Electoral Authoritarianism Research Articles

Activist Origins of Political Ambition: Opposition Candidacy in Africa’s Electoral Authoritarian Regimes by Keith Weghorst

Journal Article Activist Origins of Political Ambition: Opposition Candidacy in Africa’s Electoral Authoritarian Regimes by Keith Weghorst Get access Keith Weghorst. New York, Cambridge University Press. 2022. 371 pp. $120. Rachael McLellan Rachael McLellan University of Glasgow Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Political Science Quarterly, qqad046, https://doi.org/10.1093/psquar/qqad046 Published: 18 June 2023

Myanmar’s Menu of Electoral Manipulation: Self- and External Legitimation after the 2021 Coup

ABSTRACT One decade after Myanmar’s military regime organized non-competitive elections that unexpectedly commenced a period of political reforms, the military leadership upended this transitional period with a coup based on a narrative of electoral fraud. Cancelling the November 2020 election results which had confirmed the voters’ preferences for civilian rule, the military has begun organizing fresh elections while concurrently leading a war against the population. Building on Schedler (2002) and the debate on authoritarian elections, this article analyses the military’s contemporary menu of electoral manipulation as a comprehensive set of intertwined strategies. It integrates the analysis of various technical elements of the authoritarian electoral process that are often only looked at in isolation. The article deconstructs the military’s election-related narratives as self-legitimation in a region where authoritarian elections are the norm. Despite considerable efforts to forge conditions in their favor and create an aura of legitimacy, however, Myanmar’s military does not appear very imaginative in this undertaking, but employs a retrograde toolbox in a brutal manner. Whether this strategy is successful will not depend on the authoritarian leaders’ skills alone, but also on recognition from domestic, regional and international audiences which the junta’s performance seeks to achieve.

Decline, Fall, and Resurrection of a Dominant-coalition System: Malaysia's Tortured Partisan Path

Malaysia's 15th general election in November 2022 decisively ended the country's dominant-party system. What might take its place, however, remains hazy—how competitive, how polarized, how politically liberal, and how stable an order might emerge will take some time to become clear. The opposition Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope), having secured a plurality of seats, but with a sharply pronounced ethnic skew, formed a coalition government with the previously dominant, incumbent Barisan Nasional (National Front) and smaller, regional coalitions. This settlement resolved an immediate impasse, but relied upon obfuscation of real programmatic, ideological, and identity differences, raising questions of longer-term durability or results. Examining this uncertainty, we broach three broad queries, with resonance well beyond Malaysia. First, we examine the fragmentation and reconsolidation of Malaysian party politics to explore how party dominance transforms or collapses. Second, we explore the extent to which its dominant party defined or confirmed Malaysia as electoral- authoritarian, and whether we should still consider it so.Third, we ask what possibilities Malaysia's apparent party-system deinstitutionalization opens up for structural reform beyond parties. Does the deterioration of that system—more than simply the previous dominant party's electoral loss—clear the way for more far-reaching liberalization? All told, we find that Malaysia's incremental dismantling of its dominant-party system does not also spell the end of electoral authoritarianism. Party and party-system deinstitutionalization leave the system in flux, but illiberal reconsolidation is as plausible as progressive structural reform.

The long-term effects of voting for autocracy: Evidence from Russia

Do different Russian generations differ in their propensity to vote? Drawing on evidence from Soviet and post-Soviet elections, we consider how early-life electoral experiences influence voters’ life-long voting propensity. The empirical analysis relies on a harmonized dataset of survey data covering all national elections between 1991 and 2018. We estimate differences in turnout propensity across generations using several forms of age–period–cohort analysis including hierarchical age-period-cohort analysis and semi-parametric generalized additive models. Findings suggest that generations voting for the first time in elections taking place between 1946–1966 have a higher propensity to vote than others. Complementing quantitative evidence with extensive description, we propose that state-led mobilization efforts under Communism and the opportunity to vote in regularly held elections may account for these effects. Our research has implications for research on the consequences of authoritarian elections and their impact on long-term voter behaviour.

Popular Dictatorships: Crises, Mass Opinion, and the Rise of Electoral Authoritarianism by Aleksander Matovski

In Popular Dictatorships, Alexander Matovski examines the emergence and durability of electoral authoritarian regimes in societies undergoing political, social, or economic turmoil. Strongman electoral autocracies, he argues, are uniquely able to leverage shared collective trauma and to provide credibility to claims that a hybrid system—one which exists between open democracy and closed authoritarianism—is “the safest and most pragmatic governing system for troubled societies” (73). These hybrid regimes profess to offer the best of both worlds and focus their legitimation efforts on the premise that they are most suited to maintaining order and stability. While Matovski situates his argument as a corrective to the literature on electoral authoritarianism, this book fits well with the robust scholarly examination of popular support, legitimacy, and legitimation in authoritarian regimes. Popular Dictatorships provides a compelling theory of how electoral authoritarian regimes balance between more traditional authoritarian tactics, such as coercion and cooptation, and mass support. In doing so, this book will be of interest to audiences interested in the emergence of electoral authoritarian regimes, the ways in which they maintain power, and the reasons they may fall.

Iran's 2021 Election as a Turning Point from Electoral Authoritarianism to Hegemonic Autocracy

Iran's 2021 Election as a Turning Point from Electoral Authoritarianism to Hegemonic Autocracy

Book Review: Activist Origins of Political Ambition: Opposition Candidacy in Africa’s Electoral Authoritarian Regimes

Book Review: Activist Origins of Political Ambition: Opposition Candidacy in Africa’s Electoral Authoritarian Regimes

The Road to Electoral Authoritarianism: Tracing Three Phases of State-Society Contention in Post-Colonial Hong Kong, 2003–2020

Previous studies have examined Hong Kong’s hybrid regime by investigating the interactions among activists, the local government, and the Chinese national government. This article adopts the lens of contentious politics and a multi-level approach to understand regime evolution within the local-national-regional-global nexus. It presents an original dataset that records movement tactics and state responses in four major protests and delineates three phases of state-society contention between 2003 and 2020. It explains regime evolution by highlighting five intertwining factors: activists’ tactical learning; organisational ecology in civil society; state repression strategies; regional politics in Greater China; and international political economy. It finds that the first phase (2003–2012) was characterised by an increasing use of disruptive tactics, an emergent call for de-centred mobilisation, and a limited deployment of state security forces. The second phase (2013–2015) exhibited nascent applications of violent tactics, while the state employed more forceful police repression, re-engineered the electoral field, and sponsored counter-mobilisation. The most recent phase (2016–2020) showed activists’ intensified use of violent tactics and a strong intention to seek international support. The state responded to local threats and international pressure with violent crackdowns and stricter institutional arrangements, which has resulted in an electoral authoritarian regime that is less-than-competitive.

Dysfunkcjonalność protestów wyborczych w Polsce w świetle standardu uczciwych wyborów

Fair elections are one of the foundations of electoral axiology in a democratic state ruled by law. Every citizen has the right to protest, and the justification of the citizen’s complaint is the public interest. An election protest is a legal measure to control the held General elections and its purpose is to protect the public interest in the electoral process. The standard of fair elections is not only a context for legal solutions strictly derived from the Constitution or the Electoral Code. The juridical architecture of electoral protests in Poland generally creates an effective mechanism to address obvious and flagrant violations of the law but remains dysfunctional from the perspective of the fair election standard. Nor does it provide an instrument to prevent a slide into electoral authoritarianism due to violations of the minimum criteria of democracy.

Intensyfikacja autorytaryzmu wojskowego w Egipcie w okresie prezydentury gen. Abd al-Fattaha as-Sisiego

The army was the most significant beneficiary of the Arab Spring in Egypt. Hosni Mubarak was replaced by a more powerful dictator, General Abd al-Fattah as-Sisi. Under the rule of General as-Sisi and his army, there is no place for dialogue between the ruling elite and society, or for democratisation and building a civil society. President General as-Sisi won the elections but has no legitimacy to rule. The short- and medium-term perspective of changes looks very unfavourable. The remilitarisation of Egypt and military electoral authoritarianism will continue. Adherents of General as-Sisi argue that his authoritarian rule is necessary to stabilise the situation in the country and prevent jihad attacks on the Sinai Peninsula. Opposition groups are encouraged to endorse the president through large-scale projects such as the New Administrative Capital, which sets out to testify that Egypt is rising to the rank of a regional power under the rule of President as-Sisi.

Popular Dictatorships: Crises, Mass Opinion, and the Rise of Electoral Authoritarianism. By Aleksandar Matovski. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 316p. $39.99 cloth.

Popular Dictatorships: Crises, Mass Opinion, and the Rise of Electoral Authoritarianism. By Aleksandar Matovski. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 316p. $39.99 cloth.

To Hope or Not to Hope: Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and Learning from Lebanon’s 2022 Election

This Rapid Communication examines Lebanon’s 2022 Parliamentary election in the context of other recent elections in consociational and populist regimes. The Lebanese electorate is now divided both by sectarian identity and by a pro- versus anti-establishment cleavage. This second cleavage makes Lebanon look more like other electoral authoritarian regimes. In light of scholarly work that ties electoral authoritarianism to late-stage neoliberalism, Lebanon’s recent election prompts renewed attention to the neo-liberal assumptions embedded in its and other consociational systems.

Political Logic of the “Municipal Filter” in Russia: Evidence from Perm Krai 2020 Elections

Abstract In this paper, we investigate the endorsement strategies of municipal council members in Russia. Since 2012, the candidates for chief executive office are required to collect the signatures at the local level. Filtering had been an important political toll before the return of direct gubernatorial elections, however, for the latter there are specific requirements in terms of territorial quotas and coverage that can be used against the independent candidates. We theorize that partisanship, gender, and employment sector on individual level and political competition, population size, and budget autonomy on the municipality level are important in shaping the councilmembers’ decision. We test this theory against the data on 2020 Perm krai gubernatorial elections and find out that while the general pattern is largely in line with our expectations, there are nuances when it comes to supporting particular opposition candidates. This study contributes to the literature on electoral authoritarianism and subnational elections in Russia and to the general scholarship on the means of authoritarian control.

Electoral Reforms in Russia’s Regions: An Equilibrium between Disproportionality and Legitimacy

Abstract This study examines the dynamics of electoral reforms in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and their influence on the disproportionality of parliamentary representation since the electoral system experienced major changes in 2003. We suggest that some characteristics of the electoral system may be highly instrumental in ensuring and maintaining United Russia’s influence in legislative bodies. This makes it possible to classify them as forms of institutional manipulation typical of electoral authoritarianism. Based on the statistical description and regression analysis, the study demonstrates the impact of some elements of electoral reforms on disproportionality during the periods at issue. At the same time, we can identify the methods of cementing the dominant party’s hold on power that the authorities find the most effective. In this regard, we make the conclusion that certain elements of the electoral system function as a balanced mechanism, which is evidenced by how they have been used during the different periods. Additionally, the study analyses the impact of disproportionality on electoral behavior, with the hypothesis about its negative influence on the electoral turnout being supported. Yet we regard the lower turnout as a consequence of the voting behavior of both the opposition’s supporters and loyalists. Finally, the electoral reforms in Russia seem to have put limits on disproportionality of parliamentary representation due to the issue of legitimacy.

Conflict Management through Controlled Elections: “Harmonising Interventions” by Party Work Teams in Chinese Village Elections

This study explores a distinct type of electoral intervention, which we call “harmonising intervention,” by the Chinese local state to achieve the goal of securing the joint post of the village Party secretary and Village Committee director. It involves mediating conflicts through electoral interventions and using elections to create harmony. The research finds that through such interventions, the local state simultaneously accomplishes the legitimisation, information collection, elite co-optation, and clout demonstration functions of authoritarian elections. “Harmonising interventions” have obvious power concentration effects and strengthen local state control rather than village self-governance.

Tea Leaf Elections: Inferring Purpose for Authoritarian Elections from Postelection Responses to Defeats

The power of authoritarian elections is not unlimited. When using elections as a source of information, authoritarian regimes may not be able to collect from a single election all the information it could theoretically provide, and so they must commit to seeking only some specific signal(s) in each election. It is possible to identify the type of information each regime seeks from its elections by studying its reactions to small but unexpected defeats. Applying this logic to Vietnam, I find that the regime responded to the defeats of its favored candidates in the 2016 election for the national legislature by increasing central transfers to provinces in which it had suffered these defeats. This evidence suggests that the Vietnamese regime uses elections as an opinion poll to identify areas in which it is less popular, instead of as a test to detect local officials who underperform in their electoral manipulation efforts.

The relevance of the open society to Hong Kong’s fight against moral and institutional decay: Lessons for Central and Eastern Europe

The situation in Hong Kong today is not dissimilar to the moral predicaments that Central and Eastern Europe had endured during the Communist era. Then, as now, state oppression and intimidation aim not only at generating a pervasive sense of learned helplessness in society but also incentivising political opportunism. This paper begins with a thorough examination of the relevance of the open society against the background of the regime’s all-out attacks on the pro-democracy opposition and the civil society in the name national security following unprecedented protests in 2019. Civil society organisations are in retreat under the pressure of autocratic rule, but the normative appeal of the open society as a custodian for the city’s distinctive values and identity is expected to grow against the backdrop of the moral and institutional decay of the official, ‘Orwellian’, realm. It then seeks to explain why the barriers against norm entrepreneurship – individual and collective actions resisting moral decline and decay – are not insurmountable as they first appeared. Three decades after the end of Communism in Europe, the moral commitment to the open society serves as rallying point against the rise of illiberal democracies or electoral authoritarianism. In any case, autocrats are not invincible and there is nothing inevitable about the authoritarian backlash.

Authoritarian Repression and Electoral Opposition: Mobilization under Germany's Antisocialist Law

We know little about repression's effects on opposition party mobilization under electoral authoritarianism. I argue that targeted repression of opposition leaders has both direct negative effects on mobilization and indirect effects on activist and voter support. However, party organizations and ideological leadership can adapt to mitigate targeted repression's effects. In Germany, from 1878–1890 the social democratic party was banned and its leaders were expelled from their home districts. I estimate difference- in-differences models that leverage variation in expulsion timing and frequency to estimate their effects on electoral outcomes. Expulsions caused declines in social democrats' electoral support. However, their effects diminished with each additional expulsion and after the first election post-expulsions, as local party organizations adapted to maintain mobilization in electoral districts despite targeted repression.

Политические конфликты между губернаторами и региональными экономическими элитами (Случай Республики Карелия)

Why do some regional entrepreneurs engage in conflicts with the heads of the subnational units of the Russian Federation within a system that puts economic elites in a deliberately unequal position in relation to the authorities? Based on the analysis of conflicts between governors and businessmen in Karelia, the author hypothesizes that contradictions around redistribution, combined with the availability of the independent resources e.g., branchy patronal networks, drive such confrontation. According to the author’s conclusion, the federal center also plays a significant role. When deciding whether to start confrontation with governors, regional actors could count on the support from Moscow and resignation of an undesirable regional leader. However, due to the peculiarity of the external environment, primarily institutional and informational, the rationality of such behavior often turns out to be low. The opaque informal rules, which electoral authoritarianism relies upon, affect the ability of actors to create adequate cognitive schemata. The informational environment, in which the regional elites operate, sends them unclear and contradictory signals about the limits of acceptable actions and their possible consequences. In turn, the formal preservation of an institution of elections and parties leads to the formation of identities that narrow the set of available behavioral strategies. The mechanism of mutual learning does not work either: under conditions when the resources available to counter-actors cannot be verified, and the rules of the game change with a governor’s turnover, reliance on the previous experience is fraught with strategic miscalculations.

Authoritarian Elections: State of Literature and Research Problems

The article provides an overview of current research on elections in authoritarian political regimes. For this purpose, a number of significant papers on this issue have been selected, published in peer-reviewed academic journals with a high impact-factor. The assessment of the significance of the works was made primarily on the basis of their citation indicators according to Scopus and Google Scholar. It is stated that despite the rapid growth in the number of works on authoritarian elections over the past two decades, it is still far from building a comprehensive theory in this area. The review focuses on the question of how elections affect the survival of authoritarian regimes. In this regard, conflicting positions are presented in the literature. On the one hand, elections are seen as instruments for stabilization of authoritarian rule, on the other hand — as sources of instability, and on the third — as levers of democratization.