Authoritarian Strategies Research Articles

Молодежная политика аргентинской вoенной хунты как часть глобальной консервативной реакции

This article examines the youth policy pursued by the mili-tary junta as part of the general authoritarian strategies used to control public life and to shape mass worldviews during the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). Applying Michel Foucault’s concept of disciplinary power, the author analyses the interaction of military authorities with young people. Particular attention is paid to generational conflict and conservative ideology opposing changes in youth culture. The article also shows how the complex socio-political processes of the last dictatorship in Argentina were linked to the global conservative reaction observed in different countries in the 1970s. The topic touched upon by the author allows for a better understanding of authoritarian practices used to shape social norms, especially when influencing young people.

Fiscal conditions for multiparty elections in dictatorships

Multiparty elections can reduce the likelihood of conflict and help dictators secure their rule, but when does a dictator create electoral institutions? Existing research finds that one of the major reasons regimes introduce multiparty elections is to gain information about opposition demands. This article builds on that argument to explain that a regime’s finances determine whether or not it is able to benefit from creating electoral institutions. Dictators use the revenue of the regime to invest in different means of deterring opposition rebellion. A regime’s first priority is to build repressive capacity, after which it invests in public spending to buy the support of its winning coalition. Regimes only benefit from multiparty elections when they have sufficient revenue to fund repressive capacity but lack the finances to also buy regime security through massive public spending. Low-revenue regimes cannot benefit from elections and high-revenue regimes do not need elections to help secure their rule. I test the implications of the argument for regime spending and the creation of multiparty electoral institutions using a global sample of dictatorships between 1972 and 2014. The results of the hypothesis tests indicate that as revenue increases regimes decrease their shares of spending on repressive capacity but increase shares of spending on the public. The results also indicate the probability that a regime introduces elections rises as revenue increases from a low level, but the probability declines as revenue increases from a high level. The study builds upon the literature for how regime resources and state capacity influence authoritarian strategies of political survival. The findings for spending patterns are consistent with recent research on late modern regimes, and the results for the emergence of electoral institutions are consistent with research that finds dictators must have sufficient resources to survive holding elections.

A Comparison of the Authoritarian Strategies Used by Brazil and Turkey to Tackle the COVID-19 Crisis

For authoritarian-minded leaders, the COVID-19 crisis offered a convenient pretext to silence critics and consolidate power. Populist and autocratic leaders used the crisis as an excuse to do things they had long planned to do but had not been able to. Using a narrative literature review, this study examines the authoritarian responses to COVID-19 in Brazil and Turkey between 2020 and 2021. Available articles were retrieved from Medline and Google Scholar using a non-systematic approach using inclusion and exclusion criteria. Major identified authoritarian responses were imprisoning human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, political activists, and medical professionals; flaunting public health and human rights laws; blaming other countries for causing the pandemic; and underreporting COVID cases. The study concludes that these actions had devastating consequences for democracy, human rights, and public health.

Womenʼs Rights vs. Gender Justice? Exploring Oppositional Womenʼs Organizations and the Reshaping of Feminist Engagement in De-democratizing Turkey

Reflective of a wider, global trend of changing civil society space and anti-gender backlash against womenʼs rights, research is increasingly interested in exploring the dynamics and implications of hybrid and authoritarian regimes strategies toward civil society, and womenʼs organizations in particular. Nevertheless, few have focused on studying the role of governmental womenʼs organizations – so-called women-GONGOs - as mechanisms of regime strategies, such as in the case of competitive-authoritarian Turkey where women-GONGOs aim to constrain civil society space and feminist, gender equality-oriented discourse and practice. In this study, the aim is to explore how feminist, oppositional womenʼs organizations, despite their “outsider” positions in Turkeyʼs civil society, use and reshape feminist strategies to adapt, renegotiate or resist women-GONGOs as mechanisms of control, co-optation and regime interference.Based on in-depth interviews with 21 womenʼs organizations in Turkey, the study finds that “outsider”, feminist womenʼs organizations in competitive-authoritarian Turkey perceive the influence of women-GONGOs as central to possibilities and limitations in civil society and womenʼs organizing. Consequently, interviews show that “outsiders” employ a variety of feminist strategies, mostly in combination, to create or maintain their activism and operations within the Turkish de-democratization context, for example turning to grassroots in combination with finding new alliances, or connected to sustaining activities within broader democratization movements. However, the study suggests that the changing space of civil society in Turkey affects these “outsiders” in different ways; for example service-oriented womenʼs organizations are less constrained in their feminist strategies compared to claims-making “outsiders”. Lastly, the study illustrates how the dominant role of women-GONGOs in Turkey impacts feminist discourse and practice of “outsiders”, thereby providing empirical insights and theoretical contributions to better understanding transformations of feminist engagement in Turkey and similar gendered de-democratization contexts across the Mediterranean and beyond.

Can nonviolent resistance survive COVID-19?

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived on the scene, the near-universal imposition of lockdowns and public health restrictions prompted many human rights advocates to sound the alarm regarding freedoms of assembly, expression, privacy, and movement. Even though they have not yet appeared to reduce the occurrence of protests in many countries, such restrictions may nevertheless diminish the ability of mass movements to effectively organize and win key concessions. In this article, I present new descriptive data on the outcomes of people-power movements, which suggest that, despite their heightened popularity, maximalist nonviolent campaigns are seeing their lowest success rates in more than a century. I describe how the diffusion of restrictions on peaceful assembly and expression accompanies a broader toolkit of authoritarian strategies that have become standardized over the past 15 years in response to people-power movements. I then turn to three tensions that present dilemmas for movements emerging from the pandemic and its associated lockdowns. I conclude by laying out key research questions that emerge from these trends and dilemmas that require sustained attention from scholars and practitioners of nonviolent resistance.

Illiberal peacebuilding in a hybrid regime. Authoritarian strategies for conflict containment in Myanmar

The post-Cold War period has seen the rise of international liberal peacebuilding, as an overarching framework for international interventions in intrastate conflicts. In contrast, the current period is marked by decline of liberal peacebuilding, and a simultaneous rise of domestic illiberal peacebuilding. This has created a gap between the predominant theoretical and policy framework and the actual form of peacebuilding in many conflict-ridden societies. The present article addresses this challenge through a contextual case study of illiberal peacebuilding in Myanmar. The case study shows how a dominant state actor – the military (Tatmadaw) – has used both coercion and co-optation to contain armed resistance against militarized and centralized statebuilding and thereby strengthen the state's territorial control and authority. While the SLORC/SPDC military junta (1988–2011) sought to contain ethnic armed organizations through military offensives, ceasefire agreements and illiberal peacebuilding, the military based USDP-government (2011–2015) institutionalized a hybrid regime as a framework for political transformation of EAOs, and tolerated a degree of dual territorial, administrative and resource control at the local scale. These clientelist measures failed to address the substantive issues behind Myanmar's multiple and protracted conflicts. They were also combined with military offensives against non-ceasefire groups and war by other means in ceasefire areas. Moreover, the case study demonstrates that the Tatmadaw used its tutelary power to obstructs substantive conflict resolution through negotiated state reforms. Myanmar's peace initiatives during the last three decades should thus be understood as illiberal strategies for containing ethnic armed organizations rather than attempts at substantive conflict resolution.

The Autocrat's Corruption Dilemma

AbstractA large body of scholarship shows that autocrats can use corruption strategically to strengthen their political hold, such as by distributing rents to their supporters. However, this scholarship often overlooks how corruption may also politically damage autocrats. I argue that corruption often brings substantial political costs alongside its advantages, resulting in a ‘corruption dilemma’ for autocrats. I show that in recent years, public anger over corruption has led to numerous anti-government protests and has been a major cause of autocrats being ousted from power. How politically costly corruption is depends on factors such as the public's tolerance for corruption, whether the autocrat is accountable to quasi-democratic institutions and whether the autocrat can credibly claim to be fighting corruption. The case of Malaysia illustrates how relying on corrupt practices to stay in power can backfire even in a long-standing authoritarian regime. My analysis advances our understanding of corruption's mixed role in authoritarian durability and authoritarian strategies of rule.

Authoritarian survival strategies and elite churn: The case of North Korea

How do autocrats interact with authoritarian elites? This is a question that has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decade. In this article, using the case of North Korea we develop a set of theoretical expectations for “elite churn” or changes in the composition of the elite (either in terms of promotions, demotions, or new entrants) resulting from moving around elites from office to office (or “elite shuffle”) and bringing in new elites. We test a number of theoretical expectations derived from the existing literature on elite management in autocracies and then examine these expectations using a panel data set of 351 members of the North Korean elite from 1948–2017. Taking into account leadership characteristics, threats to the regime (both internal and external), external opportunities, and structural factors, we find that the explanation for elite churn in North Korea is very leader specific, and is much more pronounced under Kim Jong Un than his predecessors. This suggests that Kim Jong Un’s position was much more tenuous than his father’s and grandfather’s and likely continues to be so.

Intensifying Political Geographies of Authoritarianism: Toward an Anti-geopolitics of Garment Worker Struggles in Neoliberal Cambodia

Cambodia’s recent crackdown on freedoms of expression, association, and assembly coincides with the wider geopolitical ascent of illiberal democracy. Scholarly and public discourse suggests that we are now witnessing a global authoritarian turn, possibly linked to the current conditions of late neoliberal capitalist development where deprivations linked to state rollback have engendered a corrective state rollout. The language of the global authoritarian turn, however, echoes earlier unhelpful and totalizing readings of neoliberal expansion as a process of top-down diffusion. To counter this, this article argues for a recentering of local geographies in understanding authoritarian neoliberalism and a renewed focus on the bottom-up dynamics of its articulation in specific contexts. Drawing from a detailed study of garment worker activism, this article unravels the two-way relationship that unfolds between the intensified experiences of capital and resistance in Cambodia and the intensifying political geography of authoritarianism that reverberates as a result. Forwarding an antigeopolitical reading of authoritarian neoliberalism in Cambodia, the article recasts the current crisis underway in Cambodia, disrupting the notion of an authoritarian turn. Rather than the top-down imposition of a new model of autocratic government, the crackdown is shown to represent an intensification of existing authoritarian neoliberalism provoked by geopolitics from below. Here, intensification reflects a demographic and spatial shift in the concentration of authoritarian strategies toward Cambodia’s garment workers. Key Words: anti-geopolitics, authoritarianism, Cambodia, neoliberalism, resistance.

Social Policies in Italian Fascism. Authoritarian Strategies and Social Integration

El texto desarrolla algunos de los pasos fundamentales relacionados con el desarrollo del Welfare italiano durante los años del fascismo, enmarcándolos tanto en el debate historiográfico más reciente como en el contexto de algunos procesos nacionales e internacionales. Así, las políticas sociales fascistas se examinan tanto en el contexto general de extensión de los seguros sociales de la década de 1930, como en lo concerniente a la principal institución italiana responsable de la gestión de estos seguros sociales (el INFPS, -Instituto Nacional Fascista de Previsión Social-).

When unemployment meets environment. The case of the anti-fracking coalition in Ouargla

ABSTRACT The ‘Popular Committee Against Shale Gas,’ which emerged in the city of Ouargla in 2014 to protest governmental fracking plans in the Sahara, constitutes an interesting case of coalition building between a movement of unemployed and environmental activists, operating in Algeria’s uncertain post-electoral context. Given strong fragmentation of the contentious space, the question of what enabled these groups to converge becomes even more relevant. Drawing on research on contentious politics, resistance and participation in authoritarian contexts as well as on ethnographic fieldwork from 2014 to 2016, the paper explores how this unusual coalition was formed, analyzes the unemployed movement’s motivation to join the struggle against fracking, and examines the modalities of how both groups temporarily managed to overcome their differences by producing common mobilization frames. Despite the challenges this coalition faced, especially their differing class identities, diverging long-term interests and authoritarian destabilization strategies, this paper sheds light on the ambivalent power dynamics within the coalition and the transformation processes that become apparent.

ЕВОЛЮЦІЯ ІДЕЇ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОГО САМОВИЗНАЧЕННЯ В ЛАТИНОАМЕРИКАНСЬКОМУ ПОЛІТИЧНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ

In the article management problems are examined part of concept – political and economic management – in the authoritarian modes. An author analyses authoritarian strategies of economic and political management within the framework of the right and left modes. The sources of authoritarian model of economic management are shown. The legislation is supposed to provide privileges to foreign investors: firstly, additional privileges granted at the initial stage of the investment process for any region of the country and type of economic activity, including the return of deductible VAT and / or accelerated depreciation of fixed assets and infrastructure; zero import tariff for import of means of production into the country, which is an integral part of the investment project. Favorable conditions for investing in the development of priority sectors such as mining, automotive, software, biotechnology, forestry, tourism production. Favorable conditions for investing in the provincial economy, including dismissal from local offices, state support for projects, promotion and financing of provincial property, and the provision of public services for preferential prices. The development and implementation of investment policy in Argentina is carried out by the Ministry of Planning, Public Investment and Services, established, when N. Kirchner became President of the country. Researchers managers consider that the political elite does not fully use the new benefits that Brazilian economy through its participation in regional integration. A Brazilian researcher states that Brazil should act as an initiator of deepening integration, coordinating the activities of Brazilian corporations in various sectors of the national economy. In particular, the state itself can, as researchers believe, initiate the restructuring of infrastructure, which in the long run can lead to economic growth. On the other hand, the state should stimulate the development of the Brazilian industry by taking advantage of the integration benefits. Researchers find that "middle and upper class are trying to survive through the mechanisms they are used to, and the poor and the police are still killed as cockroaches under the current of insecticide". Аccording to Brazilian neoliberal in the fact that opinion leaders, the de facto leader of criminal clans, can conquer the state apparatus. State taking economically and solutions are corruption because the same state participation in the economy leads.

The Legacy of Authoritarian Strategies: Repression and Polarization in the Palestinian Territories

What is the effect of authoritarianism on polarization within society, and how does such polarization affect collective action? This paper specifically addresses whether varying types of authoritarian strategies have an effect on the level of polarization in society, and the subsequent ability of different segments of society to coordinate. I argue that authoritarianism generates rising polarization, which in turn inhibits cooperation between groups. Specifically, the type of authoritarian strategy matters; exclusionary strategies such as repression generate higher levels of grievance and insularity, making it more difficult for groups to coordinate, than inclusionary strategies such as cooptation. To assess this dynamic, I examine a specific case of authoritarianism and polarization: the case of the Palestinian territories. Using this case, I present a two-stage theory, arguing: (1) that particular forms of authoritarianism generate polarization, and (2) that polarization subsequently affects social cohesion, and capacity for collective action. Results confirm the theory that authoritarianism, in particular forms, exacerbates polarization within society. This polarization in turn affects the ability and willingness of different segments to coordinate on a common task. In particular, exclusionary strategies such as repression generate greater levels of polarization than inclusionary strategies such as cooptation. Moreover, the qualitative evidence shows that Islamists in the West Bank, the most repressed group, are much more insular and less willing to cooperate with others. These results shed light on mechanisms of authoritarian control, and provide pathways for future research on how regimes maintain power by neutralizing opposition increasingly over time. On a substantive level, these results also explain why the Palestinian community specifically, and Arab societies more generally, suffer from increasing polarization and a decreasing capacity for collective action.

Civil Society and the Rise of Unconventional Modes of Youth Participation in the MENA

Why are there variances in young people’s civic and political participation in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings, and what are the implications of these types of participatory modes on authoritarian rule in the region? Based on quantitative and qualitative fieldwork from five countries in the Middle East – Egypt, Palestine, Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon – this paper demonstrates that young people in the region are increasingly drawn to independent and unconventional forms of participation to varying degrees, depending on each country’s authoritarian structure and institutional arrangements. Though the rise of unconventional participation is a manifestation of the presence of a vibrant Arab street, these participatory modes lead to civil society’s weakness and fragmentation. This adds to the volatility of new civic and political actors and provides the regimes with more authoritarian strategies for resilience.

Authoritarian parenting style predicts poorer glycemic control in children with new-onset type 1 diabetes.

To examine cross-sectional and longitudinal associations among parenting styles (ie, authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive) and youth glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) in a cohort of families of children with new-onset type 1 diabetes (T1D). One-hundred two parents completed a baseline measure of parenting style, and we collected child HbA1c values at baseline and at three- and six-month follow-ups. We examined correlations among use of different parenting strategies and child HbA1cs. We conducted multiple regressions to assess the impact of these strategies on child HbA1c at three-month and six-month follow-ups, while controlling for baseline HbA1c, family income, and T1D duration. Correlational analyses showed negative associations between authoritative strategies and child HbA1c at baseline, three-month, and six-month assessments and positive associations between authoritarian strategies and child HbA1c at three-month and six-month assessments. Regression analyses found use of authoritarian-like strategies were the only parenting strategies associated with child HbA1c at three-month and six-month follow-ups, while controlling for baseline HbA1c, family income, and T1D duration. Parents' use of authoritarian-like strategies may negatively impact glycemic control over the course of six-month in children with new-onset T1D.

Investigating the Effects of Commonly Implemented School Safety Strategies on School Social Work Practitioners in the United States

Objective: Use of safety strategies is increasing in United States schools due to increased media attention to school violence and maladaptive student behavior. Yet, relationships between the use of school safety strategies and school social work practice have not been adequately researched. This study examines relationships between school-level characteristics and types of safety strategies in schools where social workers are employed and how these strategies influence school social work practice. Method: We used data from 229 school social workers to explore the extent to which school-level variables predict the implementation of authoritarian and educational/therapeutic school safety strategies and examine how these strategies affect practitioners. Results: School size and education level are positively associated with the use of authoritarian strategies, and urbanicity and percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students enrolled are negatively associated with the use of educational/therapeutic strategies. Findings suggest that school social workers are affected in their practice by the types of safety strategies their schools implement. Conclusions: Implications call for social work practitioners to assess their schools’ safety measures and their influence on students and school personnel when developing case conceptualizations. Practitioners should also evaluate the need for educational/therapeutic strategies and implement them accordingly, particularly in rural schools enrolling a greater percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students. Additional recommendations for school social work practice, education, and research are noted.

Neoliberal governance or digitalized autocracy? The rising market for online opinion surveillance in China

Much recent attention referring to surveillance practice in China has been paid to Chinese authorities’ authoritarian strategies like hiring online inspectors and building the Internet Firewall. While this focus meets the conventional imagination of a non-democratic regime, it neglects the underlying policy changes and structural arrangements with which the Chinese government conducts its governance in the era of big data. My ongoing study demonstrates, there has appeared a market through which various for-profit institutions are selling data services to help the governments conduct domestic governance in China. Through purchasing the Internet information surveillance system which is based on technologies like data mining, sentiment analysis and cloud computing, most Chinese local governments have incorporated the surveillance of public online opinion into their daily work. This phenomenon implies that a neolibral form of governance which aims at monitoring and guiding public sentiment is taking shape in authoritarian China.

Μισέλ Φουκώ: Η συγκρότηση του σύγχρονου πειθαρχικού υποκειμένου

In his seminal Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Michel Foucault aims at outlining the historical course that led to the promulgation and consolidation of the institution of imprisonment as a means of punishment as well as narrating how the corresponding human type, i.e. the contemporary disciplined subject, has been shaped. Obviously, the disciplined subject gradually took the place of the tormented subject. Consequently, this study aims at describing the sequential mutations of the imposed punishment as it progressively shifted from the spectacular slaughtering of the body to the strictly scientific manipulation of the non-material dimension of the human being. The reformation of the punitive practices “constructs” a docile body. It must be noticed, however, that this body is not necessarily guilty, since the disciplinary schemes concern everybody, even the most innocent sides of the everyday life as for example the hospital, the school or the barracks. Additionally, discipline is imposed through the division of the space, what Foucault calls the “art of allocation”, so that every working person is easily seen and supervised by the eye of the authority, while the disciplined subject is being forged gradually through the sense of responsibility before the flowing time. Foucault highlights the “political technology of the body”, that is its usurpation by the authorities, who aim at imposing to it adictated activity that produces palpable results in a binding frame of time. Although selective and brief, the present account of the punitive concepts of the three last centuries clarifies the fact that the authoritarian strategies are indissolubly interwoven with the different connotations of the human body, through the use of which they subdue human beings.

Probation officer use of client-centered communication strategies in adult probation settings

ABSTRACTGrowing research identifies the importance of communication between probation officers and probationers. The current study examines use of motivational, client-centered communication strategies in an adult probation setting. Using surveys and observational data, this work explores: (a) whether probation officers are comfortable using motivational communication strategies and (b) how probation officers communicate with probationers. Findings suggest probation officers attempt to integrate motivational techniques in their interactions, directive, but authoritarian strategies dominate probation officer– probationer interactions. Study implications emphasize the need to enhance implementation of client-centered communication strategies to improve offender outcomes and move away from authoritarian and risk management practices.

From concessions to repression: Explaining regime survival strategies in Jordan during Black September

ABSTRACTWhen do Middle Eastern regimes respond to domestic threats with repression, and when do they accommodate opponents through offering concessions? This article examines the Jordanian monarchy’s showdown with the Palestinian fedayeen in the late 1960s and early 1970s, explaining why King Hussein’s policy toward the fedayeen evolved over time from concessions to repression. It demonstrates that the King’s evolving survival strategy resulted from shifts in Jordan’s domestic and regional political context. The article thus conceives of authoritarian survival strategies as a balancing act, in which regime survival strategies must simultaneously confront threats while at the same time placating key constituencies.