Non-democratic Regimes Research Articles

The Rise and Fall of South Africa’s Intelligence Community during Apartheid

The author explores the context that contributed to the evolution of the South African Intelligence Community (SAIC) from political police to an independent security state during the apartheid, nondemocratic regime (1961–1994). It also assesses the circumstances that led to the demise of authoritarian rule and the reform of the intelligence apparatus. It finds that such factors as the security landscape, changes in leadership, and enabling legislation assisted the SAIC’s consolidation of power as political police, morphing it into an independent security state during that period. Subsequently, leadership, liberalization measures, scandals, and inquiries contributed to the demise of the apartheid intelligence apparatus and the slow emergence of a democratically inclined SAIC.

The limits of sportswashing. How the 2022 FIFA World Cup affected attitudes about Qatar.

Non-democratic regimes have increasingly been hosting major sports events to boost their visibility and image abroad, which sparked debates about the potential for "sportswashing". Using the case of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar we examine how the framing of the tournament influenced opinions about Qatar abroad. Our pre-registered survey experiment with more than 14,000 respondents in eight European countries conducted before the tournament shows that framing it in light of human rights issues in Qatar leads to more negative attitudes towards the host of the World Cup. In contrast, frames emphasizing Qatar's organizational capacity improve respondents' attitudes. The heterogeneity of effects across countries highlights the relevance of the national information environment for the effects of major sports events on public opinion. These findings suggest that critical media coverage could potentially mitigate sportswashing efforts while uncritical coverage can increase the legitimacy of autocracies.

Boys and Their Toys: Status Inconsistency in Non-democratic Regimes and the Import of Major Weapon Systems

Major weapon system imports are significant as they are useful for domestic and international security. However, states regularly imported weapons they want in addition to weapons they need. One explanation is that states import unnecessary weapons to gain status. We argue that states suffering from higher levels of negative status inconsistency (SI) import a greater proportion of status symbol weapons. To account for differing security motives, we also separate non-democratic regime types – strongman, junta, boss, and machine – as they vary in their international conflict propensity and domestic stability. Due to the differences across these regimes, we further argue that non-democratic personalist regimes will import more status symbol weapons. Using data covering 1965–1999, we find that negatively status inconsistent regimes import more status symbol weapons.

The role of historical legacies in the process of decentralisation in Russia: compliant activism in the context of the crises of the 2020s

ABSTRACT This study explores the case of recent trends in Russian centre–periphery decentralisation under Vladimir Putin: increasing regional rhetoric (2018) and delegating authority to the administrative regions (in 2020 and 2022). Why and how in the last six years (2018–23) have there been recurrent instances when Russia’s government has delegated authority to subnational regions? Why does the central government perceive the risk associated with distributed power as acceptable? We hypothesise that this outcome is driven by the existence of a specific bureaucratic culture of compliant activism inherited from the Soviet past. The existence of this culture makes decentralisation less risky for the centre. We provide some empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis. The article develops the theory of compliant activism and the role that the Communist legacy played in modern decentralisation in the prewar period (pension reforms in 2018), the COVID-19 pandemic (confinement restrictions in 2020) and during the invasion of Ukraine (military mobilisation in 2022). The article offers an empirical test for the case of pension reforms and lays the ground for future research on the impact of crises on decentralisation in non-democratic regimes.

From Authoritarianism to Democracy in Poland Catholic church, the Union Movement Solidarity and the History of Democratic Change

The paper examines the complex process of transition from a non-democratic to a democratic regime and the consolidation of the government system in Poland. The specificity of the democratic transition in Poland, in relation to other transitions in Central and Eastern Europe, is reflected in the nature of the non-democratic regime, which was more authoritarian than (post)totalitarian. Hence, while the communist regime was in force, social pluralism managed to be preserved to the highest possible extent. Preserved social and even political pluralism later contributed to success in the transition process. The military-party regime in Poland, after Gorbachev came to power in the USSR, applied the strategy of getting out that took the form of negotiations between the political position and the political opposition at the Round Table. The compromise ended the negotiations and brought about semi-free elections, on one, and the controlled democratic transition in Poland, on the other hand. The event was accelerated when, in semi-free elections, the popular Solidarity movement defeated the then-ruling communist group. The provisions of the Agreement were fully respected by both sides. In the end, after the Second World War, it was Poland whose citizens were the first to overthrow at the regular elections. The Round Table Agreement established the function of a strong president, who was directly elected. That function was first used by Leh Valensa, the leader of Solidarity. The extreme proportional election method and the fragmentation of Solidarity, in terms of the creation of several political parties, resulted in the establishment of a multi-party semi-presidential system. The change in the electoral system and the inappropriate tactics of the political parties that emerged from Solidarity enabled the left-wing government to come to power and ensured the post of president to a post-communist candidate (Darmanovi?, 2002). The transfer of power from Solidarity to their former rivals, who fundamentally changed, managed to end peacefully and Poland slowly entered the phase of consolidation of the government system.

Unpacking the politics of ‘sportswashing’: It takes two to tango

The concept of ‘sportswashing’ serves as a short-hand way of criticising non-democratic regimes for using investment in sport, sports clubs, and sports events to detract from illiberal practices in their home countries. This article makes a contribution to the extant literature and debates on ‘sportswashing’ in three key ways by (1) showing that, paradoxically, without the encouragement and opportunities afforded by notionally democratic global capitalism and the ‘West’, ‘sportswashing’ strategies would not be available to non-democratic regimes; (2) highlighting the ‘mechanisms’ by which ‘sportswashing’ actually occurs and how it ought to be understood as an initial step on a long-term journey towards ‘soft power’ gains. The article does this by (3) examining two empirical examples of ‘sportswashing’. First, we explore the 2022 Qatar World Cup and the broader international sports investment strategies pursued by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Second, we introduce the WWE partnership with Saudi Arabia to demonstrate that ‘sports washing’ can be rendered bidirectional such that both participants reap a reputational boost, inverting the presumed reputational damage that otherwise constitutes the main disincentive to participation by Western capital. Such a process embeds non-democratic regimes in the sports industry leading to their becoming ‘normalised’ in international business.

‘Listening State?’: exploring citizens’ perceptions of Open Government in Tokayev’s Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT The Open Government reform has been actively adopted across various non-democratic regimes, including post-Soviet Central Asia. The reform is supposed to bolster responsiveness and transparency through the active use of information communication technologies, and numerous authoritarian countries have recently adopted and deepened the Open Government reform. In this work, we study whether Open Government reform contributes to responsiveness in autocracies using the case of Kazakhstan under Tokayev’s rule (2019–present). We investigate the concept of the ‘Listening State’ recently adopted in Kazakhstan through the analysis of novel primary data. The perceptions of ordinary citizens reveal that the Open Government reform in the country has not led to the realization of its key goal of increased responsiveness. Therefore, we argue that the Open Government reform has serious limitations in achieving its ultimate goal of a better listening state to people’s needs in autocracies.

Rwanda’s War in Mozambique: Road-Testing a Kigali Principles approach to counterinsurgency?

ABSTRACT Rwandan military behavior in Mozambique operationalizes Kigali’s rhetorical commitment to aggressively defend endangered civilians. The counterinsurgency doctrine applied in Cabo Delgado balances insurgent pursuit and civilian protection through a combination of contact patrolling and tactical restraint. This formula demonstrates learning from the country’s past experience with domestic rebellion and international peacekeeping but contrasts sharply with Rwandan army conduct in eastern Congo. The disparity suggests Rwandan battlefield demeanor is conditioned by institutional culture and role conception. The campaign underscores the influence of ideology on Rwandan soldiers' self-understanding and complicates the equivalence of nondemocratic regime type with repressive strategies of counterinsurgency.

Judicial self-perceptions and the separation of powers in varied political regime contexts: the constitutional courts in Hungary and Slovakia

ABSTRACT The study of constitutional courts (CCs) of post-communist Europe typically entailed the belief in CCs’ transformative potential for the consolidation of democracy. Recently, this belief has been questioned, albeit the knowledge of why at least some CCs in the region failed to prevent the rise of non-democratic regimes remains limited. This article addresses this gap via the cases of Hungary and Slovakia, which have taken a different trajectory post-2010: the Slovak CC (SCC) remains an independent institution, while the Hungarian CC (HCC) has been packed by the executive. By combining contextual case law analysis of judgments referring to democracy and semi-structured interviews, the article shows that, during critical moments, the HCC did not perceive itself as responsible for Hungarian democracy, which resulted in its self-marginalisation. The SCC was largely spared from similarly critical moments, which, however, facilitated particular self-perceptions of its responsibility (or lack thereof). These findings offer empirical support for institutionalist scholarship that emphasizes the impact of ideas in calibrating the self-perceptions of political institutions and their positioning in the political system. Constitutional courts remain inseparable from the political regimes they are located in.

Foreign Direct Investment and Political Preferences in Non-Democratic Regimes

How does economic globalization affect regime support in non-democratic regimes? While we know a lot about how globalization affects politics in democracies, we know only little about its impact on political preferences in autocracies. I focus on FDI, which has increased considerably over the last decades and affects low- and high-skilled individuals differently. Material risks associated with FDI decrease regime support only among the poorly educated; economic gains from FDI bolster support for the incumbent regime for well-educated individuals. I present two analyses that corroborate these hypotheses. Study 1 uses Afrobarometer data and matches respondents with geo-located data on FDI. To mitigate selection problems, I only compare individuals that are exposed to FDI with individuals that are not yet exposed at the time the survey was administered. Study 2 utilizes cross-national survey data from 14 autocracies. My findings explain why some citizens favor the political status quo, even in autocracies.

Does Democracy Reduce Ethnic Inequality?

AbstractTo what extent and under what conditions do democratic institutions reduce socioeconomic ethnic inequality? I argue that democratization reduces ethnic inequality by introducing electoral accountability, which facilitates a series of egalitarian policies. However, the effect of democratization is conditional on the distribution of resources under the previous, nondemocratic regime. Countries that were more ethnically unequal prior to democratization experience greater egalitarian effects following democratization. To examine the argument, I leverage multiple country‐ and group‐level measures of ethnic inequality. Using fixed effects regressions, instrumental variable analyses, and event studies, I demonstrate that democratization substantively reduces ethnic inequality, but mainly for countries with high predemocratic levels of inequality.

Governors and the Ruling Party Vote Shares in Armenia

Scholarship has made significant advances in our understanding of the determinants of the survival of regional governors under authoritarianism. However, most studies focus on large nondemocratic regimes such as Russia or China. Drawing on data for 2007–2021, I test whether governors in Armenia were rewarded on the basis of their political or economic performance. I find strong support in favour of rewards based on regional election returns, a change in prime ministers, patronage and prior career in state office in the period up to the 2018 revolution. Afterwards, however, vote mobilisation no longer had the same effect on governors’ careers.

Changing presents, shifting past(s): the diverse interests of transitional justice and cultural heritage in the case of the Iranian revolution

ABSTRACT Cultural heritage and transitional justice both seem to be established terms with fixed connotations: the former of universally valued and appreciated cultural objects and the latter of processes related to replacing a non-democratic regime with a democratic one. The social, political and legal realities of actual transitions and cultural objects caught in their midst, however, are much more complex. One such particular case was the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and its immediate aftermath, which, despite being a distinct transition from one non-Western regime to another, encountered similar issues with regard to the preservation of cultural heritage objects linked to the former establishment. The purpose of this paper is thus to provide a better understanding of the non-traditional processes of transitional justice, with a special focus on the place of cultural heritage objects during a transition using the example of Iran.

Endogenous Popularity: How Perceptions of Support Affect the Popularity of Authoritarian Regimes

Being popular makes it easier for dictators to govern. A growing body of scholarship therefore focuses on the factors that influence authoritarian popularity. However, it is possible that the perception of popularity itself affects incumbent approval in autocracies. We use framing experiments embedded in four surveys in Russia to examine this phenomenon. These experiments reveal that manipulating information—and thereby perceptions—about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity can significantly affect respondents’ support for him. Additional analyses, which rely on a novel combination of framing and list experiments, indicate that these changes in support are not due to preference falsification, but are in fact genuine. This study has implications for research on support for authoritarian leaders and defection cascades in nondemocratic regimes.

Grievances, Policies or Clientelism? The Different Logics behind Ethnic Voting in Democracies and Autocracies

In this article, we explore the reasons why some ethnic groups tend to vote along ethnic lines while others do not. We argue that existing explanations for ethnic voting can be grouped into three main approaches: policy-based, grievance-based, and clientelism. However, we contend that inconsistencies in previous empirical research come from a failure to account for the political context in which ethnic voting occurs. Specifically, we argue that ethnic voting in democracies operates on a different logic than in non-democratic regimes. Our argument posits that policy- and grievance-based factors are the primary determinants of ethnic voting in democracies, whereas clientelist networks play a crucial role in understanding ethnic voting in autocratic regimes. To test our hypotheses, we use a sample of 428 ethnic groups from 33 African countries between 2005 and 2018, as well as a novel survey-based measurement of voting preferences among ethnic group members. Our findings support our hypotheses: in democratic regimes, grievance-based and policy-based explanations have strong explanatory power, whereas clientelism is the primary driver of ethnic bloc voting in autocracies. We conclude that both regime type and the different underlying mechanisms of clientelism require greater consideration in the research on ethnic voting.

The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on Teaching Islam in American Universities

The significance of the Muslim Brotherhood in American academia lies in the academic articulation of the brothers’ discourse as the expression of modern Islam in general. As such, the discourse of a specific political group is taken as the appropriate example of modern mainstream Islam. This treatment of the brothers’ discourse has resulted in an assumption that Islam, or at least modern Islam, is essentially political. It is not surprising, therefore, that one can easily find courses that teach “Islam and Politics,” or “Islam and Democracy,” which have no parallel in courses taught on other religions. What creates this distortion is not the mere political nature of the Brothers as an organization. It is the redefinition of Islam as has been presented by the brothers’ discourse since its foundation. There, Islam is presented as a differentiated structure that mirrors the differentiated structure of the secular state. Islam is presented as a comprehensive modern system that includes a number of complementary systems: political, economic, social, educational, health, etc. that work in harmony, guided by the rational principle of maṣlaḥah, public interest. The discourse of the Brothers defined the object of studies for American academia and set its research agenda. Not only has this presentation of Islam over politicized it, but it marginalized a plethora of significant traditional structures and concepts, as well as several modern responses that are not included in the brothers’ discourse. The overpoliticization of Islam and presenting it as nece­ssarily Islamism has become not just a problem of media misrep­resentation, but a crisis in the quality of knowledge about Islam that is produced and nurtured in academia. Moreover, this situation developed two unfortunate scholarships on modern Islam in Western academia that further distorted and blocked our knowledge on Islam: one is minor and Islamophobic, the other is major and Islamophilic. The Islamophobic approach sees Islam as inherently opposed to the modern structures of civil society, democracy, cultural diversity, and free market. The Islamophilic approach portrays Islamism—seen as the normative form of modern Islam, which is embraced by Muslim societies, as legitimate and popular native protest movement against non-democratic regimes. An exploration of John Esposito, whose scholarship has set the tone on Islam in academia for decades, and whose books have been widely adopted in courses taught in American universities will prove my argument.

Time to go: Paths of term limit resilience in sub-Saharan Africa

Although term limit violation is a widely examined form of autocratisation in sub-Saharan Africa, this research focuses on the relatively understudied but increasingly frequent cases in which term limits prove resilient. We distinguish two forms of term limit resilience, namely, compliance and enforcement, and we offer the first regional-level study of its determinants using qualitative comparative analysis. We find democracy – that is, the factor that is often considered the strongest predictor of term limit resilience – to be decisive when term limits are threatened or likely to be threatened. However, other mechanisms resulting from the interplay of factors that can be present in both democratic and non-democratic regimes stand out for their explanatory power – most notably, path dependence, regime legacies and opposition. Conversely, factors such as the international promotion of democracy and military autonomy appear to play a secondary role, at least from a comparative viewpoint.

Does the Free Group Agency Account of Legitimacy Require Democracy?

Abstract In this critical comment, we argue that nondemocratic, but decent regimes fail to constitute legitimate governance under Applbaum’s free group agency account. To make this case, we first introduce the three principles of liberty, equality and agency that Applbaum takes to flow directly from his free agency conception of legitimacy. Against this backdrop, we discuss Applbaum’s claim that a nondemocratic regime along the lines of a Rawlsian decent consultation hierarchy could meet the threshold of legitimacy. Contrary to this suggestion, we argue that nondemocratic, but decent regimes cannot claim legitimacy under Applbaum’s account because they are constitutively inegalitarian, thus failing to adequately grant citizens the equal normative power without which legitimacy is unattainable under the free group agency account.

Brazilian autocratic infra-legalism: a response to Kim Lane Scheppele

Kim Lane Scheppele claims that “autocratic legalism” is a new form of political authoritarianism, characterized by the use of laws and constitutional engineering. I argue that the Brazilian case provides two counterarguments to this thesis, first refuting the idea that lessons learned from past authoritarianism do not involve the use of law for non-democratic purposes, and then arguing that there are other legal instruments suitable for the implementation of political authoritarianism besides constitutions and laws. To this end, I divide the article into five parts. First, I sketch the theoretical approach and methodology. Second, I consider a broader literature on the significance of law in non-democratic regimes. Next, I report the importance of the use of law in the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). Fourth, I explain the use of administrative legal tools in contemporary Brazil and how this use evidences the existence of an “autocratic infra-legalism.” Finally, I present some concluding remarks, and a postscript written in the light of the presidential elections of 2022.

Preventing Coups and Seeking Allies: The Demand and Supply of Alliances for Coup-Proofing Regimes

Prevailing accounts of alliance formation emphasize either external threats or domestic politics, without an explicit consideration of how the two factors might interact. Instead, this paper theorizes about a specific type of interaction: coup-prevention strategies in nondemocratic regimes and external threats. Through quantitative analyses using the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (ATOP) and the State Security Forces (SSF) data, we find that “coup-proofing” reduces the probability of alliance formation when potential allies are under high external threat and that this effect is driven by the coup-proofing regime’s reduced capability to defend their allies, rather than the regime’s increased vulnerability to aggression. Furthermore, we find evidence for the interactive relationship at the negotiation stage of alliance formation. Upon entering an alliance, a coup-proofing regime facing a higher level of external threat offers more policy concessions to the ally, whereas an ally under higher threat could make fewer concessions to the coup-proofing regime. Our study highlights the way nondemocratic domestic political institutions can interact with external threat to shape states’ alliance behavior.