Coalition politics and foreign-policy decision-making in anocratic regimes

Abstract

This contribution extends research on coalition politics and foreign-policy decision-making to non-democratic settings and, in particular, anocratic regimes. Anocracies have a complex mixture of authoritarian and democratic elements that fragments authority across politically autonomous actors. As in multi-party cabinets in parliamentary democracies, coalition politics thus potentially pervades foreign-policy decision-making. To illustrate this argument, several prominent historical cases of anocracies resorting to war are examined. These well-documented cases provide conceptual and theoretical insights into how coalition decision units and related political considerations can drive and/or distort crisis diplomacy, even at the height of international crisis.