Types Of Authoritarian Regimes Research Articles

Court-Packing Accomplished – The Changing Jurisprudence of a Subordinate Constitutional Court

The worldwide decline in democracy poses a major challenge to the independence of constitutional courts, which are the guardians of constitutionalism and the rule of law. The international literature on constitutional adjudication is therefore understandably concerned with how judicial independence is undermined in different types of authoritarian regimes. However, less attention has been paid to how the practice of these courts evolves when they are directly or indirectly controlled by the government. This article examines how the practices of the Hungarian Constitutional Court changed following the successful court-packing by its government, which exercised its constitution-making parliamentary majority to subvert the Court, which was once one of the most activist constitutional courts in Europe. In this case, political influence was fullyexercised; this study shows how the Constitutional Court, in order to maintain a semblance of independence, uses several different methods to uphold the government’s will. The Hungarian example may be instructive as it illustrates where the dismantling of judicial independence can lead.

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.

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.

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.

Типологія та характеристики авторитарних політичних режимів

In recent decades, the evolvement of authoritarian regimes in different countries of the world has become a noticeable trend. This process raises questions about the impact of these regimes on international relations, democratic values, human rights, and the international order as a whole. It is important to note that authoritarian political regimes have a wide range of variations, from totalitarian systems, where power is completely controlled by one person or group, to milder forms, where the authority of power is based on other factors, such as military power or legitimacy. The subject of research in the article are political regimes. The aim is to investigate the typology and characteristics of authoritarian political regimes. The article uses general scientific methods: historical analysis and research to illustrate examples of authoritarian regimes. This allows us to find out the reasons for the emergence and evolution of authoritarianism, as well as to understand its influence on society and politics. The general scientific approach has proved itself useful in systematic researching and analyzing the typology and characteristics of authoritarian political regimes, highlighting a comprehensive understanding of this complex problem. The main characteristics of authoritarian political regimes are revealed; the specifics of functioning of authoritarian regimes and their impact on society are allocated. An analysis of different types of authoritarian political regimes has been carried out, which helped to a better understanding of the diversity of authoritarianism; also features of the latter have been determined. As a result of the study, conclusions are drawn as follows: a estimated typology of authoritarian regimes is important for identifying potential challenges and dangers that they can create for democracy, human rights, and stability in society. This can be helpful for politicians, researchers and actors of international relations in developing some effective strategies for preserving democratic values and countering authoritarianism. The study of authoritarian political regimes points to the need to strengthen international efforts to promote democracy, protect human rights, and promote democratic values. International cooperation and support can play an important role in spreading democratic values along with strengthening resistance against authoritarianism

The road to durable democracy: dominant party regimes, party politics and democratic survival

ABSTRACT This study examines why regime survival rates vary across young democracies. The author argues that there is a relationship between the type of authoritarian regime and the survival of subsequent democracies. Old regime elites inherit valuable resources from former dominant party regimes that may increase the likelihood of authoritarian successor parties (ASPs) performing well under democracy. This, in turn, for one thing, reduces the fragmentation of the new ruling parties, which inoculates young democracies against political instability that could lead to regime collapse. For another, it can effectively check the government’s power, thus preventing a new ruling party from crossing the line from democracy to authoritarianism. This study considers the hypothesis that dominant party regimes have a positive impact on the electoral performance of ASPs under democracy, thus contributing to the longevity of democracies, and tests that hypothesis by combining quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Trade cooperation in light of the forces that are currently re-shaping international business

In this research work, Author focus on the analysis trade cooperation in light of the forces that are currently re-shaping international business. Accordance to the foreign trade policy theory further trade liberalisation and improved framework policies would increase trade and promote growth. It must be emphasized that openess to trade is associated with higher incomes and growth and there are the need for new approaches to trade cooperation. What indicates the importance and innovativeness of the research is the presentation of the new models of the foreign trade policy and trade interests. First of all it must underline that in the new theoretical terms in the demand for trade policy very important is factor specificity. The low specificity of factors means that factor returns are equalized throughout a region’s economy. On the other hand some factors are stuck in their present uses; therefore, factor returns are not equalized throughout a region’s economy, but are industry specific. The main objective of the research task is to give a comprehensive analysis of current trends in foreign trade theory and policy and in particulary the models of foreign trade policy, trade interests indicated by export orientation and import sensitivity, foreign trade policy in different types of authoritarian regimes, protectionistic pressures in different political system, the level of protectionistic pressures, the variation in the foreign trade policy among states, the liberalisation of China foreign trade policy and their effects, the tendencies to international trade liberalisation and the problem of environmental protection, and the tendencies to bilateralism in the foreign trade policy. It should be stressed that free trade in itself is not responsible for economic growth, but more significant are the determining macroeconomic stability and increasing investment.

E-GOVERNANCE DEVELOPMENT AS A LEGITIMATION STRATEGY: A CONTENT ANALYSIS

This paper demonstrates that high level of e-governance in authoritarian regimes is a way to legitimate the rulers. On the other hand, one of the important functions of e-governance is the provision of official information to the public and mass media. Using the cases of two states Kazakhstan and Russia, I show how legitimation claims are conveyed through the official governmental websites. This paper uses content analysis to assess what legitimation strategies are used by Kazakhstan and Russia. The findings confirm earlier researchers’ claims that all types of authoritarian regimes strive to demonstrate high sectoral performance. Stressing high economic development, praising the achievements for each ministry has become the way to demonstrate their legitimacy. In addition, both countries almost equally underscore their international engagement. Nationalism ideals are more specific to Russian government than to Kazakhstani. While Kazakhstani government is more prone to feature personalistic legitimacy claims.

Policing Protest in Russia

As Russia’s post-communist regime descends deeper into authoritarianism, protest politics has become a regular feature of the political landscape. As such, President Putin increasingly faces the “dictator’s dilemma”: How much coercion to deploy against protesters without incurring a social backlash against the regime? That question more generally is now part of analytical consideration in comparative scholarship on social movements and contentious politics. This article contributes to the comparative discussion, first, through an elaboration of an original conceptual typology of protest-policing strategies, applicable to democratic and authoritarian regime types. Second, the article applies this conceptual scheme to Russia to illustrate the variant protest-policing strategies employed during the post-communist period. The research explains how Putin’s authoritarian regime responded to the challenge of the dictator’s dilemma by enacting protest-policing reforms. Inspired by policing trends in the Western democracies, these reforms entail a shift from confrontation-based to containment-based tactics. The article shows variation and adaptation in the way protesters were policed across Russia’s transition from unconsolidated democracy to consolidated authoritarianism. Finally, the article suggests the consequences of protest-policing reform for the ruling regime.

Authoritarian origins of term limit trajectories in Africa

ABSTRACT The article advances two related arguments with regard to term limit decisions in Sub-Saharan Africa. We should take a long-term perspective on term limit decisions and not describe and explain them as isolated events. Such a historical perspective reveals the remarkably stable patterns according to which some African countries have enforced effective term limits while others have established a tradition of circumventing them. Second, these stable term limit trajectories are shaped by the institutional legacies of different types of authoritarian regimes which had existed before 1990. Single-party authoritarian regimes have thus created a favourable institutional context for the enforcement of term limits, although through two different mechanisms. Personalist regimes, conversely, created an institutional legacy which made the continued circumvention of term limits likely. This argument is developed both theoretically and by looking at the three cases of Tanzania, Zambia and Côte d’Ivoire.

Dynamic dictators: improving the research agenda on autocratization and authoritarian resilience

ABSTRACT We do not have a comprehensive understanding of authoritarian resilience or the quality of governance globally, because we lack research analysing deepening autocratization in already authoritarian countries. Yet, deepening autocratization is an actual phenomenon affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Authoritarian regimes continue to be treated as the negative end of the democracy-authoritarianism continuum, neglecting characteristics present only in authoritarian regimes. This research develops the conceptualization of deepening autocratization, as the definition of autocratization should include deepening autocratization in already authoritarian countries, rather than focusing solely on regime change. It looks at elite-level dynamics in authoritarian regimes and discusses power concentration, including proposed measures for personalization, administrative centralization, and state control over economic assets. Understanding how deepening autocratization is linked with authoritarian resilience is also crucial, as there is no “one model fits all” solution for understanding authoritarian resilience in different types of authoritarian regimes. To improve the research agenda on authoritarian resilience, research should focus on the combination of causes and their interactions rather than effects of individual causes.

Party institutionalization, authoritarian regime types and women’s political equality

ABSTRACT This article examines the association between women’s political inclusion and incumbent party strength in authoritarian regimes. It argues that the degree of party institutionalisation is the main determinant of women’s political inclusion under authoritarian rule. Institutionalised party rule determines the incentive and capacity for authoritarian parties to introduce more gender equal political processes and political outputs. Using different measurements of women’s political inclusion and data on 108 countries between 1946 and 2010, this article estimates within- and between-country effects of party institutionalisation, regime types and political inclusion of women. Although previous research stressed the link between authoritarian regime types and gender equality, this study finds regime types to explain little gender equality variation. In contrast, regimes with higher levels of party institutionalisation provide more gender equal politics and policies than regimes in which authoritarian parties are less institutionalised.

The dark side of regionalism: how regional organizations help authoritarian regimes to boost survival

ABSTRACT The international dimension of authoritarian resilience is receiving increased attention by scholars of comparative politics and international relations alike. Research suggests that autocratic states exploit regionalism to boost domestic regime security. This article explains how membership in regional organizations can help to strengthen survival chances of autocratic incumbent elites. It argues that membership provides additional material, informational, and ideational resources to autocratic incumbents that can be used to boost domestic survival strategies vis-à-vis internal and external challengers. The article provides qualitative case-based evidence to show how autocratic incumbents in Zimbabwe, China, and Bahrain have benefited from the involvement of regional organizations during moments of political instability to strengthen legitimation, repression, co-optation, and international appeasement strategies. The article thereby provides the first encompassing explanation linking regionalism and authoritarian survival politics that is applicable across regions and different types of authoritarian regimes.

Ethnic Coalitions and the Logic of Political Survival in Authoritarian Regimes

Why do authoritarian governments exclude ethnic groups if this jeopardizes their regime survival? We generalize existing arguments that attribute exclusion dynamics to ethnic coalition formation. We argue that a mutual commitment problem, between the ethnic ruling group and potential coalition members, leads to power-balanced ethnic coalitions. However, authoritarian regimes with institutions that mitigate credible commitment problems facilitate the formation of coalitions that are less balanced in power. We test our arguments with a k-adic conditional logit approach, using data on ethnic groups and their power status. We demonstrate that in autocracies, the ruling ethnic group is more likely to form and maintain coalitions that balance population sizes among all coalition members. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the extent to which balancing occurs is conditional on authoritarian regime type.

China's Influence in Asia: How Do Individual Perceptions Matter?

Taking pride in the vibrancy and transparency of democracy, countries such as the USA have prioritized the spread of democracy in its foreign policy. The admirable impact that this political agenda has garnered across the globe pushes us to ponder what China would offer as it aspires for a more prominent position on the international stage. Particularly, how would China foster its image in Asia and, as a result, earn a favorable voice and even all-out support from Asian countries, countries economically underdeveloped and politically volatile? This paper sets out to answer this question by critiquing whether or not popular perceptions of China’s political system impact how Asians perceive China’s influence in general. Conducting statistical analysis using the fourth wave of Asian Barometer Survey (2016) to assess the above argument, we find that Asians who lend their support for China are more keen to the economic opportunities that China’s growing economy offers their country than they are of China’s political system. In short, China’s authoritarian regime type does not factor into Asians’ perception of China, except when individuals are highly educated with and committed to democratic principles.

МАССОВАЯ МОБИЛИЗАЦИЯ И УСТУПЧИВОСТЬ АВТОРИТАРНЫХ РЕЖИМОВ: ЭМПИРИЧЕСКИЙ АНАЛИЗ

Why are some authoritarian regimes more inclined to make concessions to mass movements than others? In this article, based on the institutional theory of autocracies, I posit that institutionalized regimes should be more prone to concessions than regimes without parties and elected parliaments. This expectation is due to the capacity of the institutions to provide an opportunity for negotiation and representation of interests of mass movements, thus I expect the dictators in such regimes to bow more frequently to the demands of mass movements. Using the NAVCO database, the Barbara Geddes typology, and indicators of the institutionalization of autocracies, I test hypotheses about the relationship between institutions and concessions on a global sample of authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010. The results of statistical modeling do not confirm the hypotheses and, if anything, demonstrate that there are no serious differences between the types of authoritarian regimes regarding compliance with the demands of mass movements; moreover, the institutionalized autocracies are somewhat less inclined to satisfy the demand than dictatorships without elected parliaments and independent opposition parties. This empirical pattern points to a number of interesting questions for subsequent research on the links between institutions and the dynamics of mobilization in authoritarian regimes.

Трансформація авторитарного режиму у цифровій реальності (на прикладі Білорусі 2006-2015 рр.).

The collapse of the USSR gave scholars a variety of different political regimes that can’t be easily defined. Among all these examples, the Belarusian case seems to be an interesting one. In scholarly discourse, the country’s regime hasn’t obtained a constant definition. Moreover, the case of the Belarusian regime may help us shed some light upon the peculiarities of this type of post-Soviet authoritarian regime and seek additional peculiarities in it, which will prove helpful in further approaches to define contemporary ‘mixed’ regimes of former USSR republics and other countries all over the world.The main objective of the study is thus to show the Belarusian political regime’s transformation on the basis of political news of an independent online mass media site Belapan. News between April 2006 – August 2015 was collected and analysed.The tendencies of the decrease of participation in communication and the increase in the number of unique positions were detected. During the observed period, the indicators of participation in communication and unique political actors show the low dialogism of communication, and low number of stable figures in it, which may lead to minimised citizen familiarity with political figures, their political positions and actions; low level of political engagement. All these features characterise an authoritarian regime, and the fact of indicators decreasing/increasing testify to consistent tightening of the regime.Low intensity of political communication in Belarus may be additionally observed with the low constant attention towards Belarusian political actors. Dealing with the findings, one should consider digital transformation in journalism. A prevalence of unique political actors has been making political communication more complicated and fragmented, where different positions of these episodic actors are not presented in a structured unity.

New Tendencies in Contemporary Foreign Trade Policy

In this research work, the author focuses on the analysis new tendencies in contemporary foreign trade policy. Accordance to the foreign trade policy theory further trade liberalization and improved framework policies would increase trade and promote growth. It must be emphasized that openness to trade is associated with higher incomes and growth and there is the need for new approaches to trade cooperation in light of the forces that are currently re-shaping international business. What indicates the importance and innovativeness of the research is the presentation of the new models of foreign trade policy and trade interests. First of all it must underline that in the new theoretical terms in the demand for trade policy very important is factor specificity. The low specificity of factors means that factor returns are equalized throughout a region’s economy. On the other hand some factors are stuck in their present uses; therefore, factor returns are not equalized throughout a region’s economy but are industry-specific. The main objective of the research task is to give a comprehensive analysis of current trends in foreign trade theory and policy and in particular the models of foreign trade policy, trade interests indicated by export orientation and import sensitivity, foreign trade policy in different types of authoritarian regimes, protectionism pressures in different political system, the level of protectionism pressures, the variation in the foreign trade policy among states, the liberalization of China foreign trade policy and their effects, the tendencies to international trade liberalization and the problem of environmental protection, and the tendencies to bilateralism in the foreign trade policy. It should be stressed that free trade in itself is not responsible for economic growth, but more significant are the determining macroeconomic stability and increasing investment.

Is Democracy Necessary for Good Governance?

ObjectiveIs democracy necessary for good governance? Although it is often assumed that there is a natural connection between democracy and governance, there is remarkably little empirical work that tests this relationship cross‐nationally.MethodsIn this article, I first focus on distinguishing aspects of good governance and separate them conceptually from democracy. Second, I outline several different types of regime models that represent models for emulation among developing countries. Third, using data from 115 countries from 1996 to 2011, I quantitatively analyze which of these is more effective in producing good governance (which in part explains the appeal of some models over others).ResultsThe results suggest that there are (1) either no differences between one‐party regimes and democracies in terms of the promotion of rule of law or effective governance in the developing world; and (2) some types of semi‐authoritarian one‐party regimes are better at promoting rule of law and effective governance than other types of authoritarian regimes—equally as well as democracies.ConclusionContrary to much of the literature, democracy does not appear to be necessary for good “enough” governance. However, in the long run, for good governance and the “rule of law” to firmly take root (where regime elites are held accountable by law), democratic institutions must be ultimately developed.

Distributional Bargaining and the Speed of Structural Change in the Petroleum Exporting Labor Surplus Economies

We embed the distributional bargaining concept in Sir Arthur Lewis’s labor surplus economy setting. In the petroleum-abundant labor surplus economies, distributional bargaining comes into its own, mainly over the subsidization of the large swaths of the population working in the sectors with substantial amounts of disguised unemployment. These are primarily the subsistence agriculture and the public sector. Based on the open-loop noncooperative differential game model, we derive three feasible bargaining equilibria, whereby only the antagonistic and the allocation modes are compatible with the setting of inferior institutional quality that dominates most natural-resource-dependent countries. We scrutinize both modes in the framework of the dual economy model and show that political bargaining in the allocation mode unambiguously protracts the process of economic modernization. The outcome of the antagonistic mode for the process of structural change depends on the magnitude of the labor cost increase in this phase. To assess the bargaining–modernization nexus empirically, we employ mostly pooled mean group (PMG) estimators for panel datasets spanning the years 1990–2016 for 21 oil-producing countries. For the system generalized method of moments (GMM) panel estimations, we employ a panel with 82 countries. We find that the revenues generated from exports of natural resources have a positive long-run impact on the economic modernization. Consistent with our theoretical model, the interaction of the authoritarian regime type with the natural resource wealth has a robust negative impact on the indicators of economic modernization.