Single-party Regimes Research Articles

Justifying power: when autocracies talk about themselves and their opponents

ABSTRACTIt is commonly understood that authoritarian regimes attempt to legitimize their rule and de-legitimize opponents. What is less clear is the intensity with which they do so, whether (de-)legitimation varies by institutional structure, and whether and how this intensity varies in times of crisis. To address these questions, this article focuses on the types of messages that autocracies disseminate, how they vary across autocratic regime types, and how they change when confronted with system-challenging movements. The article tests expectations using quantitative events data on government statements, movements and state repression. It also examines a case of a single-party regime faced with a widespread protest movement, namely China in 1989, to investigate whether the quantitative findings manifest themselves in the dynamics of a particular episode. The article finds evidence that autocratic regimes regularly disseminate messages to legitimize their rule and de-legitimize opponents and that single-party regimes generally engage in more (de-)legitimizing rhetoric than other autocratic regime types both during ordinary times and times of regime crisis. In general, regimes scale up their (de-)legitimation efforts when they face a major system-challenging movement as well as when they choose to repress such movements.

Power Sharing, Patronage, and Land Institutions in China

This article examines how single-party regimes share power among their ruling elites. An examination of land institutions in China suggests that the ruling Party relies on a statist and partially centralized land regime to distribute land development rights (land quotas). This institutional arrangement allows the Party's central elites to use land as patronage to build their clientelistic networks and share power among themselves. This argument is tested empirically using a data set of land-use conversion in Chinese provinces between 1999 and 2013. The findings of the research contribute to the literature on authoritarianism and land politics, and have important implications for land-institution reforms in China.

When do authoritarian rulers educate: Trade competition and human capital investment in Non-Democracies

This paper explains variations in education spending among non-democracies, focusing on policy interdependence by trade competition. Facing pressures from spending changes in competitor countries, rulers calculate the costs and benefits associated with increased education spending: education increases labor productivity; it also increases civil engagement and chances of democratization. Therefore, we expect that rulers in countries whose revenues depend less on a productive labor force and those with shorter time horizons are less likely to invest because of lower expected benefits; rulers with single-party regimes, authoritarian legislatures, and especially partisan authoritarian legislatures are more likely to invest because such institutions enable them to better survive the threats associated with increased human capital. We find empirical support for policy interdependence and the conditional effects of government revenue source, time horizon, and partisan legislatures.

Autocracies and Economic Sanctions: The Divergent Impact of Authoritarian Regime Type on Sanctions Success

There is some consensus in the literature that economic sanctions targeting authoritarian regimes are less effective than those against democratic regimes. This line of research, however, assumes that autocratic regimes are monolithic and that they have similar capacities to resist foreign pressure. This study argues that the success rate of sanctions against dictatorships is contingent on institutional differences across different types of autocracies. I develop a theoretical model indicating that single-party and military regimes are less likely to concede to foreign pressure compared to democracies. This is because they effectively use various repressive tactics and positive inducements to endure the costs of the coercion. Sanctions against personalist regimes, on the other hand, are likely to be as effective as sanctions directed at democracies. Personalist regimes might be inclined to acquiesce to foreign pressure due to their lack of strong institutional capacity to weather the costs of the sanctions. Results from the selection-corrected models show that sanctions against military or single-party regimes are less likely to induce concessions relative to democratic target regimes. The findings also indicate that there is no significant difference in the success rate of sanctions against personalist regimes and democratic governments.

Playing by the Rules: How Local Authorities Engineer Victory in Direct Congressional Elections in China

An emerging body of literature views authoritarian elections as an institutional tool utilized by ruling elites to sustain power. However, like a double-edged sword, elections may also destabilize authoritarian regimes and trigger the process of democratization. How do authoritarian rulers make sure elections serve their purposes? What electioneering mechanisms do they employ to engineer electoral victory? Do electoral institutions matter in single-party regimes? Based on intensive fieldwork, this article will lay out for the first time a menu of controlling strategies and tactics deployed in China’s direct congressional elections. Drawing on these mechanics allows local electoral authorities to play by the rules as they manufacture electoral certainties for the Communist Party. Furthermore, the political logic of ‘socialist democracy’ and its operationalization in local congressional elections will also be discussed. A closer look at the micro-level dynamics of authoritarian elections may help develop our understanding of why there has been a mixed record of ‘democratization by elections’.

The Bangladesh party-state: a diachronic comparative analysis of party-political regimes

Since independence in 1971, both civilian and military regimes have ruled Bangladesh. As many other military regimes did, the latter civilianised their rule through the formation of political parties and participation in general elections. When diachronically analysing political formations in Bangladesh, it is appealing to make a clear-cut distinction between autocratic and democratic regimes. However, this article argues that throughout its post-independence history, the dominant form of rule has been the party-state. Revisiting the work of Aristide Zolberg, this article develops a typology of party-states, away from its initial focus on single-party regimes. It argues that party-state formation can also be witnessed in competitive electoral settings.

Factions in Nondemocracies: Theory and Evidence from the Chinese Communist Party

This paper investigates theoretically and empirically the factional arrangements and dynamics within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the governing political party of the People's Republic of China. Our empirical analysis ranges from the end of the Deng Xiaoping era to the current Xi Jinping presidency and covers the appointments of both national and provincial officials. We present a set of new empirical regularities within the CCP and a theoretical framework suited to model factional politics within single-party regimes.

Control, Discretion and Bargaining: the Politics of Provincial Leader Rotation in China

Using the case of China, this paper illustrates how single-party regimes utilize personnel power to manage the strained relationship between the central and subnational governments. After explaining the sources of central–local tension in the reform-period China, I present descriptive statistics to show how the center stepped up the rotation of provincial leaders as an instrument of centralized political control. Departing from existing studies that see the selective appointment of outsiders as a strategy to tightly control unruly provinces, I argue that the center’s decisions are also conditioned by the imperative to grant provincial discretion essential for local economic development and by the bargaining element inherent in the decision-making process. The relevant hypotheses are tested on an original dataset of provincial leaders. Uncovering the logic of provincial leader rotation is not only important for understanding the evolving balance of power between China’s center and provinces but also have profound policy implications.

Citizen wellbeing in African competitive authoritarian regimes

Africa’s political landscape has changed profoundly over the past two decades. The crisis of many military and single-party regimes led to the widespread adoption of reforms that, in many countries, stopped short of full democratization but opened the way to the institutionalization of limited forms of political competition. While it is now evident that competitive authoritarianism is not a transitory phenomenon, it is less clear whether formal democratic institutions may nonetheless have a beneficial effect. Specifically, yet to be evaluated is the ability of these democratic institutions to shape government commitment to improving the wellbeing of citizens in an environment deeply affected by neo-patrimonial practices, such as African politics. This article presents the findings of one of the first inquiries into the socioeconomic consequences of competitive authoritarianism. Our main conclusion is that electoral mechanisms do favour some social improvements even within the context of an authoritarian setting.

Political Opportunity Structures in Dictatorships? Explaining ENGO Existence in Autocratic Regimes

Which factors make it more likely that environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) exist in autocracies? Several studies addressed this question before but might suffer from two shortcomings. First, the more general literature on social movements treats nonstate actors as a closely related characteristic of democracies. This neglects, however, that ENGOs might exist in autocracies as well. Second, the more specialized literature on comparative environmental politics examines ENGOs in autocratic regimes but rather focuses on single case studies. Despite fascinating insights, we thus lack a comprehensive theory on why ENGOs might exist in different types of dictatorships. In light of this, the following research adds to this by developing a theory that is based on the political opportunity structures (i.e., degrees of repression) in different autocratic typologies. The empirical analysis using data on 71 autocracies from 1973 to 2003 emphasizes that ENGO existence strongly differs across single-party regimes, monarchies, military regimes, and personalist dictatorships.

Why communism did not collapse: understanding authoritarian regime resilience in Asia and Europe

Part I. Reform and Resilience: 1. Understanding communist collapse and resilience Martin K. Dimitrov 2. Resilience and collapse in China and the Soviet Union Thomas Bernstein Part II. Ideology and Resilience: 3. Ideological erosion and the breakdown of communist regimes Vladimir Tismaneanu 4. Ideological introversion and regime survival: North Korea's 'our-style socialism' Charles Armstrong Part III. Contagion and Resilience: 5. Bringing down dictators: waves of democratic change in communist and postcommunist Europe and Eurasia Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik 6. The dynamics of contagion in the Soviet Bloc and the impact on regime survival Mark Kramer Part IV. Inclusion and Resilience: 7. Authoritarian survival, resilience, and the selectorate theory Mary Gallagher and Jonathan Hanson 8. Cause or consequence? Private-sector development and communist resilience in China Kellee S. Tsai Part V. Accountability and Resilience: 9. Vietnam through Chinese eyes: divergent accountability in single-party regimes Regina Abrami, Edmund Malesky and Yu Zheng 10. Vertical accountability in communist regimes: the role of citizen complaints in Bulgaria and China Martin K. Dimitrov 11. Conclusion: whither communist regime resilience Martin K. Dimitrov.

State Security, Information, and Repression: A Comparison of Communist Bulgaria and Ba'thist Iraq

The centrality of a strong state security apparatus to the maintenance of authoritarian rule via the threat or use of repression has been highlighted in classic studies of single-party regimes as well as in more recent analyses of authoritarian resilience in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. This article focuses on two other fundamental questions related to the operation of state security forces in single-party autocracies during the Cold War. First, how did the state security agencies of East Germany and Saddam Hussein's Iraq collect information? Second, how was this information used? The article underscores the importance of the recruitment of informants for the state security apparatus, and it also reveals how information affects decisions about the deployment of repression. These single-party autocracies continuously extracted information by recruiting ordinary citizens to participate (voluntarily or involuntarily) as informants in the state security networks and used the information gathered to mete out repression.

The Rise of State Capitalism as a Reaction to Financial Globalization

Since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, state ownership of publicly listed firms has increased across East Asia, but especially among single party regimes. I argue that state ownership produces two stabilizing effects that counter the destabilizing pressures arising from financial globalization. First, state capitalism enhances regime stability. It does this by strengthening the regime’s control over the state and its resources and by denying them to political challengers. Second, state-owned firms can more effectively buffer financial volatility. These stabilizing effects are magnified in the context of single party regimes. This argument leads to the expectation that state-owned firms in single party regimes should display better performance than other firms during a financial shock. Event analysis tests conducted on 856 firms around the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 across seven East Asian economies support this expectation. The results suggest that financial globalization is contributing to the rise of state capitalism.

The Autocratic Welfare State Resource Distribution, Credible Commitments and Political Survival

We investigate the adoption and characteristics of social welfare policies in autocracies. If one considers social policies merely as a tool for progressive redistribution to those in need, one might not expect autocratic regimes to spend resources on them. Empirically, however, several autocracies do have extensive welfare programs covering different types of risks. We argue that autocrats often implement such programs for political survival reasons. Targeted welfare programs allow autocrats to make credible commitments on the distribution of resources to their ruling coalition also in the future, thus reducing the probability of revolts or coups. Our argument generates a number of quite different empirical implications, which we test using our novel Social Policies Around the World dataset: In line with our expectations, we, for instance, find that autocracies are as likely as democracies to have old-age pension systems, but autocracies tend to have less universal systems targeted towards a narrower group of recipients. We also find that single-party regimes are more strongly associated with the existence of pension programs than military regimes and monarchies. Although the evidence is far from clear, we find some indications that social policy programs are adopted in contexts when autocratic regimes face graver threats to their survival, and that having pension systems may reduce the probability of autocratic regime breakdown, and of democratization more in particular.

Environmental Interest Groups and Authoritarian Regime Diversity

The literature increasingly disaggregates political systems for examining the differences in international policies and domestic decision-making according to diverse regime typologies. The following research adds to this literature by studying the impact of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on the likelihood of ratifying international environmental agreements in different types of autocratic regimes. Building on a theory that focuses on the provision of environmental public goods, the author distinguishes between single-party regimes, military juntas, monarchies, and personalist dictatorships. The core argument claims that the provision of public goods varies among those regime typologies, ultimately leading to the expectation that the lobbying efforts of ENGOs should be most weakly pronounced in those autocracies that are likely to provide more environmental public goods anyway, i.e., single-party regimes. The empirical analysis using data on the ratification of international environmental agreements and autocratic regime types between 1973 and 2006 supports the theory.

The Resources and Problems of Theater in Turkey: Review on the Theatre Literature During ‘Single Party’ Period

Turkish theater, during all its development period, has been divided into some sub-braches such as: Traditional Theater, Tanzimat Theater, Constitutional Theater and Republic Theater. During the Republic Period, there have been many political effects that impact the theatre perceptions too. Also during this time the theatre profiles started to multiple and to be divided from each-other. From this separation, have been formed new perspectives of theatre that have been influenced by the ‘Single Party’ mentality received during the years 1923-1945. Even thought, this period the single party regimes had principles such as democratic state, consolidation of the institions, freedom of speaking and freedom of acting. These principles have been affected on the theater’s literatures too. All the principles of this political regime were accepted and applied by the theatre literature, which normally caused a huge lack of reality. Another important issue that must be claimed is to blame all the past history of Turkish society. This happened because existed an opportunity to have a possibility of non repetitions of these mistakes in the future. But consequently to this issue it is very important to stress that it brought out a strong barrier between the present and the past of society. In this study it is going to focus on the Turkish theater resources and problems during the period of a ‘Single Party’ (1923-1945) in Turkey. Also it will be focus on the social, cultural, family etc. problems and issues that have been faced during this period of time and have been written to different theatre’s literatures. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n9p748

PRANCŪZIŠKOJO KOLONIALIZMO ĮTAKA POKOLONIJINIO DRAMBLIO KAULO KRANTO VALDANČIOJO ELITO TRANSFORMACIJAI

The article adapts insights from the classical approach to power balance and from a critical approach to structural mechanisms in the construction of power (hegemony) to investigate the case of Ivory Coast. The main problem in the case of Ivory Coast is that the state of its habitants was politically re-engineered through the concept of Ivoirite. Such a state widens the gap between citizens and “non-citizens anymore” or “citizens under question” and consolidates dominance relations. The object of this article is the transformation of the ruling elite in Ivory Coast. The author aims to analyze the influence of the French colonialism on the transformation of the ruling elite’s dominance in Ivory Coast. The main objectives are to analyze how the French colonialism forms its dominance and to analyze the dominance dynamics of the postcolonial ruling elite in Ivory Coast. Taking into consideration the specifics of the topic, the author substantially relies on secondary information sources and analyses them employing comparative and interpretative research methods. The first part highlights how the French colonialism was maintaining relations of dominance not only between the colonists and the colonized, but also among local colonial habitants through the education and administration systems’ organization. The focus of the second part is on the transformation of the Ivory Coast ruling elite in the single-party and multi-party regimes. This research has revealed that the French colonialism maintained the exclusivity of local elites at the expense of other colonial habitants through a dualistic approach towards locals by organizing education and administrative activities. One-sided economic and regional priorities created conditions for the local economic elite growth on the ethnic base. The postcolonial ruling elite of Ivory Coast has split on the ethnic basis. Parties as channels to the ruling elite became ethnically clustered. The prolonged dominance of the Baoule ethnic group in the ruling elite and the recent emergence of a reshaped ruling elite reflect the regional and economic distinction rooted in colonial times.

Accountable for what? Regime types, performance, and the fate of outgoing dictators, 1946–2004

For some political leaders losing power might entail further punishment than just being replaced. During the period 1946–2004, 47% of dictators have been jailed, killed, or had to go into exile as a consequence of losing power. The possibility that such punishment occurs can shape and condition present-time decisions rulers make. This article investigates the factors which may affect the fate of outgoing dictators. I find that regime types determine, to a high extent, the fate of rulers as regimes shape internal dynamics and incentives and decisively affect the way rulers are replaced. Due to the lack of regularized succession procedures and to the concentration of power and patronage-based loyalty, personalist leaders are more likely to be killed and to go into exile upon their exit than other autocrats. Military and personalist leaders are also more likely to be imprisoned than monarchs or rulers of single-party regimes. If replaced by democracies, rulers of party and military regimes have a much higher likelihood of not being punished than personalists. It is also found that performance matters for explaining what happens to rulers after the loss of power. Economic crises and defeats increase the likelihood that an authoritarian ruler is imprisoned.

Multistability with a Metastable Mixed State

Complex dynamical systems often show multiple metastable states. In macroevolution, such behavior is suggested by punctuated equilibrium and discrete geological epochs. In molecular biology, bistability is found in epigenetics and in the many mutually exclusive states that a human cell can take. Sociopolitical systems can be single-party regimes or a pluralism of balancing political fractions. To introduce multistability, we suggest a model system of D mutually exclusive microstates that battle for dominance in a large system. Assuming one common intermediate state, we obtain D+1 metastable macrostates for the system, one of which is a self-reinforced mixture of all D+1 microstates. Robustness of this metastable mixed state increases with diversity D.

Bringing Democracy to a Country Near You

Determinants of Democratization: Explaining Regime Change in the World, 1972–2006. By Jan Teorell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 220 pp., $29.99 paperback (ISBN 978-0-521-13968-7). Here is a book that speaks directly to the literatures on what causes transitions toward and away from democracy. Covering 3,795 annual observations, this study by Jan Teorell exploits panel regression analysis on an impressive data set of “third wave” democratizations (1972–2006) to test prominent theories in the democratization literature. Methodologically, it combines an inductive logic with deductive approaches based on statistics and case studies. In terms of substantive findings, the major empirical determinants of democratization unearthed in the book can be divided into long-term, medium-term, and short-term factors. Over the long term, symptoms of socioeconomic modernization, especially economic prosperity and media proliferation (measured by radios, televisions, and newspapers per population), were conducive to democracy but mainly by preventing de-democratization. Statistically significant obstacles to democracy included trade dependency, Arab population, natural resource wealth, and (large) country size. The most important medium-term factor was the type of authoritarian regime in place. More prone to democratization were military dictatorships and “multi-party autocracies,” elsewhere known as “competitive authoritarian” regimes (Levitsy and Way 2010). Less likely to democratize were single-party regimes and monarchies. International factors also …