AUTHORITARIANISM
There exists a rich vocabulary for referring to non-democracies and
authoritarian, past and present. Scholars have employed terms such as dictatorship,
tyranny, monarchy, oligarchy, and totalitarian regime, among others, to describe this
kind of political system. All of these, and many more, fall under a broad umbrella of
regimes that can be described as non-democratic. This is a problematic way to
understand these regimes, however, since the definition of democracy itself is
contested. Thus, we tend to use the term authoritarian to describe a wide range of
states that differ from democracies in important ways. We generally consider
authoritarian regimes as all forms of government which deny citizens meaningful
institutional channels for making choices about their collective well-being. This can
range from limited to no ability for public input in the selection of political leaders and
limited to no decision-making power over the allocation of public resources.
Non-democracies are quite diverse, even more so than democracies, and this
variety extends across time and space. While there are 'varieties of democracy'
ranging from liberal to electoral to “hybrid,” with different institutional configurations
such as presidential and parliamentary, across democracies there exist common
principles such as divided government and accountability to the people. All
democracies have electoral systems, an executive, legislature, and judiciary.
Authoritarian regimes, in contrast, do not have any common organizational features;
instead, they run the gamut from rule by a single person with minimal
institutionalization to complex bureaucratic systems under collective leadership, to
governments that also have the familiar institutions of a democracy. For example,
many authoritarian regimes do have three branches of government and multiple
political parties. The difference is often in how separate these branches really are or
how competitive the political parties really are. These differences can be quite subtle
at times, as some democracies may also have less than competitive elections and
branches of government that aren’t fully separate but equal. Therefore, even though
we are presenting these two regime types as distinct for the purposes of introducing
the new student to these concepts, it is better to think of them in terms of a scale.
Thus, authoritarian regimes are a much broader and confounding collection of
countries to study. Even more confounding, these states tend to be those that are
difficult for outsiders to gain access to, such as North Korea and Russia.
Empirically, authoritarian regimes are also distinct from democracies in
important ways. Nondemocratic regimes are much more variable in their economic
performance. (Gandhi, 2008). Many have swung from extreme levels of nationwide
poverty to becoming economic dynamos, presenting sustained economic growth rates
unseen in recorded human history. This would be the example set by China from 1978
to 2020. In a reversal of this pattern, the kingdom of Chad and post-colony of Chad
(1960-present) made the dramatic turn from a major trading empire during the ninth
through nineteenth centuries to becoming one of the poorest sub-Saharan countries
in Africa today. Non-democracies appear to experience deeper economic troughs and
higher economic highs than their democratic counterparts. As discussed in previous
chapters, some of this variation is due to different patterns and time periods of
colonization. While there exist many varieties of non-democracy, a subject taken up
later in this chapter, all non-democracies share several overriding characteristics.
These relate to accountability, competition, and freedom. Let’s take up each of these
in turn.
Accountability
Political accountability has many dimensions. Most critically in democracies, it
exists between public officials and the public via the institution of free and fair elections.
Accountability exists via other channels, such as through the free flow of information
about political decisions and developments in a society. A free and independent media
can ensure this flow of information, along with monitors within government.
Accountability also exists when different branches of government can check each
other, for example through vetoes, court rulings, and divided authority.
In authoritarianism, some or all of these forms of accountability are
compromised: elections are rigged or don’t exist; the media is muzzled or state-owned;
government exists to carry out the will of an unchecked political elite. Most non-
democracies restrict channels for accountability of political authority(ies) to the
governed in some capacity or another. Take the example of Saudi Arabia. This
kingdom is one of the few remaining absolutist monarchies in existence today, and all
political authority lays with the Al Saud royal family. The Saudi king is the leader of this
family, and he is also head of state and head of government of Saudi Arabia. There is
no legislature to pass laws in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi citizens do not elect
representatives or otherwise have institutional channels for providing input in the
national policy-making process. In this polity, the ruling Al Saud family is not
accountable to the Saudi people.
Competition
Separate but related, authoritarian governments have limited to no competition
for political office. This may mean the absence of political parties, as in the case of
Saudi Arabia. Some nondemocracies allow limited competition for public office, which
was the case in Mexico under PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional). PRI
controlled Mexican political life for 71 years and was famously described by novelist
Mario Vargas Llosa as “the perfect dictatorship” because it managed to remain the
ruling party of Mexico for decades despite the existence of opposition parties. We
discussed this in the previous chapter (see Dominant and Single Party Systems, page
214). These opposition parties began to win elections in the 1980s and, in 2000, PAN
(Partido Acción Nacional) presidential candidate Vicente Fox won national elections
and overturned decades of single-party rule in modern Mexico. Political parties are
one way, but not the only way, to observe the degree of competition in a political
system, and they are a proxy for a deeper and more meaningful competition of policy
ideas. This competition of ideas is a critical marker of the debate, dissent, and diversity
that characterizes a democratic system. However, in a more deliberative democratic
system, parties may be present but not the only conduit for meaningful debate. Thus,
it is important to try to distinguish between parties and other forms of competition that
may or may not be democratic.
Freedom
Many authoritarian systems lack a commitment to individual freedom, which is
an important element to be considered democratic. While democracies usually many
institutional channels for individual voice -- elections and independent media are key
examples -- these are often manipulated or censored in a non-democracy. To justify
the abrogation of individual freedoms, authoritarian states may promote alternate
values such as the importance of order and hierarchy over individual will or the need
to subsume the individual to larger collective will (as mediated by those in power). It
should be noted, however, that states that are classified as democracies do not always
perform highly when it comes to individual rights. As discussed in previous chapters,
the US has often been classified as a democracy since the ratification of the
Constitution, as well as a “steadily democratizing state,” even through the period of
Jim Crow and the Civil War.
States can also be mostly authoritarian with pockets of democracy. An example
of this could be Iran. Iran is a theocracy (which we will define shortly) that tightly
controls its citizens. This was put on full display recently when a young woman named
Mahsa Amini died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being arrested for
violating the state’s firm dress code for women. This resulted in widespread protests
throughout the country, and according to a group called Human Rights Activists, the
government has detained over 2000 protestors and killed more than 500 (Ellis et al.,
2023). Yet, Iran has regular elections, some of which are competitive. The president
(head of government) is regularly unseated through these elections, but the head of
state is the Supreme Leader, who is both the highest political and religious authority
in the country. Currently that post is held by Ali Hosseini Khamenei and is the longest
serving head of state in the Middle East.
In order to measure authoritarianism, one can rely on many of the same
databases as we discussed in the previous chapter on democracy. Recall, these
databases typically use a scale or multiple categories to measure a state’s level of
democracy or lack thereof. Importantly, these databases also provide measurements
of a country’s freedom over time, which can give us additional information about what
events might tip a country in one direction or the other. It also reminds us that a state’s
regime is never static and thus should never be taken for granted. We will consider
democratic breakdown, or the process by which a former democratic state begins to
slide into authoritarianism, as well as authoritarian persistence, later in this chapter.
How do authoritarian governments stay in power?
All regimes possess a variety of means for staying in power. One common
heuristic for thinking about these tools is through a simple “carrots versus sticks”
breakdown of regime strategies. Carrots take the form of inducements or benefits that
are doled out to gain the loyalty of constituents. Sticks are focused on meting out
punishments as negative reinforcement of the rules. All regimes utilize a mix of carrots,
sticks, and ideas to stay in power. Many of the strategies reviewed in this section will
have versions in democracies and non-democracies. For example, internal
investigative bureaucracies, such as the Ministry of State Security in China, have
counterparts in democracies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the
United States. Similarly, virtually all countries in the world, regardless of regime type,
have police for maintaining domestic order. Importantly, it is not the case that
authoritarian states are repressive while democracies are not. But compared to
democracies, non-democracies are less restrained in their ability to use force or
manipulate information in order to ensure compliance with their rule. The lack of robust
accountability mechanisms in non-democracies is a crucial difference in how public
institutions are managed and the scope of their authority.
One of the vexing questions concerning authoritarian governments, is how they
stay in power, especially when individual freedom is curtailed and it appears, at least
from the outside looking in, that the government has no legitimacy. In this section, we
will discuss the various strategies that authoritarian governments use to maintain
legitimacy, both genuine as well as manufactured. While you read this section, it might
be worth it to consider whether you see tactics like this even in democratic states.
Seeing these tactics at work in an otherwise democratic state might be a sign of
impending democratic backsliding.
Institutional Channels
Regimes are most likely to endure when they build and maintain institutions.
Institutions here refers to shared practices, norms, and organizations which exist
beyond any single individual. One shorthand way for thinking about institutions is that
they are the “rules of the game” for all social life. Institutions structure the way we do
things and organize our interactions with others. They are the source of a great deal
of social and political power. This is in part because resources follow from beliefs. Take
the institution of the state. The state is one of the most powerful institutions in the
modern world today. The beliefs and norms surrounding states, which are shared
globally, confer great power on states. States manage nuclear arsenals, squeeze
taxes from billions of citizens, and manage the global flow of trade and finance.
Because of the power of institutions, regimes have an interest in
institutionalizing their rule. This highlights another feature of institutions. Institutions
relate to each other in many ways: they can reinforce each other, be nested in one
another, and one institution can beget another. Regimes are institutions unto
themselves. Supporting regimes, in turn, are many additional institutions. Regimes
invest in institutions that enable them to stay in power, which means that these
institutions both absorb and disperse resources.
Let’s start with institutional carrots. Authoritarians have in place a variety of
institutions that provide positive inducements for supporting the regime. We will define
and examine three of these: institutions for co-opting opposition, patronage networks,
and clientelism. Each of these is distinct but can overlap with the others.
