Authoritarian Past Research Articles

Third Time's the Charm:The Youth Vote and Prabowo's Victory in the 2024 Indonesian Presidential Election

After previous failed attempts, Prabowo Subianto won the 2024 Indonesian presidential election. In this article, we outline the events that unfolded in the run-up to the election before analyzing the drivers of Indonesian voting behaviour based on original survey data. Our analyses underscore the importance of transformations in the generational composition of the Indonesian electorate: younger voters, especially those born after the return of democracy, are fuelling its erosion with their support of a former general accused of human rights abuses. In addition to benefitting from the support of incumbent President Joko Widodo, we argue that Prabowo's victory was underpinned by a sophisticated social media campaign, the waning memory of Indonesia's authoritarian past, and a young populace anxious about their economic prospects.

FROM THE ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ LUKASHISM TO THE NEW BELARUS: ON THE WAY TO OVERCOMING POST-AUTHORITARIAN CULTURAL TRAUMA

The article analyzes the phenomenon of the “impossible” stability of the authoritarian regime of A. Lukashenko, as well as the key reasons for its deep crisis, which led to the protests of 2020. The events of 2020 became a stressful “bifurcation point” in the evolution of lukashism and led to its transformation into a harsh repressive regime. Based on the concept of cultural trauma by P. Sztompka, the authors analyze how traumatization of Belarusian society occurred during the period of lukashism. The cultural trauma of lukashism becomes the most important sociocultural task in the process of transition to the New Belarus. The ambivalence of the events of 2020 for Belarusian society is shown: they became a strong socio-cultural factor of both situational national unity, on the one hand, and a strong trigger for internal polarization, on the other. Based on the ideas of K. Mannheim, the authors believe that this polarization is an example of “normal” intergenerational cultural dynamics. However, as the experience of post-communist Poland shows, a rapid overcoming of such a long-term intergenerational cultural trauma is possible, but it is not granted. Based on memory studies ideas, the authors show that overcoming authoritarian cultural trauma requires the development of a systematic “cultural policy” (in fact, “memory policy”). The experience of overcoming the authoritarian past in the FRG, the GDR and France shows that overcoming the legacy of lukashism in Belarus risks being (1) a long, (2) conflictual and (3) fundamentally “unfinished” process. It should include two parallel vectors of movement (dismantling authoritarian institutions and building democratic structures) happening within the frame of a new Belarusian identity. Such an identity will allow reworking the problematic past and set foundations for future national self-identification. Some versions of such identity are briefly reviewed, their similarities and relevance for modern sociocultural trends are revealed.

A living archive of the oppressed: Revisiting Taiwan's authoritarian past through Freud's “The Ego and the Id”

AbstractThis paper emerged from a sore spot—the kind of sore spot that pulses with an ancient ache, refusing to find stillness. The pain caught me in a passionate unrest, turning my pages and engulfing me in a subdued fury. Re‐reading Freud's The Ego and the Id through a dialogical quest with my mother, it reveals the complexities of psychosocial troubles of identity, desires, and oppression—not solely of individuals but of an entire nation. Historical reiterations of dictatorial “thou shalt” (Freud, 1923, p. 55) echo resoundingly throughout contemporary Taiwan. If Japan stood as the foreign father—stern but devoid of the embrace of love—the subsequent rule of the Republic of China, the “biological” father of Taiwan, was characterized by militarization and violence. My inquiry repositions the father, the manifold “authoritarian fathers” of Taiwan, who fixed social relations into precise configurations of dominance and submission. Furthermore, whilst Freud primarily focused on the relationship between the ego and the super‐ego, this paper highlights instead the significance of the often‐overlooked relationship between the ego and id. This nuanced perspective allows us to perceive the id as a living archive of the oppressed, preserving what has been repressed but never truly forgotten.

Why Malawi's Democracy Endures

Abstract: While other African states experienced democratic erosion, Malawi has defied the odds and weathered attacks on its democracy, including those initiated by its powerful presidents. As a "hard place" for democracy—a poor country with a long authoritarian past and politically relevant ethnic divisions—what explains the resilience of Malawi's democracy? The courts and civil society served as countervailing forces against democratic backsliding. Through legal challenges and popular mobilizations, they have countered attempts by presidents to consolidate power and extend their terms. Unfortunately for Malawians, these countervailing forces were likely facilitated by other negative conditions, namely economic distress and presidential unpopularity. Malawi's experience, complemented by Zambia's recent pivot away from authoritarianization, provides some optimism for those concerned about democratic backsliding in Africa by demonstrating the potential for resilience even in challenging contexts.

Protectors of liberal democracy or defenders of past authoritarianism?: authoritarian legacies, collective identity, and the far-right protest in South Korea

ABSTRACT Between 2016 and 2019, South Korean conservatives organized a movement called the T’aegŭkki Rallies to oppose the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye and to protest against President Moon Jae-in’s administration. This movement is puzzling for its timing, demographic composition, and rhetorical choices. Through in-depth interviews with rally participants and non-participants, I illustrate that a collective identity, shaped by authoritarian socialization, strengthened with positive memories about an authoritarian past, combined to mobilize rally participants. Curiously, rally participants saw themselves as defenders of liberal democracy, protecting South Korea against progressive forces seeking to turn the country into a communist state. However, my interviews revealed that they were, in fact, trying to protect the authoritarian past. In this manner, South Korea’s authoritarian legacy entrenches ideological polarization and hampers common understandings of democratic citizenship.

Dealing with the past and the path to transitional justice: A comparative analysis of South Korea and Albania

AbstractThis article compares the authoritarian regimes of early South Korea and Albania, identifying historical anecdotes of state authoritarianism that resulted in state‐led crimes and human rights violations. It identifies the historical connections between the establishment and maintenance of authoritarian regimes, as well as the consequences of such meticulous upkeep, by comparing and contrasting the efforts made in dealing with the past and lustration, as well as their significance for peace and stability. We compare the South Korean and Albanian cases from these perspectives to find similarities and differences. By comparing two different countries with similar authoritarian pasts, this article analyzes the efforts of both countries towards transitional justice, and unified rhetoric across the political spectrum for lustration and punishment of past crimes, and discovered that when it comes to practice, these laws tend to be unilateral and were strongly challenged in courts and used as political tools against ideological opponents.

State Calculations and the Political Promise of Replication

This article examines how and to what effect the scientific ideal and practice of replication is adopted by a Mexican federal government agency charged with measuring poverty. The commitment to replication among state poverty experts is traced to their self‐conception as democratic reformers working against cultures of state opacity associated with an authoritarian past. These experts deploy the ideal of replication as a bureaucratic ethos and the practice of replication as a public‐facing and legitimating strategy. Replication successfully performs transparency and generates trust by appealing to, and strengthening ties with, elite academic and policy actors. Ultimately, the article shows how scientific ideals and practices adopted by state actors are cast as democracy enhancing even as they produce elite closure and limit public participation.

«Fregonas bloqueando el paso» Walking simulators, nostalgia lúdica y la estética de pasados autoritarios irresueltos en comunidades de videojuegos

This paper considers the two short indie video games It’s Winter (2019) and ROJO: A Spanish Horror Experience (2020) as a comparative case study suggesting that the walking simulator genre is an exceptional vehicle for a playful communal exploration of authoritarian pasts, inasmuch as the nostalgic aesthetics and historical backdrops of these games—post-Soviet and post-Francoist nostalgia, respectively—made them go viral in their home countries when released, stirring up controversy in the local press as well as in various digital forums. Following a qualitative method design, our study aims to answer the question: do these games have the desire to become a representation of the past or are they just examples of how new generations of gamers relate to it? With this in mind, we analyzed nostalgic discourses found in the comment sections of online streaming parties, press coverage, and official websites of both games. After analyzing 711 interactions on It’s Winter and 599 on ROJO, we found marked social differences in the discursive approach to the games’ nostalgic aesthetics as well as differences across platforms, particularly in the case of ROJO. Our analysis shows that these games do not talk about the past in a historical or narrative sense, rather the aesthetic legacy of the spaces represented relates them to historical processes of unresolved national pasts.

Personality traits, democratic support, and authoritarian nostalgia

AbstractObjectiveWhy do democratic voters feel nostalgia for an authoritarian past? This article introduces a dispositional framework for authoritarian nostalgia, showing that in addition to situational factors, an enduring source of sentimental longing for the authoritarian past may very well be rooted in a person's core psychological structure.MethodsI use mixed‐methods approach with data collection from South Korea and Taiwan. Using linear regression models with interaction terms, I analyze the contingent effects of personality traits on authoritarian nostalgia.ResultsI find that people high in emotional stability are likely to be nostalgic and that the trait's effects are greater than those from other traits traditionally associated with authoritarian ideology. Results from the interaction model show that these impacts are more pronounced with weak and moderate democrats but not with strong democrats.ConclusionPeople high in emotional stability are nostalgic due to their longing for the proven socioeconomic performance of the past. In addition, the democratic values of individual citizens can constrict how personality shapes voters’ view of former dictatorships.

Uwagi o kształtowaniu się instytucji ombudsmana w Polsce i Meksyku, 1990–2022

The ombudsman institution has become a barometer of implementing the rule of law, democracy and transparency system. Does the fact that the institution of the ombudsman was established in authoritarian countries influence its activities today? This question will be the subject of a comparative analysis of Poland and Mexico, in which there has been a democratic transformation in recent decades. In conclusion, it should be observed that despite the historical and political differences, we are dealing with a similar context and mechanism of functioning of the ombudsman institution. Both countries have an authoritarian past and both underwent a democratic transformation in the 1990s. and both struggle with contemporary forms of authoritarian forms of power.

College and university students’ attitudes towards democracy in Hungary

The existence of education for democracy has positive impact on citizens’ political knowledgeand the identification with the democratic values. In the process of civic education, theuniversities and high schools play an important role. Many scholars argue that the high schoolshave a civic mission to serve a public good or the university is the civic mission itself. To examinedemocratic citizenship among high school and university students we use a dataset composed ofthree surveys (2011/2012, 2013, 2015) of 4800 Hungarian students. We build on the literatureabout the empirical and theoretical framework of democratic citizenship to answer the questionif 25 years after the collapse of communism we can witness the emergence of a new generationof democrats in Hungary? Have young people successfully come to terms with their countries' authoritarian past and developed a commitment to democracy as a system of rule? Are theyready to defend it in the face of challenges? Based on the empirical framework of citizenship wederive a number of significant lessons from the Hungarian case, with important implicationsabout the ability to teach the norms and responsibilities of democratic citizenship in the world’semerging democracies.

What’s the Crowd Got to Do with It?

For a group of antifascist fans who support Eis Hockey Club Dynamo Berlin, street protest and ice hockey games are both sites of left-wing political intervention. Despite the team’s reputation in Germany as “The Nazi Club,” the group aims to cultivate politically minded crowd action and uplift the atmosphere in the arena in hopes of ridding Germany of representations of its authoritarian past.

Saints and ghosts: nation-building and narratives of punishment in Taiwan’s prison museums

PurposeThis paper explores two museums in Taiwan, both former sites of incarceration, and asks how they reflect Taiwan’s evolving relationship with the past. Taiwan has successfully emerged from its authoritarian past into a democratic present; yet, it still bears the scars of its traumatic and violent history in the places where trauma and pain was exacted over Taiwanese people by different regimes. Two of these places are former prisons, now museums with common histories of incarceration, but very different approaches to presentation of traumatic pasts. This paper aims to understand the selective presentation of narratives of punishment in prison museums in Taiwan and what they reflect about Taiwan’s national identity.Design/methodology/approachThis research used a qualitative ethnographic methodology, approaching prison museums as research sites with multidimensional textual, spatial and visual data. This study used a narrative ethnology approach to analyse the content, structure and social context surrounding the stories told about punishment at the sites.FindingsWhile the Jingmei White Terror Memorial Park documents past abuses under the authoritarian Kuomindang Government (1945–1987), the narratives presented at the Chiayi Prison Museum, constructed under Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945), ignore past colonial violence. This study argues that the invisibility of past colonial violence in Chiayi prison museum acts to strengthen Taiwan’s multicultural national identity, while Jingmei WTMP acts to valorise political prisoners as heroic fighters for Taiwan’s democracy and human rights.Originality/valueThis research makes a contribution to the museum studies literature through extending understanding of the relationship between former carceral spaces and national identity projects.

THE EXPERIENCE OF GERMAN REUNIFICATION: LESSONS FOR UKRAINE IN THE CONTEXT OF PROSPECTIVE REINTEGRATION

The article analyzes the experience of German reintegration after the FRG (West Germany) and the GDR (East Germany) were reunified in 1990. The analysis is focused on the process of state and national reconciliation.
 In the unified Germany, fundamental changes in the political and legal systems as well as social and economic models have been implemented due to its comprehensive policy of integration. The transition to a democratic system of governance required political and legal institutional reforms. In particular, a lustration policy was implemented to establish new state bodies, including law enforcement, security, judicial and others, and support their institutional restructuring.
 The policy of transitional justice in Germany ensured prosecutions for crimes and human rights violations during the GDR regime, compensations and reparations to the regime’s victims, truth-seeking, fact-finding and restoring justice. These multi-purpose measures have also led to crucial changes in the mentality of German society.
 The politics of memory and truth-seeking mechanisms have played a pivotal role in the willingness of German society to acknowledge and overcome the totalitarian and authoritarian past.
 The article emphasizes the importance of a strong democratic transformation as well as economic growth and social development in the successful reintegration of Germany. Despite the fact that the country’s reunification has had a positive effect, there are still some negative trends and noticeable differences between East and West Germany.
 The main purpose of the study is to assess the prospects for integration in Ukraine based on an analysis of Germany’s case of successful transformation and reunification. The findings indicate that the experience of German reunification and democratic transition contains a number of effective mechanisms, measures and practices that can be adapted in Ukraine for the future reintegration of the temporarily occupied territories.

Radical-right populism in Spain and the strategy of chronopolitics

AbstractGiven ongoing debates in Spain over how to reckon with its recent past, time operates as a potent site for doing politics in the Peninsula. In this article, I develop the concept of chronopolitics—that is, the discursive configuration of time or history to advance political projects in the present—by analyzing a speech from the leader of Vox, a radical-right populist party in Spain. Through detailed analysis of the text, I reveal a range of chronopolitical strategies, including blatant acts of historical revisionism and the resurrection of slogans associated with Spain's authoritarian past. I also shed insight on more subtle forms of chronopolitical action: the confusion of temporal modes, the subversion of linear perceptions of time, and metapragmatic talk about historical interpretation itself. My aim is to illuminate Vox's particular tactics of persuasion, while drawing lessons from the case of Spain about the mechanics of populist discourse in general. (Spain, Vox, populism, chronopolitics, time, history)*

Addressing the paradox of tolerance in liberal democracies: why do France and Germany respond differently to right-wing radicalism?

ABSTRACT This article presents a comparative analysis of how European democracies address the paradox of tolerance. States have formulated various responses to political radicalism, in particular right-wing radicalism. Scholars have explained these variations by the differences in their authoritarian pasts. However, a wide array of policy actors with different perceptions and interests are involved in the regulation of right-wing radicalism. Their impact on implemented policy measures needs to be assessed to better understand what drives the politics of democratic defense in liberal democracies. Relying on grey literature, administrative reports and semi-structured interviews conducted between 2013 and 2017 in France and Germany among a range of policy actors responding to right-wing radicalism, I identify two key factors to explain the regulation of right-wing radicalism. This article demonstrates that the historical framing of right-wing radicalism and the national specificities in policymaking need to be explored if we are to understand the regulation dynamics of right-wing radicalism. By contrast, the radical right’s structure is of secondary importance in explaining how liberal democracies address the paradox of tolerance. These results advocate for the systematic use of policy tools in analyzing the politics of democratic defense.

Repair through empathy: narratives of reconciliation in two white terror memorial parks in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Taiwan has emerged from its authoritarian past into a democratic present, bearing the scars of traumatic and violent historic events. As symbols of repressive histories, penal museums in Taiwan stand at the center of questions about how traumatic pasts can be reconciled and justice sought for victims of previous regimes. By close semiotic examination of two museums that served as sites of incarceration during the White Terror period (1949–1987), this study uses multimodal discourse analysis to understand how these places are used to construct narratives about transitional justice. Hardship, control and human rights narratives are used to construct empathy, conducive to the acceptance and deepening of transitional justice efforts in post-authoritarian Taiwan. These museums help to recover the truth of the authoritarian past and place the experience of Taiwanese political prisoners in the larger context of global human rights and transitional justice narratives.

Agents of past principals: The lasting effects of incumbents on the political ideology of bureaucrats

AbstractUnderstanding representation is central to politics. Numerous studies assess under which conditions politicians share citizens’ ideological preferences. However, under which conditions bureaucrats share citizens’ ideological preferences has not been systematically studied. Yet, bureaucratic preferences shape policy outcomes. Our paper thus studies why bureaucrats are more right or left‐wing than citizens in some countries and points of time, yet not others. We theorize that political ideologies of past incumbents shape this variation. Incumbents can select ideologically aligned bureaucrats and socialize bureaucrats into ideological preferences; moreover, prospective bureaucrats may self‐select into ideologically aligned governments. As bureaucratic tenure exceeds political tenure, this politicization has lasting effects. Survey data from 87 countries supports this argument: bureaucrats are more left‐leaning than citizens in countries with longer prior rule by economically left‐wing governments, and more right‐wing in countries with more authoritarian pasts. This suggests that incumbents continue to shape the ideological preferences of bureaucrats after leaving office.

The gift of authoritarian experience: The determinants of online political efficacy in new democracies

This paper represents an effort to investigate the impact of perceived new media credibility on citizens’ online political efficacy (OPE) in new democracies. Unlike their counterparts in mature democracies and outright authoritarian states, citizens of new democracies face the challenge to reconcile their democratic present with the authoritarian past. Their online political behaviors therefore are likely to be shaped by the interaction between democratic realities and authoritarian legacies or memories. The current study argues that in new democracies, the relationship between credibility of new media and OPE is contingent upon citizens’ authoritarian experience. Since authoritarian experience delivers a sense of relative acquisition through a comparison mechanism, it is expected to play a positive role in moderating the association between credibility of new media and OPE. We test the proposition by studying a sample of Taiwanese residents interviewed during the 2015 Taiwan Communication Survey (TCS). Our empirical analyses produce strong supportive evidence for the positive conditioning effect of authoritarian experience and the result is robust to different model specifications and alternative measures of authoritarian experience.

Tunisia’s migration politics throughout the 2011 revolution: revisiting the democratisation–migrant rights nexus

How does democratisation affect the politics of migration? This paper analyses Tunisian immigration and emigration politics in the decade before and after the 2011 revolution, drawing on 57 interviews with Tunisian high-level civil servants, as well as representatives of civil society and international organisations. It shows that the democratisation of policy processes and the expansion of citizens’ political freedoms did not result in pro-migrant rights reforms, but instead led to the continuation of restrictive migration policies inherited from Tunisia’s authoritarian past. The paper explains this by dissecting the ambiguous effects of democratisation on political legitimisation, as well as on inter-institutional and transnational dynamics of migration policymaking. It demonstrates that despite the unprecedented dynamism of Tunisian civil society and efforts of various institutional actors to reform Tunisia’s security-driven migration policy, there were both domestic and international forces that put brakes on migration reform. By focussing on the intricacies of Tunisian migration policymaking, this analysis allows to advance theory-building on the link between political regimes and migration politics, to revisit regime transformations from the inside and to overcome the still-dominant Eurocentrism in scholarly debates on North African migration policies.