Competitive Authoritarian Regimes Research Articles

Permissive prejudice in localized authoritarian consolidation: evidence from Turkey's municipalities

ABSTRACT What strategies do competitive authoritarian regimes use to target local-level opposition gains? How and why can these strategies vary subnationally? We analyse how national-level identity politics shapes regimes’ repression calculus at the local level. We suggest permissive prejudice leads regimes to choose harsher strategies in localities governed by stigmatized minority groups than in majority-led localities. To study this phenomenon, we identify three strategies varying in degrees of severity and visibility, and present an original dataset of repressive events in Turkey’s municipalities from 2016–2022. We argue anti-Kurdish prejudice explains the ruling AKP’s use of a harsh strategy of leader replacement in 149 cases of Kurdish-led municipalities yet only one Turkish-led municipality. Supporting our claim, the AKP used behind-the-scenes hamstringing to obstruct opposition mayors in Turkish-led municipalities. Our findings highlight the permissive and restrictive roles that identity politics plays in shaping local-level repression and wider patterns of authoritarian consolidation.

Competitive yet unfair: May 2023 elections and authoritarian resilience in Turkey

ABSTRACT On May 14, Turkish voters headed to the polls to vote for presidential and parliamentary elections. This was the most challenging race yet for authoritarian populist Erdoğan, as the ongoing economic crisis and deadly earthquakes severely diminished his performance legitimacy. Moreover, the opposition parties united against his regime by rallying behind a joint presidential candidate. However, Erdoğan turned the tables on the opposition and won the presidential race for a third consecutive term while his electoral bloc secured a majority in the parliament. This paper analyses the context and results of Turkey’s 2023 twin elections. We highlight the features of the competitive authoritarian regime, Erdoğan’s religio-nationalist electoral strategy, and the opposition’s fragile state and weak strategy to explain Erdoğan’s electoral resilience.

Party system institutionalization and the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes

AbstractParty system institutionalization (PSI) is regarded as a critical underpinning of democracies, but its role in non‐democratic systems has been understudied. In this paper, we evaluate whether the concept has meaningful and perhaps unique implications for the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes. We argue that a modified version of electoral volatility – the most common measure of PSI in democracies – conveys useful information about PSI in competitive authoritarian contexts by signalling the ability of the ruling party to manage the opposition. To this end, we construct an original data set that disaggregates electoral volatility into ruling party seat change and opposition party seat volatility and further divides opposition party volatility into Type‐A and Type‐B volatility. We find robust results that democratization becomes more likely when decreases in the ruling party's seat share coincide with an increase in opposition party Type‐B volatility. This paper demonstrates that the concept of PSI has utility for understanding regime dynamics in competitive authoritarian contexts.

Sources of Authoritarian Resilience: New Perspectives on Power-Sharing and Popular Support

This article reviews four recent books providing new perspectives on the sources of authoritarian durability and addressing the issues of intra-elite power-sharing and control of the masses. One of the main lessons derived from this research is that contingent sequences of historical events and rules of conduct mutually accepted by elites can play a greater role in the stability of a ruling coalition than a sheer balance of power prioritized by the rational choice approach. Another important takeaway is that increasingly refraining from repression, authoritarian rulers seek to project the image of their competence and indispensability. Apart from misinformation and censorship, during economic and political crises, leaders of competitive authoritarian regimes may deliver anti-democratic rhetoric and policies catering to genuine demands of the masses.

A versengő választás és a versengés fogalmának kihívásai

The paper relates to the literature on contemporary non-democratic systems with multi-party elections. It aims to prove that electoral competitiveness is a key concept for understanding these systems, but this concept is currently underdeveloped. It first reviews the main approaches of competition and competitiveness, then, using the widely accepted type of competitive authoritarian hybrid regime, argues that the concept developed by its inventors does not provide sufficient support to detect competitiveness, because the factor of uncertainty used by the concept creators to justify its existence is not accompanied by any real indicators. The conclusion of the article is that competitiveness should therefore be derived not from the unidentifiable uncertainty factor, but from the concept of electoral integrity, which indicates the existence or the absence of genuine (competitive) elections, and from the concept and characteristics of electoral manipulations.

India’s Democracy: The Competitive Authoritarian Propensity? Rahul Mukherji and Seyed Hossein Zarhani

This paper explains and corroborates the mechanisms by which civic and political spaces opposed to Hindu nationalism have been attacked, especially after the arrival of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 2014. Three mechanisms are discerned for replacing pluralistic values with Hindu majoritarian ones. Sometimes institutions are just allowed to drift by interpreting old rules in new ways. For example, no formal rules for media control have changed but the government???s control over media has increased substantially. At other times, incremental legal and policy changes are executed to make the change explicit, often building on a new moral purpose. To give another example, the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) was amended and weaponized against NGOs in a layered way in 2020. Finally, when political opposition is weak, institutions that have provided guarantees for protecting diversity have simply been displaced by new and radically different ones. This was the case with abrogating Article 370, which converted the special status of the subnational state of Jammu and Kashmir to the status of two federally administered union territories–Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. These mechanisms place India in a competitive authoritarian frame, where those in power deploy electoral majorities to systematically attack the political opposition, making it more di(cult for it to rise. Despite these propensities, opposition parties have won elections in some of India’s subnational states. The challenges facing the world’s most populous democracy are significant, even though competitive elements co-exist. These elements in a competitive authoritarian regime, however, are under severe stress. India’s democratic credentials can be revived only if the competitive elements of India’s democracy stand united against ethno-nationalist Hindu majoritarianism.

“Türkiye,” not “Turkey”

Abstract This paper critically examines the recent presidential memorandum that replaced the Anglicized exonymic version “Turkey” with the endonym “Türkiye” as a conscious, performative and public relations campaign at both national and international levels. On the surface, this change addresses populist sociolinguistic hypersensitivities surrounding the connotations of the term “turkey” while simultaneously harnessing the commodification and marketization of the Turkey brand through selective references culled from collective memory (i.e., past) and branding aimed at economic gains (i.e., future). However, at the deeper level, this transformation serves as a discursive political instrument and a top-down nation branding effort powered by substantial resources from the state and its institutions with an ultimate motivation to consolidate President Erdoğan’s political power and authority, elevate his status to that of a national leader and institutionalize his populist/nationalist yerli ve millî rhetoric from a de facto to de jure within Yeni Türkiye as a competitive authoritarian regime.

Examining the Role of Political Party Predispositions and Polarized Media on Network Agenda Setting: The Case of Syrian Refugees in Türkiye

The aim of this study is to investigate the association between the media and the public network agendas concerning Syrian refugees in Türkiye, as an exemplar of a polarized media system within the context of a competitive authoritarian regime to gain insight into the cognitive effects of media in such a context internationally. Large-scale media and nationally representative mind-mapping survey data analysis show that the media’s network agenda is only significantly transferred to the pro-government individuals, while no significant effect was found on pro-opposition individuals from any media outlet regardless of their political stances. Implications are discussed.

Competing external demoi and differential enfranchisement: The case of the 2022 Hungarian election

This analysis of the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election highlights the phenomenon of competing external demoi, a situation that emerges when an incumbent government differentially enfranchises and mobilizes different external national communities for electoral purposes, thus triggering a competing mobilization of external voters by non-incumbent political actors. Hungarian parliamentary elections have increasingly become battlegrounds between the ethnic Hungarians living in countries neighboring Hungary, who have access to non-resident Hungarian citizenship and the right the vote in Hungarian elections by mail; and Hungarian emigrants in Western Europe who must vote in person at home or at embassies. These differences in voting access and the highly partisan mobilization of these two external demoi came to a head during the 2022 parliamentary election. This article seeks to explain the development of two different sets of external enfranchisement policies within a single case, a variation that is undertheorized in the literature, and uncovers the causes and consequences of the unique structure of external partisan polarization that emerged in the 2022 election. It argues that we must look at Hungary’s competitive authoritarian regime type in the context of “divided nationhood” and the relationship between incumbent hegemony and opposition mobilization in different types of external communities to explain this outcome.

Radicalisation in competitive authoritarian contexts: visualising refugees with DIY media

This article focuses on how visual media interacts with the government practices in competitive authoritarian regimes. We argue that while the visual representation of refugees can in general mainstream radicalisation, it gains additional traction in authoritarian context as it streams political discontent away from the governments to ‘ungrateful’ refugees. The paper is built on an analysis of do-it-yourself (DIY) videos in Turkey and Hungary in relation to two specific events involving refugees. The extant research mostly looks into online activism via DIY media. However, we approach them from an opposite perspective and show that not only social movements, but also states benefit from the audience-making potential of DIY media insomuch as these videos appear less as government propaganda and more as representative of public opinion.

How opposition parties unite in competitive authoritarian regimes: the role of an intermediary party

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the growing body of literature on opposition coordination within competitive authoritarian regimes (CARs). Defining oppositional unity as the ability of key opposition parties to select one joint candidate for elections, it introduces the concept of an intermediary party that facilitates such unity. An intermediary party is perceived less threatening by other opposition parties in their opportunistic and ideological conflicts and has the potential to offer a more agreeable joint candidate or a more conciliatory method of selecting the joint candidate within the opposition bloc. The article illustrates this argument by examining the Budapest and Istanbul mayoral elections held in 2019 in Hungary and Turkey. Drawing on data from 30 anonymized elite interviews and media statements of the opposition leaders in each country, the article demonstrates the significance of an intermediary party that facilitates oppositional unity in CARs, adding that the participation of intraparty actors with strong communication skills during the negotiations further reinforces this outcome.

Closing the information gap in competitive authoritarian regimes? The effect of voting advice applications

Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are used in elections across the globe and offer voters nonpartisan information about political parties, candidates, and policy issues. Several studies suggest that VAAs affect vote choice as well as political knowledge. However, despite the vast literature on VAAs, online voting advice technology's impact on authoritarian regimes, where the cost of accessing expert advice is much higher than in democracies, remains unknown. In this study, we present results from a randomized experiment that evaluates the effects of a VAA intervention on voter attitudes and choices in Turkey—a typical competitive authoritarian regime where elections take place, but the rules are skewed in favor of the regime. We embedded a VAA intervention in a face-to-face panel survey conducted before and after the 2019 local elections in Istanbul, Turkey. Using a representative sample of Turkish adults in Istanbul, we randomly assigned half of the participants to our VAA intervention consisting of exposure to their political standing on a two-dimensional map of political candidates. Our analysis demonstrates that the VAA intervention influences candidate choice, mainly among centrist voters. However, these effects are short-term and dissipate within two months.

Securitization, fear politics, and the formation of an opposition alliance in competitive authoritarian regimes

ABSTRACT This article examines how opposition parties with diverse ideologies can form alliances in competitive authoritarian regimes despite the securitization strategy used by authoritarian incumbents. Using Turkey as a case study, the article demonstrates that an authoritarian leader may associate terrorism with opposition parties and may disseminate this fear to manipulate moderate voters and prevent coalition formation between niche parties. By analysing public speeches of political actors in Turkey, the study argues that if opposition parties recognize the vulnerabilities of the regime and believe that forming an alliance would gain support from the masses and encourage cross-party voting, then the securitization strategy would not deter them from forming a pre-electoral alliance. However, the failure of the securitization strategy to prevent opposition parties from forming an alliance does not guarantee opposition victory in elections. The securitization strategy employed by the authoritarian regime can still be utilized to effectively empower the authoritarian leader, enabling them to win elections by capitalizing on fear and depicting the opposition alliance as a security threat and a potential source of instability if they were to come into power.

Facing protests in Serbia: patterns of new competitive authoritarianism

ABSTRACT Recent literature suggests that the competitive authoritarian regimes emerging in the twenty-first century are more subtle and nuanced in comparison to the old regimes of the 1990s. Aiming to understand these differences in greater depth, this article explores how new competitive authoritarian regimes react to mass protests. The article focuses on the case of Serbia, a country where protests have been widespread both during the old regime of the 1990s and the current regime. Analysing five protests waves in the past decade, we were able to identify three dominant strategic interactions of the regime with the protests, all of which contrast significantly with those employed by the old regime. First, in contrast to protest bans and oppression mechanisms used by the old regime, the new regime tends to allow, and strategically ignore protests. Second, while in the past police violence was widespread, there is an apparent police absence from the protests nowadays. Finally, there is a clear difference in the ways the two regimes portray the “Others”. While in the 1990s the international enemies were clearly identified and explicitly evoked, the new regime tends to make vague and contradictory claims about diverse but unspecific international and regional enemies behind protests.

Transnationalization of Opposition Strategy under Competitive Authoritarianism: Evidence from Turkey and Hungary

AbstractDespite a growing body of literature on the advancement of autocratic tactics and toolkits in competitive authoritarian regimes (CARs), we lack sufficient knowledge on the strategies that the opposition builds against populist-authoritarian governments. Using two top autocratizing cases – Turkey and Hungary – this article singles out ‘transnationalization’ as one such novel strategy. ‘Transnationalization’ is defined as a strategy through which opposition-led subnational executives transform local and global boundaries by consciously forming a link with the liberal-democratic world in order to expand their space for manoeuvre. Conducting a qualitative content analysis of the Istanbul and Budapest mayors' international Twitter accounts and using evidence from elite interviews with officials from Istanbul and Budapest municipalities, we demonstrate the material, symbolic and political means of this strategy and the rationalist and normative motivations behind it. By discussing the what, how and why of a transnationalization strategy, we fill an important gap in the scholarship regarding opposition strategies in CARs.

Elections and Democracy in Turkey: Reconsidering Competitive Authoritarianism in the Age of Democratic Backsliding

AbstractThis article reflects on the reasons why Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) could still win in the recent 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey despite, among other daunting issues, the deep economic crisis and their unsuccessful handling of the February 2023 earthquake. The article discusses the role of state apparatus and the media under a neopatrimonial system, as well as the role of the EU, which turned Turkey into a rentier state with the refugee deals. The discussion considers whether Turkey could still be seen as a competitive authoritarian regime and points to the difficulties in determining whether regimes such as the Turkish one are competitive authoritarian or not until the election results are seen and the opposition candidates actually win.

Only game in town? the persistence of competitive authoritarian regimes in modern Turkey

ABSTRACT Why do so many regimes remain competitive authoritarian? This article argues that institutional path dependence explains the persistence of competitive authoritarian regimes in which electoral competition exists, but is unfair. The weakness of institutions regulating free and fair interparty competition, like multi-candidate elections, a constitution and statutes safeguarding fundamental rights, and intraparty competition, like intraparty democracy, is path-dependent and self-reinforcing. In settings where competition is partly free and fair, ruling elites have an incentive to combine democratic and undemocratic laws and policies to defeat counterelites and neutralize intraparty competitors. The likely long-term outcome is a vicious cycle of limited democratization, competitive authoritarian regime formation, and competitive authoritarian regime consolidation. I assess the argument by tracing the historical trajectory of reforms on constitutionalism, civil liberties, and multi-candidate competition in post-1950 Turkey, where the limits on interparty and intraparty competition have been reproduced in remarkable historical continuity.

Conditional Cash Transfers and Voting for Incumbents under Democratic Backsliding: The Case of Honduras's Bono 10,000

As democracies worldwide have reverted to competitive authoritarian regimes or full dictatorships, some autocrats have used clientelist policies to strengthen their positions of power. We contend that autocrats can weaponise conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to shore up electoral support under democratic backsliding. In this vein, we analyse the impact of Honduras's Bono 10,000, a discretionary CCT, on the electoral support for the incumbent National Party and opposition blocs between 2013 and 2017, an era marked by the erosion of democracy. Using two survey waves from the AmericasBarometer by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), we show how the CCT boosted the electoral support for the National Party as democracy unravelled. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on how autocrats rely on carrots – not just sticks – to consolidate power.

A nova vaga de populismo autoritário internacional da década de 2010 também chegou à África? Os casos de Moçambique e Angola

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the possible impact of the most recent international authoritarian populist tendencies on sub-Saharan African political systems. Contrary to the main currents of interpretation, this paper argues that we are not in face of a new international influence or role model being locally followed, but in face of the most recent example of a long political-historical path of selective assimilation of international trends to local political systems as structured after independence. We are not witnessing to poor local replicas of the most recent international wave of authoritarian populism of 2010s, but to another selective assimilation of political features to serve the existing and locally dominant systems. Through the analysis of the specific cases of Mozambique and Angola, this paper theoretically and historically discusses the nature of regimes and political systems through a critical approach on the most recent historical/political science discussions of so-called hybrid regimes, combining liberal and illiberal features, that resort to concepts such as illiberal democracies, façade democracies, electoral autocracies, semi-authoritarian states, competitive authoritarian regimes, post-neo-liberal States, or new competitive authoritarian regimes, among others.

Multilevel Venue Shopping Amid Democratic Backsliding in New European Union Member States

Recently, various Central and Eastern European countries have experienced a regression of democratic quality, often resulting in the emergence of competitive (semi‐)authoritarian regimes with an illiberal governing ideology. This has often been accompanied by a closing political space for civil society groups. Based on a survey of more than 400 Polish, Hungarian, Czech, and Slovenian interest organizations, we explore, in the context of backsliding, the conditions under which organized interests shift their lobbying activities to alternative, i.e., EU or regional levels. Our statistical analyses indicate that it is rather exclusive policy‐making in general than a lack of individual group access to domestic policy networks that motivate organizations to engage in multilevel lobbying. However, it appears that organizational self‐empowerment and inter‐group cooperation are the “name of the game.” Even under the adverse conditions of democratic backsliding, organizations that are accumulating expertise, professionalizing their operations, and cooperating with other organizations not only can sustain access to (illiberal) national governments but also branch out their operations to the European and regional levels.