Regime Survival Research Articles

Single-party regime, cooptation, and strategic social spending in developing countries

How regime types affect the provision of social spending in the context of developing countries? This article provides a novel political-economic approach, arguing that single-party regimes are more likely to spend on pensions than other types of autocratic states to co-opt the large number of critical members although the regime type does not affect the general welfare spending across autocratic states. The theory emphasizes the effect of institutional and power structure heterogeneity across autocracies in shaping the incentives and strategies that the ruling elites co-opt and respond to the demands of the ruling coalition across different autocratic regimes. Using panel, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with lagged dependent variable along with several empirical strategies, it finds the evidence supporting this argument with a new dataset from 1990 to 2012. The study provides new insights on how autocratic institutions especially the party utilize strategic social policies to resolve the elite-level dictator dilemma for regime survival that are absent in other autocratic types.

Formulas for Autocratic Stability: A Review Article

Abstract Drawing on the analytical framework of Johannes Gerschewski's The Two Logics of Autocratic Rule, we explore the complexities of autocratic stability by examining the mechanisms through which autocrats preserve their regimes. We review Gerschewski's data set and arguments and provide our assessment regarding the empirical validity of Gerschewski's theory and tests. While Gerschewski's two logics of autocratic rule offer insightful understandings, the role of situational dynamics, international intervention, and political succession in influencing autocratic stability are underrated or neglected. The survival of an autocratic regime is not solely based on the prevention and preemption of challenges from political opponents, but also depends on the performance of regular governance functions along with a monopoly of political power and the resolution of leadership issues. The path-dependent nature of autocratic stability requires analysis of autocratic regime subtypes to effectively contextualize and generalize the patterns of political succession under different logics of autocratic rule. Lacking a comprehensive characterization of autocratic subtypes, the main contribution of Gerschewski's book is more theoretical than empirical.

The Political Economics of Non-democracy

We survey recent theoretical and empirical literature on political economics of non-democracies. Nondemocratic regimes face multiple challenges to their rule, both internal, such as palace coups or breakdown of their support coalition, and external, such as mass protests or revolutions. We analyze strategic decisions made by dictators from the standpoint of maximizing the chances of regime survival in the light of these challenges, and show how it explains multiple common patterns, from hiring political loyalists to positions that require competence, to restricting media freedom at the cost of sacrificing bureaucratic efficiency, to running propaganda campaigns, organizing election fraud, purging opponents and associates, and repressing citizens. (JEL D72, D73, D82, D83, L82, O17)

Cultivating seeds abroad: China’s and Turkey’s diaspora youth diplomacy

ABSTRACT China and Turkey are among the world’s top emigrant sending countries. How and why have they invested in their diaspora youth, particularly over the last two decades? The significance of young diasporans for international affairs remains understudied. Building on the concept of ‘diaspora youth diplomacy’, we provide a rare comparative study investigating diaspora diplomacy and show that China and Turkey similarly engage their diaspora youth through homeland tours, linguistic and educational programmes, and empowerment strategies. These initiatives seek to maintain Chinese and Turkish presence abroad by forging loyal support, which is crucial for regime survival and these countries’ global reputation as strong powers. Yet host countries have also interpreted these endeavours as a security threat. Our findings draw from official documents, speeches, polls, and news sources in Chinese, Turkish, and English and provide a better understanding of foreign affairs in the context of state sovereignty, security, and authoritarianism.

Disinformation and Regime Survival.

Disinformation has transformed into a global issue and while it is seen as a growing concern to democracy today, autocrats have long used it as a part of their propaganda repertoire. Yet, no study has tested the effect of disinformation on regime stability and breakdown beyond country-specific studies. Drawing on novel measures from the Digital Society Project (DSP) estimating the levels of disinformation disseminated by governments across 148 countries between 2000-2022 and from the Episodes of Regime Transformation (ERT) dataset, we provide the first global comparative study of disinformation and survival of democratic and authoritarian regimes, respectively. The results show that in authoritarian regimes, disinformation helps rulers to stay in power as regimes with higher levels of disinformation are less likely to experience democratization episodes. In democracies, on the other hand, disinformation increases the probability of autocratization onsets. As such, this study is the first to provide comparative evidence on the negative effects of disinformation on democracy as well as on the prospects of democratization.

Hedging strategy of Turkey in great power competition

ABSTRACT Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. and its allies have failed to recruit more states from the developing world to join the Western coalition against Russia and China to defend the liberal international order. As a swing state, Turkey is an example of this trend despite being a NATO ally. Turkey has adopted strategic hedging to avoid taking sides in the U.S.-Russia rivalry and it has been engaging both sides to increase the range of strategic options available to it. The ‘return-maximizing’ and ‘risk-contingency’ measures of hedging have allowed Turkey to cope with competing great powers and the systemic uncertainties simultaneously. The article argues that the Turkey’s hedging against an uncertain future has helped it to extract concessions, elevate its status, preserve the country’s strategic autonomy, and provide regime survival for President Erdoğan despite severe economic problems. However, hedging behaviours have weakened alignment strength between Turkey and its Western allies.

Making amends: emotions and the western response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Abstract The western response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was unprecedented. The states of the European Union, the G7 and NATO have targeted Russia with sanctions and diplomatic isolation, and furnished Ukraine with military assistance sufficient to ensure the Zelensky regime's survival. These efforts have proven insufficient to dislodge Russia from its occupation of Ukrainian territory. Nonetheless, when launched in the aftermath of the invasion, they were seen (and often justified as) as bold, innovative, and steadfast—a necessary response to a grievous act. What explains this response? In this article we argue that the answer lies in the emotions of guilt and shame for past actions and mistakes in the West's dealings with Russia and Ukraine. Informed by a qualitative discourse analysis of key speeches, statements and interviews with leading western policy-makers (past and present), we regard these two emotions—expressed as apologies and the acknowledgment of mistakes—as important drivers of policy. This article contributes to the bourgeoning literature on emotions in world politics. In addition to offering a coherent explanation of the West's unprecedented response our argument has policy implications. While the admission of wrongdoing is laudable, it can lead to actors overcompensating, resulting in further mistakes and policy failures. Fast-tracking Ukraine into the European Union would be one such error.

Co-Opting Truth: Explaining Quasi-Judicial Institutions in Authoritarian Regimes

ABSTRACT: What accounts for the creation, design, and outputs of quasi-judicial institutions in autocracies? Prior research demonstrates that autocrats co-opt electoral, legislative, and judicial institutions to curtail opponents’ power and curry international patrons’ favor. However, scholarship on co-optation neglects quasi-judicial mechanisms, such as truth commissions, that can be useful for arranging a political narrative that bolsters a leader’s image while undermining his rivals. In this article, we formalize the concept of autocratic truth commissions—which account for one-third of truth commissions globally—and develop and test a novel theory of their origins, inputs, and outputs. We theorize that autocrats establish self-investigating commissions in response to threats to their symbolic authority and install rival-investigating commissions in response to threats to both symbolic authority and regime survival. We further argue that these two commission types take on different institutional forms and produce different outputs. Self-investigating commissions are afforded narrow mandates and produce reports that obscure basic facts. Meanwhile, rival-investigating commissions are granted wide mandates and culminate in accurate reports of rivals’ responsibility for abuses. We evaluate these expectations through comparative case studies of two autocratic truth commissions in Uganda, and find support.

SYRIA: PROXY WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The conflict in Syria quickly escalated into a complex and prolonged civil war where states outside the conflict fueled rebel groups to fight. The onset of multiple proxy wars befell Syria. Proxy war happens when a ruler of a state devises and facilitates the provision of support to a rebel group that is engaged in carrying out violent activities in another state. Thus, an external state can influence the outcome of a civil war without having to bear the heavy costs of sending its army forces. States that wage proxy wars risk a potential conflict escalation, and gamble with provoking retaliation by either the offending state or its allies. Furthermore, inadvertent conse quences of backing rebel forces are also possible such as international condemnation. So, why does a state choose to form a relationship with a proxy group, instead of intervening directly? Why invest money and military power in a third party that could lead to a prolonged conflict? The analysis highlights that the political survival of regimes in the Middle East caused leaders to support rebel groups in Syria. I present a causal mechanism that is based on transnational threats to explain the phenomenon of proxy war in the Syrian civil war. Keywords: Syria, proxy war, Middle East, qualitative analysis, foreign policy.

The Policy of Enforced Isolation in North Korea and Albania: Its Role in Regime Survival and Regime Collapse

The article seeks to analyze the North Korean regime’s isolationist policy, which is focused more towards its own population than towards other countries, as a key survival strategy. North Korea and Albania shared many historical and ideological similarities between the 1940s and the 1980s, but their fates diverged when Albania was eventually engulfed by protests and underwent regime change. Albania’s Stalinist leader Enver Hoxha had done his best to keep the population isolated, as has his North Korean counterpart. But Albanians under Hoxha’s successor Ramiz Alia began to gain access to unfiltered international news from neighboring countries. In contrast, North Koreans have been sealed off from the outside world. Most North Koreans were, unbeknownst even to themselves, living in an information-deprived world. If this type of domestic isolation is systematic on the part of the regime, North Koreans will only begin to realize their predicament and its source once they begin to receive unfiltered and authentic information from the outside world.

Autoritarinių lyderių užsienio politikos pokyčiai: Uzbekistano užsienio politikos po Šaltojo karo pabaigos analizė

The growing study of foreign policy change offers various explanations of change and continuity in foreign policy. By focusing on the actors of foreign policy decision-making, past scholarship has mainly concentrated on the role of institutional and noninstitutional factors in foreign policy change. However, decentralized decision-making is more relevant to democratic regimes than authoritarian regimes. Despite the abundance of case studies on foreign policy making in nondemocracies, advancements in the conceptual understanding of foreign policy change in authoritarian regimes are still needed. Addressing Uzbekistan’s foreign policy, this article proposes an advanced framework to explain why and how foreign policy change takes place under authoritarian leaders. A leader’s perception of the external environment is argued to be a decisive factor inducing authoritarian leaders to (re)consider their regime survival strategy. Concern with regime survival, in turn, shapes foreign policy goals which are manifested in distinctive foreign policy behavior of a leader. Ultimately, the behavior of a leader translates into certain foreign policy outcomes.

Religious Institutions’ Stances towards Autocratization in the Post-Third Wave Period

AbstractWhile scholars have devoted significant attention to religious institutions’ role in democratization, less attention has been given to their role in autocratization. Moreover, religious economy approaches suggest that religious institutions are flexible to offer whatever is of interest to the marketplace, but here the role the institutions played in the third wave of democratization suggests a stable commitment. I test the impact of religious monopoly and the historical pro-democratizing role on 52 dominant religious institutions’ stances towards autocratic practices related to regime survival in the post-third wave period. Logistic regression models reveal that stronger religious monopolies decrease the probability of opposing regime survival, while the historical pro-democratizing role of the dominant religious groups in the third wave increases the probability. Furthermore, when the religious market is highly monopolized, the commitment to a democratic role in the third wave is weak, and it is strengthened when there is intense religious competition.

To go with or against the grain? Politics as practice in the Budget Strengthening Initiative, Uganda

AbstractResponding to the failures of the good governance agenda in the post‐Cold War period, development scholars and policy researchers have placed increasing emphasis on approaches that can enable practitioners to support local change processes in politically savvy ways. Sometimes referred to as the ‘second orthodoxy’ in donor practice, these models aim to take the politics of aid‐receiving contexts seriously and work ‘with the grain’ of the institutional landscapes in which they are applied. This paper examines how these principles were put into practice within the ODI's Budget Strengthening Initiative (BSI) in Uganda. The paper shows how an ‘embedded’ form of technical assistance enabled the BSI to act micro‐politically, brokering the adoption of fiscal decentralisation reforms within the Uganda government. However, in the face of a broader political landscape of regime survival, the BSI's position within Uganda's financial technocracy also constrained its capacity to support these reforms. In this context of declining autonomy and shifting political constraints, the BSI worked ‘with the grain’ to reshape the reforms to align with pre‐existing political logics that hindered pro‐poor outcomes. Going forward, the paper suggests that further attention might be applied to understanding and addressing the fundamental tensions and trade‐offs involved in working ‘with the grain’ of challenging political contexts like Uganda.

Three pandemics in post-2017 Zimbabwe: authoritarianism, corruption, and ruling through Covid-19

ABSTRACT Existing work on Zimbabwe’s crises of governance post-2017 focuses on searching for continuities and discontinuities between Mugabe’s policies and those of Mnangagwa. This article questions the assumptions that continuities can occur without disruption in such a context and that Mnangagwa’s discontinuity with the past is a straightforward road that will lead to a positive culture of governance. It particularly considers the domains of life in which the military continues to assert its authority and control over Zimbabwean citizens. This study is based on qualitative approaches, which recognise the interconnectedness of politics (authoritarianism), cultures of affect (corruption), and the manipulation of a fragile context induced by Covid-19. Critical hermeneutics and postcolonial theories help explain subjective motivations in actions by politicians. The major contribution of the article is to show how and where power is reconstituted by the Mnangagwa administration to guarantee regime survival by controlling the masses.

India–China Standoff in Ladakh and China’s Dilemma

This article seeks to provide an answer to the question which has not been explored in the relevant academic scholarship: What are the merits and demerits of China restoring status quo ante or maintaining status quo along the disputed Line of Actual Control and why? This article argues that status quo renders China multiple geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic advantages: restoring its 1960s claim line and tactical and strategic gains along the LAC, security of Aksai Chin and inhibiting India’s rise. However, it also creates prospects for India–China conflict/war which will curtail (a victorious) China’s quest to become the pre-eminent global power. And a defeat/stalemate in conflict/war with India will impact China’s standing in global affairs, and repercussions for Communist Party of China’s regime stability and regime survival. On the other hand, restoring status quo ante also has tactical and strategic costs, and can also have domestic political costs for President Xi Jinping.

Political Reforms For Regime Survival: Algeria From 1988 To Post-Covid-19 Era

This study examines how the regime in Algeria could survive the different popular uprisings throughout history, unlike the rest of regimes that experienced the Arab Spring. The study argues that since the foundation of the republic, the Algerian regime has always supported quick political reforms as a survival tactic. Contrary to other Arab dictatorships, the FLN has always been in power, but, as a survival tactic, it has always been willing to make concessions. The Algerian government used immediate political reforms to dictate the populace's behavior during uprisings, which over time created a kind of negative reinforcement. The study will employ an extensive literature review and archival records to support this argument. Relying on a fusion of classical conditioning, power-maximization theory and inherent factors approach, this study will prove that political reforms are used mostly as a tool of regime survival and power maximization.

Between Doctrine and Democracy: Examining Church-State Relations and Reproductive Health Policies in The Philippines, 1990-2017

The question remains as to why the Catholic Church, with its moral authority and political influence, was unable to effectively oppose the implementation of reproductive health policies in a predominantly Catholic Philippines. Thus, this study examined the relationship dynamics of the Church and the state in the context of reproductive health policies in the country. Using the historical method, the data were mainly gathered from the Pastoral Letters issued by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines and surveys conducted by opinion polling bodies. The collected data were then analyzed using historical approach and source criticism. The study revealed that the opposition of the Catholic Church to reproductive health policies has been always based on its teachings and doctrines on the dignity of the human person, the nature of marriage and purpose of sexual intercourse. Moreover, it also showed that political support and regime survival were important factors that determined the response of the government officials to Church criticisms and opposition to reproductive health policies. The wide public support for reproductive health policies and its successful implementation despite strong opposition from the Church implied that the stand of the Catholic Church on the issue failed to adapt to sociopolitical changes and respond to the changing needs of the Filipino people.

Omnibalancing in China-Russia relations: regime survival and the specter of domestic threats as an impetus for bilateral alignment

ABSTRACT Among analysts of China-Russia relations, it has been common to assume that bilateral rapprochement has primarily been rooted in geopolitical, security, and balance-of-power considerations. This article argues that the corresponding Realist theoretical approaches can explain some important incentives for Sino-Russian rapprochement, but struggle to account for how substantive bilateral alignment has actually become. The article posits that a particularly useful theoretical approach for examining the motives underlying Sino-Russian strategic alignment is “Omnibalancing” – a variation of balance-of-power theory that combines considerations of system-level balancing with a simultaneous focus on both leaderships’ prioritization of domestic threats and regime security. Due to the increasing convergence of their authoritarian regime types, a major factor accounting for the dynamism of China-Russia strategic cooperation has been both governments’ shared concern for regime survival/legitimacy, and their concrete policy cooperation in recent years has reflected their preoccupation with shoring up regime security against domestic challenges to authoritarian rule.

Enhancing the Role of Party Building and Rectification in the Current Period

The Communist Party of Vietnam, founded in 1930, has steered the revolutionary boat to bring the Vietnamese people through many rapids to the victory of the national liberation revolution and national reunification. Today, the Party continues to lead our people to build socialism in the new era, achieving many great victories in all fields as General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong affirmed “with all modestly, we can still say that: Our country has never had the opportunity, potential, position and international prestige like today, ..”. It can be seen that these successes comes from many reasons, of which one of the important reasons is that we have done well in the construction and rectification of the Party. This is one of the important tasks affecting the regime's survival and the development of socialist Vietnam.

Subnational authority and political alignment in African states

ABSTRACT This paper examines the importance of, and variations in, political alignment within African regimes. Political alignment is how leaders establish sufficient political support across elites: we posit that formal appointments are the primary way that leaders manipulate political coalitions in order to secure their collective authority and tenure. Appointments, individually and collectively, can take on multiple characteristics: they can create inclusive or exclusive coalitions, transactional or loyal support, volatile or stable elite networks. Appointment powers have greater salience since governments institutionalized and formalized in governance systems across democratic and autocratic states. Manipulating who holds and secures power at the subnational and national levels, rather than repressive control or state capacity, underpins the stability, security, and survival of modern African regimes.