 and 2000 the number of authoritarian
regimes fell dramatically, leading some to suspect that
this type of government would eventually die out... This
did not happen.
• Every Arab country in the Middle East is authoritarian
• Many parts of Africa retain authoritarian regimes
• China - the world’s most populous country - has an
authoritarian government
• Many countries which once appeared to be on the way to
democracy have slipped back into authoritarianism
• Ex: Russia

Persistent Authoritarianism

• Regime - “a set of rules and procedures for choosing
leaders and policies that exists in a country during a
period of time, and the government that embodies these
rules, not individual leaders” (Geddes)
• We will evaluate the differences between totalitarian and
authoritarian regimes, before considering the different
types of authoritarian regimes in more detail...
• We will also consider how each regime type seeks
legitimacy - the willingness of citizens to acknowledge that
a regime rightfully holds and exercises power

Regime Types

• Totalitarian
• Use encompassing ideologies
with a radically different vision
for a better society
• Have a single party usually led
by one leader
• Seek total control over people’s
behavior
• State control over all media
• Continuous efforts to mobilize
mass support for the state
through rallies and propaganda
• Use terror and violence on a
mass scale to intimidate entire
categories of people

•• Authoritarian
Authoritarian
•• Use ideologies, but they are not
Use ideologies, but they are not
fully encompassing
fully encompassing
•• Sometimes have one-party rule
Sometimes have one-party rule
•• Do not seek total control over
Do not seek total control over
people’s behavior
people’s behavior
•• Sometimes allow limited
Sometimes allow limited
freedom of the press so long as it
freedom of the press so long as it
doesn’t criticize the regime
doesn’t criticize the regime
•• Do not mobilize mass support -Do not mobilize mass support
prefer politically apathetic
prefer politically apathetic
citizens
citizens
•• Do use terror and violence to
Do use terror and violence to
intimidate opponents, but not on
intimidate opponents, but not on
aamassive scale
massive scale

Authoritarian vs. Totalitarian Regimes

• We examine four types of “pure” authoritarian
regimes:
• Monarchy
• Military
• Single-Party
• Electoral Authoritarian

Types of
Authoritarianism

• Political authority is bestowed based on hereditary
connection to a royal bloodline - the royal family, not the
people, is the ruler
• Ex: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, England or Sweden (symbolic)

• One of the oldest and longest-serving authoritarian
regime types
• Seek legitimacy through a number of methods:
• based on a long-standing tradition
• presenting themselves as effective rulers who promote the
well-being of their subjects
• fierce repression using large security forces

Monarchies

• Political authority is held by a group of military
officers who influence policy by using or threatening
to use military force
• Ex: 1960s and 1970s saw military regimes in South
Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Chile, and others

• Coup d’etat - the seizure of power through the
sudden overthrow of a government by military
officers
• Can be small and bloodless or large and violent

Military Regimes

• Military regimes use a number of strategies for asserting their
legitimacy:
• Promising a quick return to democratic rule
• Holding elections in which the military establishes a political
party (given considerable advantages)
• Claiming to defend the nation from domestic or foreign threats
• ex: during the 1960s and 1970s military regimes in Latin America
commonly cited the threat of communist Cuba

• Declaring martial law - the authority to set curfews, ban protests,
or public assemblies
• Crafting policies to benefit particular groups in society
• Brazil and Chile’s military regimes enacted policies to benefit big
businesses and commercial farming interests

Military Regimes

• Political authority is held by one party, which controls
access to political office and policy-making
• No other parties are allowed to exist, or they are purely
symbolic
• Often led mass movements and legitimized their rule with
ideologies promising a better future for party supporters
• Three main types of single-parties:
• Communist (ex: China, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba)
• Fascist (ex: 1930s Germany and Italy - no longer exist)
• Nationalist (ex: many post-colonial African countries)

Single-Party Regimes

• Hierarchical parties with real power concentrated in a
small number of leaders
• Leaders are (in theory) elected by lower party members.
• Five main features:
• Lead workers and peasants in revolution to take power
• Party members for an elite group, which provides leadership
to these worker/peasant movements
• Based on a elaborate ideology of Marxism-Leninism
• Ruthlessly eliminate opposition parties and associations
• Penetrate deeply in society through factories, schools, and
other local organizations

Communist Systems

• Communist parties seek legitimacy by appealing to:
• Marxist Ideology
• Nationalism
• China’s communist party is a source of national pride for
transforming China into a major economic and military power

• Protection from internal and external threats
• the Soviet Union often cited the threat of US missiles

• Communist parties also have an “iron fist”
•
•
•
•

Using massive force against their opponents
Maintaining state ownership of the economy
State-sponsored organizations for workers, youth, & women
Enacting policies to benefit key social groups

Legitimizing Communism

• According to Karl Marx, all societies rest on the
exploitation of one social class by another
• Capitalism exploits the working class, and will be
replaced by communism through a revolution of the
working class
• Communism will create a new order dedicated to key
principles
• economic equality
• the elimination of social classes and eventually the state
• “from each according to his ability; to each according to his
needs”

Marxist Ideology

• Unlike communist systems, fascist systems do not present
a facade of elected leaders responsible to party members instead have unadorned centralization and the command
of an individual leader
• Ex: Germany under Hitler; Italy under Mussolini

• Fascist ideology is rooted in ultranationalism
• Focus on the “organic nation” in which clear boundaries
identify who is part of the nation and who is not
• Ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities are not tolerated

• Fascist regimes ended in 1945. No current authoritarian
regime is based on fascist principles.

Fascist Systems

• Fascist systems seek legitimacy through:
• Ultranationalist Ideology
• Facade of democracy
• Did not hold elections but still claimed to represent the
will of the people

• Charismatic leaders
• Use of violence and restrictions on civil and political
rights
• Mussolini said “Everything in the State, nothing against
the State, nothing outside the State.”

Legitimizing Fascism

• Hold regularly scheduled elections and allow for
multiple parties to compete, but the elections are
strongly tilted in favor of the ruling political party
• “Institute the principle of popular consent, even as
they subvert it in practice.” (Schedler, 388)
• Ex: Russia, Malaysia, Egypt

• The most common form of modern authoritarian rule
• Elections can be meaningful - it is rare, but leaders of
these regimes do sometimes lose office as a result

Electoral Authoritarian Regimes

• Holding regularly scheduled multiparty elections is
the main way electoral regimes seek legitimacy
• Other ways:
• Raising citizen’s standard of living
• Pursuing market-oriented economic reforms
• Use coercion to control groups, but less open violence
than military and single-party regimes

Legitimizing Electoral Regimes

• For leaders of opposition parties
• If they choose to participate in a rigged game they risk
legitimizing the rules of the game
• Repeated losses can demoralize opposition voters
• But it is the only institutionalized way to seek change

• For ruling elites
• Gives up any pretense that the regime embodies a common good,
and acknowledges cleavages in society
• If the opposition candidate is popular the regime can risk
manipulating vote totals, but risks public outrage in response
• Ex: 2009 election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Dilemmas of Electoral Regimes

• Scholars debate whether elections promote democracy in
authoritarian regimes or reinforce authoritarianism. Jason
Brownlee suggests that there is a third possibility.
• Hypothesis: Authoritarian regimes with a ruling political
party are likely to face less serious opposition challenges
and remain more stable than authoritarian regimes without a
ruling party.
• Ruling parties provide for durability in two ways:
• provide leaders with benefits for staying with the ruling
party
• provide a forum for working out differences among leaders

• Countries without a ruling regime are more likely to
experience serious opposition

Comparative Political Analysis:

Why do some authoritarian regimes survive
elections while others do not?

Monarchy

Ruler is someone of royal descent who inherits the
position of head of state..... Ex: Saudi Arabia

Military

Rule by military officers under threat of military force
or use of military force..... Ex: Myanmar

Single-Party

Rule by a single party. The three types of single-parties
are communist, fascist, and nationalist..... No modern
examples.

Electoral
Authoritarian

Hold regular elections and allow for multiple parties
but the elections are biased toward the ruling regime....
Ex: Egypt and Russia

Comparing Authoritarian Systems

• When rulers accumulate so much power that they use the
political organization to achieve their own preferences
instead of acting on its behalf it results in personal rule
• Instead of rulers being subordinate to the organization, the
organization becomes subordinate to them

• Personal rulers tend to stay in power for life
• Usually emerges from power struggles after a party or
military regime has assumed power
• Ex: Stalin in the Soviet Union or Mao Zedong in China

• Often occurs in poor countries with weak political and
economic institutions

Personal Rule

• Personal rulers seek loyalty through patronage - filling
key military, police, or bureaucratic positions with family
or tribal/religious/ethnic group members
• Have strong despotic power but weak infrastructural
power
• Despotic Power - power over individuals and social groups
• Infrastructural Power - ability to work within societal
groups to achieve desired ends rather than controlling them

Personal Rule

• In 1980 Zimbabwe won its independence following civil war and was
considered to be an economically promising country in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Under British rule white farmers controlled 70% of arable land - the issue of
how to correct this imbalance in independent Zimbabwe has led to economic
disaster and falling capabilities
• Gradual reforms predicated on the willingness of whites to sell farm land to
blacks failed
• Proposed changes to allow the government to seize white farmers’ land failed
• In response President Mugabe encouraged landless blacks to attack and occupy
white farmers’ land, closed newspapers, arrested leaders, and had demonstrators
beaten
• As a result, agricultural production plummeted and led to severe inflation

• Citizen capabilities have also declined
• Ex: Life expectancy was 61 in 1990 and in 2005 had dropped to 41.5 years

In Depth: Zimbabwe - How to Wreck
an Economy and Lower Capabilities

• Between 1974 and 1995 the number of democracies rose
from 40 to 117, sweeping away authoritarian regimes in
Latin America, Africa, and Asia
• The Middle East remained a solid rock of authoritarian
resistance
• Israel remains the only liberal democracy in the region

• What best explains this persistence of authoritarianism in
the Middle East?

Explaining Authoritarian Persistence
in the Middle East

• The Middle East is a geographical concept referring to
the countries located between Turkey and India, and
those on the Arabian Peninsula
• The term “Arab” is a linguistic and cultural concept
referring to people who speak Arabic and practice Arab
customs
• Not all Middle Eastern countries are Arab
• Israel (composed of Jews who speak Hebrew)
• Iran (composed of Persians who speak Farsi)

In Brief:

Distinguishing Between Middle Eastern and Arab Countries

• Samuel Huntington argues that Islam is fundamentally
incompatible with democracy because its laws reject the
acceptance of pluralism, competition of ideas, and
equality of rights
• Other scholars strongly reject this claim, pointing out that
there is no single interpretation of Islam in the Muslim
world
• They emphasize further that citizens in Muslim countries
display a wide range of attitudes on these issues

in the Middle East

Do Muslim The evidence is inconclusive:
populations
• According to the World Values
support
Survey, a higher percentage of
respondents in Arab countries
democracy?

expressed agreement with democracy
than many European countries.
• A better predictor, however, of
whether a country becomes
democratic is its population’s support
for self-expression values, not
democracy broadly specified.
• Surveys find lower levels of enthusiasm
for self-expression values in Muslim
countries than Europe

Explaining Authoritarian Persistence in the Middle East

• Low levels of economic and social development do not explain
authoritarianism in the Middle East - many Arab countries have high
GDP per capita.
• Many Arab states are rentier states and able to provide public
services without taxation, in essence buying citizens’ support of the
authoritarian regime.
• Rentier States - derive the bulk of revenue (rents) from oil production,
eliminating high taxes
• This does not explain all countries, however (e.g.: Jordan is a non-rentier
authoritarian state).

• Many argue that the region’s leaders have “upgraded
authoritarianism by adopting looser political controls, controlled
elections, and selective repression.

in the Middle East

• How well have the different types of
authoritarian regimes promoted their citizens
capabilities?
• Consider indicators such as infant mortality, literacy rates,
crime rates, and democracy levels

Evaluating Authoritarianism

• There is a mixed record of success with authoritarian
states and low infant mortality rates.
• All the authoritarian regime types (monarchy, military,
single-party, and elected authoritarian) have examples of
high infant mortality and low infant mortality

• The same general patterns can be observed with regard to
adult literacy.

Evaluating Authoritarianism:
Infant Mortality & Literacy

• Monarchies generally have very low homicide rates.
• Bhutan’s rate of 4.3 per 100,000 is lower than the US (5.9).

• Military regimes have both high and low homicide rates.
• Communist single-party regimes have generally low
homicide rates.
• Like military regimes, electoral authoritarian regimes
have both high and low homicide rates.

Crime Rates

• Remember that Polity IV ranks democracy on a -10
(authoritarian) to +10 (democratic) scale.
• Monarchies have the lowest democracy ratings overall (10).
• Most military regimes are less authoritarian than
monarchies, with a few outliers (on average they score -4).
• Ex: Myanmar has a very low democracy score at -8.

• Communist single-party regimes all receive a -7.
• Electoral authoritarian regimes are the most democratic,
ranging from -3 to +5.

Democracy

• The types of feasible
authoritarian regimes have
been narrowed
• Fascism no longer exists and
Communism has decreased
• Leaders increasingly rely on
market-based systems

• Democracy is the only
widely accepted way of
gaining political legitimacy,
even in authoritarian
regimes

• There are no ideologies
comparable to Marxism
which appeal to large
numbers of people across
the world
• While electoral
authoritarianism is the most
prevalent type, it is not a
fix-all solution
• Elections like the 2009
Iranian election can be very
destabilizing
• Rentier states must continue
to rely on resource
availability

Key Conclusions

• Why are rulers of authoritarian regimes more hopeful about
their prospects today than they were in the 1990s?
• Is authoritarian rule justified if a leader can achieve
improvements in citizens’ capabilities, as President Paul
Kagame has done in Rwanda?
• How do communist and fascist regimes differ, and why have
communist regimes been more enduring?
• Why do electoral authoritarian regimes present dilemmas for
both rulers and opposition?
• Is one form of authoritarianism better than another?

Critical Thinking Questions

Chapter 6 CPO2002 Lecture

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (20)

Ähnlich wie Chapter 6 CPO2002 Lecture

Ähnlich wie Chapter 6 CPO2002 Lecture (20)

Mehr von PoliSciDep

Mehr von PoliSciDep (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Chapter 6 CPO2002 Lecture