Electoral Autocracy Research Articles

Using Social Power to Balance Soft Power: Venezuela's Foreign Policy

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has achieved what no other Latin American leader has since the end of the Cold War: bringing security concerns in the Western Hemisphere back to U.S. foreign policy. Might Venezuela provoke a war against neighboring Colombia, spread weapons among insurgents abroad, disrupt oil sales to the United States, provide financial support to Hezbollah, al Qaeda or other fundamentalist movements, offer safe havens for drug dealers, invite Russia to open a military base on its territory, or even acquire nuclear weapons? 1 These security concerns did not exist less than a decade ago, but today they occupy the attention of U.S. officials. Attention to these conventional security issues, however, carries the risk of ignoring what thus far has been Venezuela's most effective foreign policy tool in challenging the United States: the use of generous handouts abroad, peppered with a pro-poor, distribution-prone discourse. While the U.S. debate revolves around ''hard power'' and ''soft power,'' 2 this other form can be called ''social power diplomacy.'' Similar to hard power and soft power, social power diplomacy allows the projecting nation to attract allies but through different means. With social power diplomacy, other nations are not necessarily cajoled into bowing to the economic or military might of the projecting nation, as is the case in the realm of traditional hard power politics. Also, nations are not necessarily attracted to the magnetic appeal of the projecting nation's ideology and values, as is the case with the realm of soft power politics. Instead, social power diplomacy attracts allies because it provides governments with far more latitude in domestic spending than is the case

Bound to Rule: Party Institutions and Regime Trajectories in Malaysia and the Philippines

This article revisits the electoral emphasis of hybrid regime studies, arguing instead that the impact of elections is structured by variations in prior political institutions, particularly the dismantlement or maintenance of a ruling party. Duration tests on 136 regimes indicate that ruling parties reduce the chance of regime collapse, while “electoral autocracy” has no significant effect. A paired comparison of Malaysia and the Philippines then shows how variations in party institutions propelled divergent courses of authoritarian dominance and democratization. During the late 1980s and 1990s, Malaysia's ruling party (UMNO) bound together otherwise fractious leaders, twice deflecting potent electoral challenges. By contrast, when Ferdinand Marcos abandoned the Nacionalista Party after 1972, he fueled the movement that would subsequently oust him. The efficacy of opposition parties Semangat '46 and United Nationalist Democratic Opposition (UNIDO) was thus heavily imbricated with the institutions of the regimes they challenged and less contingent on short-term electoral politics.

Can Electoral Autocracy Survive?

Can Electoral Autocracy Survive?