Authoritarian-Led Democratization

Rachel Beatty Riedl,Daniel Ziblatt,Joseph Wong,Dan Slater

doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-052318-025732

Abstract

Authoritarian regimes become more likely to democratize when they face little choice or little risk. In some cases, the risk of democratization to authoritarian incumbents is so low that ending authoritarianism might not mean exiting power at all. This article develops a unified theory of authoritarian-led democratization under conditions of relatively low incumbent risk. We argue that the party strength of the authoritarian incumbent is the most pivotal factor in authoritarian-led democratization. When incumbent party strength has been substantial enough to give incumbent authoritarian politicians significant electoral victory confidence, nondemocratic regimes have pursued reversible democratic experiments that eventually culminated in stable, thriving democracies. Evidence from Europe's first wave of democratization and more recent democratic transitions in Taiwan and Ghana illustrate how party strength has underpinned authoritarian-led democratization across the world and across modern history.

Highlights

There are currently two very different visions—in a sense, even diametrically opposed visions—of why authoritarian regimes become democracies when they do
We focus on the role of political parties for a particular democratization pathway, given that the authoritarian-led pathway has been previously underexplored as a global phenomenon across historical time. 3State capacity constitutes another key source of incumbent capacity (Levitsky & Way 2010, Slater 2010), and conservative ruling parties with access to a strong state will surely have extra reason for confidence that democratization will go smoothly
We propose a unified theory of authoritarian-led democratization, built from cross-regional patterns in new and old democracies alike

Summary

Introduction

There are currently two very different visions—in a sense, even diametrically opposed visions—of why authoritarian regimes become democracies when they do. In large part because of the authoritarian party’s leadership role in transition as well as their historical strengths, they are uniquely well-positioned to become a capable opposition as authoritarian successor parties that indirectly support democratic maintenance by using electoral channels to gain power in the future (Loxton & Mainwaring 2018).

Results

Conclusion