Are elections in autocracies a curse for incumbents? Evidence from Chinese villages

Are elections in autocracies a curse for incumbents? Using panel data from village elections in China, the OLS regression shows that introducing competitive elections has a relatively small effect on the removal of autocratic incumbents. However, the effect becomes much larger when the endogenous timing is instrumented with the passage of provincial election laws and village-specific election cycles. Additional evidence also suggests that removing incumbents through competitive elections enhances local governance. I interpret these results as suggesting that political selection matters in electoral autocracies.     

Black knights and elections in authoritarian regimes: Why and how Russia supports authoritarian incumbents in post‐Soviet states

In the last decade, studies have documented how autocrats use elections as a way of legitimising and stabilising their regimes. Simultaneously, a literature on negative external actors (also known as ‘black knights’) has developed, emphasising how various international actors use anti‐democracy promotion strategies to undergird authoritarian regimes. In this article, these two literatures are fused in an attempt to shed light on the external dimension of authoritarian elections and what is termed ‘black knight election bolstering’. First, five mechanisms are elucidated, through which external assistance increases the chances of ‘winning’ elections in authoritarian settings (signaling invincibility, deterring elite defection, undermining opposition activities, dealing with popular protests, and countervailing pressure from foreign democracy promoters). Second, it is argued that external actors are most likely to offer election bolstering when they face a particularly acquiescent partner or when electoral defeat is perceived to lead to radical and undesired regime change. The relevance of both factors is augmented when uncertainty of the electoral outcome is high. Finally, four cases of Russian intervention during elections in three authoritarian neighbour countries (Ukraine in 2004, Belarus in 2006, and Moldova in 2005 and 2009) are analysed. The case studies corroborate the theoretical arguments: not only does Russia engage in all five types of black knight election bolstering, but it does so only when one or more of the three explanatory factors are present.     

Sometimes Less Is More: Censorship,News Falsification,and Disapproval in 1989 East Germany

Does more media censorship imply more regime stability? We argue that censorship may cause mass disapproval for censoring regimes. In particular, we expect that censorship backfires when citizens can falsify media content through alternative sources of information. We empirically test our theoretical argument in an autocratic regime—the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Results demonstrate how exposed state censorship on the country's emigration crisis fueled outrage in the weeks before the 1989 revolution. Combining original weekly approval surveys on GDR state television and daily content data of West German news programs with a quasi-experimental research design, we show that recipients disapproved of censorship if they were able to detect misinformation through conflicting reports on Western television. Our findings have important implications for the study of censoring systems in contemporary autocracies, external democracy promotion, and campaigns aimed at undermining trust in traditional journalism.     

Elections and Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes

When do elections in authoritarian regimes lead to democracy? Building from the distinction between competitive and hegemonic authoritarian regimes, I argue that presence of relatively weaker incumbents renders competitive authoritarian elections more prone to democratization, but only when domestic and international actors choose to actively pressure the regime. The effects of two forms of pressure—opposition electoral coalitions and international conditionality—are theorized. Propositions are tested using a comprehensive dataset of elections in authoritarian regimes from 1990 to 2007. Results support two core claims: that the effect of electoral pressure is conditional on the type of authoritarianism and that this greater vulnerability to pressure is the reason why competitive authoritarian elections are more likely to lead to democracy. In contrast, several alternative explanations—that differences across regime type are explained by alternation in power, better electoral conduct, or ongoing processes of liberalization—are not supported by the evidence.     

To survive is all: How the authoritarian core tackles neighboring dictatorships

This article attempts to answer why autocrats of illiberal regional powers intervene in the politics of neighboring dictatorships and argues that the dictator always prioritizes his survival and thus intervenes if he perceives his survival to be under direct threat. The formal model proposes three factors that determine the level of perceived threat: demographic composition, structural similarity, and regime dynamic of autocratic countries. The authoritarian core must pay close attention to those neighboring autocratic countries that are suffering from regime change, are close to its own densely populated region, and have regime types or social structure similar to itself. Additionally, if hostile ethnic or religious groups are highly concentrated in some areas of the authoritarian core where it borders autocracies experiencing regime instability, the authoritarian core will be motivated to intervene in the domestic affairs of those neighboring countries. Using QCA and case studies, this article confirmed that whether an authoritarian core will take action against countries in geographical proximity depends on a combination of these three factors.     

Autocracies and Terrorism: Conditioning Effects of Authoritarian Regime Type on Terrorist Attacks

Although empirical research has generally demonstrated that democracies experience more terrorism than autocracies, research suggests that this depends upon complex institutional differences that go beyond the democracy‐autocracy divide. This study examines these differences, linking institutions to strategies of coercion and co‐optation. Using zero‐inflated negative binomial regression estimations on Geddes’ (2003) autocratic regime‐type data for 161 countries between 1970 and 2006, we find that single‐party authoritarian regimes consistently experience less domestic and international terrorism relative to military autocracies and democracies. This finding is robust to a large number of specifications, underscoring the explanatory power of regime type for predicting terrorism. Our explanation for these findings is that party‐based autocracies have a wider range of coercion and co‐option strategies that they can employ to address grievance and dissent than do other, more strategically restricted, regimes.     

Elections and Democracy in Turkey: Reconsidering Competitive Authoritarianism in the Age of Democratic Backsliding

This article reflects on the reasons why Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) could still win in the recent 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey despite, among other daunting issues, the deep economic crisis and their unsuccessful handling of the February 2023 earthquake. The article discusses the role of state apparatus and the media under a neopatrimonial system, as well as the role of the EU, which turned Turkey into a rentier state with the refugee deals. The discussion considers whether Turkey could still be seen as a competitive authoritarian regime and points to the difficulties in determining whether regimes such as the Turkish one are competitive authoritarian or not until the election results are seen and the opposition candidates actually win.     

The autocratic mandate: elections,legitimacy and regime stability in Singapore

This paper explains how authoritarian regimes employ flawed elections to obtain both short-term legitimacy and long-term stability. In conjunction with the use of co-optation and repression, it argues that ruling parties hold de jure competitive elections to claim what is termed autonomous legitimation. This denotes the feigning of conformity to the established rules of the constitution and the shared beliefs of citizens. Regardless of overall turnout and support, ruling parties exploit the normative and symbolic value of elections in order to establish moral grounds for compliance within a dominant-subordinate relationship. In support of this argument, the case of Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP) is analysed in historical and contemporary terms. Since 1959, the PAP has used precisely timed elections to extract one or more mandate types from citizens and, by extension, claim legitimacy. In particular, it has sort a mandate based on its response to an event, execution of a policy and/or collection of a reward. In the long run, autocratic stability has been achieved through a process of reciprocal reinforcement, which has combined autonomous legitimation with targeted co-optation and low intensity coercion. The paper concludes by addressing the generalisability of this finding for other authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia.     

Timing matters: The impact of regularity of election cycles on autocratic stability

A large literature has examined the role of elections in autocratic politics. This literature has been particularly interested in the extent to which elections stabilize or destabilize autocratic regimes. One important aspect left unexplored in the research thus far is how the timing of such elections and the broader electoral cycle influence patterns of regime stability. This paper fills part of that gap and studies the regularity of elections in dictatorships. It argues that dictators that stage less regular elections may offset the destabilizing short-term effect of elections identified by the extant research. Dictators can take advantage of election timing to stymie challengers and hinder civil society collective action. Statistical analyses of all electoral autocratic regimes in the post–WWII period provides support for this proposition and suggests that regimes that hold less regular elections are more durable. This pattern holds in models which, partially, attempt to account for endogenity.     

The political geography of electoral autocracies: The influence of party strongholds on political beliefs in Africa

In electoral autocracies, why do some citizens view the state as autocratic, while others see it as democratic and legitimate? Traditionally, indicators such as income and education have been the most important factors to explaining how different types of citizens understand politics. This article argues that in electoral autocracies, we must also take into account the role of political geography. In these types of regimes, opposition parties are often one of the only actors that provide information about the authoritarian nature the government, but their message tends to get quarantined within their strongholds. I argue that regardless of income, education, ethnicity, access to government spending, or even partisanship, citizens living in opposition strongholds should be far more likely to view the state as autocratic and illegitimate than citizens living in ruling party strongholds. I find evidence for this theory using Afrobarometer survey data paired with constituency-level electoral returns from five electoral autocracies in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes

In the wake of the third wave of democratization, competitive authoritarianism has emerged as a prominent regime type. These regimes feature regular, competitive elections between a government and an opposition, but the incumbent leader or party typically resorts to coercion, intimidation, and fraud to attempt to ensure electoral victory. Despite the incumbent's reliance on unfair practices to stay in power, such elections occasionally result in what we call a "liberalizing electoral outcome" (LEO), which often leads to a new government that is considerably less authoritarian than its predecessor. Using a "nested" research design that employs both cross-national statistical analysis and a case study of Kenya, we seek to explain how and why LEOs occur. Our findings highlight in particular the importance of the choices made by opposition elites to form a strategic coalition for the purpose of mounting a credible challenge to the ruling party or candidate in national elections.     

Resource disparity and multi-level elections in competitive authoritarian regimes: Regression discontinuity evidence from Hong Kong

Much research has been done to study how competitive elections affect autocracies and their opposition. Electoral institutions, however, may have different social and political effects. In this paper, I examine the effect of an understudied electoral institution: lower-level elections. I argue that elections at grassroots levels tend to favor the ruling party by allowing it to more fully utilize its resource advantage to buy political support, which would in turn undermine the opposition's ability to develop a local support network that is important to its struggle for democratization as well as for elected offices. Evaluating the effect of lower-level elections is empirically challenging because the effect is likely to be confounded with voter preference. I tackle this identification problem by taking advantage of a quasi-experiment afforded by the electoral formula of Hong Kong, which allows me to use a regression discontinuity design to test my causal argument. I find strong statistical evidence supporting my argument; the ruling elite's aggressive expansion in the District Councils, the lowest elected tier, aims to drive out the opposition elites, who, by occupying a District Council seat, are able to increase their vote share of that constituency by 4–5 percentage points in a subsequent legislative election.     

Institutionalising electoral uncertainty and authoritarian regime survival

Authoritarian incumbents routinely use democratic emulation as a strategy to extend their tenure in power. Yet, there is also evidence that multiparty competition makes electoral authoritarianism more vulnerable to failure. Proceeding from the assumption that the outcomes of authoritarian electoral openings are inherently uncertain, it is argued in this article that the institutionalisation of elections determines whether electoral authoritarianism promotes stability or vulnerability. By ‘institutionalisation’, it is meant the ability of authoritarian regimes to reduce uncertainty over outcomes as they regularly hold multiparty elections. Using discrete-time event-history models for competing risks, the effects of sequences of multiparty elections on patterns of regime survival and failure in 262 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010 are assessed, conditioned on their degree of competitiveness. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of electoral uncertainty enhances authoritarian regime survival. However, for competitive electoral authoritarian regimes this entails substantial risk. The first three elections substantially increase the probability of democratisation, with the danger subsequently diminishing. This suggests that convoking multiparty competition is a risky game with potentially high rewards for autocrats who manage to institutionalise elections. Yet, only a small number of authoritarian regimes survive as competitive beyond the first few elections, suggesting that truly competitive authoritarianism is hard to institutionalise. The study thus finds that the question of whether elections are dangerous or stabilising for authoritarianism is dependent on differences between the ability of competitive and hegemonic forms of electoral authoritarianism to reduce electoral uncertainty.     

The effect of passive observation methods on Azerbaijan’s 2008 presidential election and 2009 referendum

Election observation is used by domestic and international groups to assess election quality and deter fraud. However, a limited amount of research has assessed its effectiveness. This article adds to the literature by analyzing how a passive monitoring tool affected the process and outcome of voting in two elections in Azerbaijan. The analysis shows that the placement of webcams in polling stations is consistently associated with lower reported turnout and inconsistently associated with lower regime support.     

The political budget cycle across varying degrees of democracy

The political budget cycle (PBC) is a well-known theory claiming that leaders manipulate the economy in proximity to elections to improve their chances of re-election. While the existence of the phenomenon in democracies has been thoroughly discussed, little attention has been given to the theoretical justification and empirical evidence of its existence in autocracies. In this article, I present a hypothesis of the magnitude of the PBC in both autocracies and democracies, claiming that as the democracy level increases, the incentive of leaders to manipulate the economy rises, but their ability to do so is more limited. Therefore, I expect the magnitude of the PBC to be the lowest in states that are strongly autocratic (due to a lack of incentives) and in states that are strongly democratic (due to a lack of ability). The effect should be the strongest in weakly autocratic or weakly democratic states. The empirical analysis presented in the article supports the hypothesis of a non-linear correlation between the PBC and levels of democracy.     

How Large-Scale Land Protests Succeed in China: the Role of Domestic Media

Land protests account for a large proportion of all protests in China, but existing scholarship on the topic does not explain the conditions under which large-scale land protests succeed or fail. Focusing on the role of domestic media in four of the largest land protests in China from 2012 to 2017, we argue that protests are more likely to succeed –i.e., to accomplish some or all publicly stated goals—when the domestic media side with villagers; conversely, if the domestic media adopt the government’s framing of the events or if they do not report on them, protests are less likely to accomplish their goals. This article makes two theoretical contributions to the literature on media and protests: first, we show that domestic media may function as catalysts or watchdogs in protest outcomes in authoritarian states; and second, we differentiate between short-term and long-term protest outcomes, highlighting how initial short-term concessions are often reversed or followed by repression some months or years later, after unrest dies down.

     

The European Parliament Elections of June 2004: Still Second-Order?

A quarter of a century ago the first series of European Parliament elections were characterised as second-order national elections. Much has changed since, which might have had an impact upon this diagnosis. In this article the central assumptions and predictions of the second-order elections model are restated and evaluated against the outcome of the 2004 European Parliament election and a post-election survey. Surprisingly enough, the findings confirm the persisting second-order nature of EP elections for Western Europe. Matters look very different, however, in the eight new Central and East European member countries.     

The Strategic Shuffle: Ethnic Geography,the Internal Security Apparatus,and Elections in Kenya

For autocrats facing elections, officers in the internal security apparatus play a crucial role by engaging in coercion on behalf of the incumbent. Yet reliance on these officers introduces a principal‐agent problem: Officers can shirk from the autocrat's demands. To solve this problem, autocrats strategically post officers to different areas based on an area's importance to the election and the expected loyalty of an individual officer, which is a function of the officer's expected benefits from the president winning reelection. Using a data set of 8,000 local security appointments within Kenya in the 1990s, one of the first of its kind for any autocracy, I find that the president's coethnic officers were sent to, and the opposition's coethnic officers were kept away from, swing areas. This article demonstrates how state institutions from a country's previous authoritarian regime can persist despite the introduction of multi‐party elections and thus prevent full democratization.     

Rejoinder to “The social sub-optimality of competitive elections: comment”

Holcombe’s critque does not contradict the fundamental argument of my original paper. Even if a competitive electoral system is a necessary condition for optimal election results, a competitive election is at best a byproduct of that system rather than the cause of optimal results. Furthermore, a competitive system must still produce non-competitive elections in order to create incentives for candidates to adopt optimal platforms.     

Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability: Polity Duration, 1800–2000

This article examines how political institutional structures affect political instability. It classifies polities as autocracies or democracies based on three institutional dimensions: election of the executive, constraints on executive decision-making authority, and extent of political participation. It hypothesizes that strongly autocratic and democratic regimes will exhibit the greatest stability resulting from self-enforcing equilibria, whereby the maintenance of a polity's institutional structure is in the interest of political elites, whether through autocratic or democratic control. Institutionally inconsistent regimes (those exhibiting a mix of institutional characteristics of both democracy and autocracy) lack these self-enforcing characteristics and are expected to be shorter-lived. Using a log-logistic duration model, polity survival time ratios are estimated. Institutionally consistent polities are significantly more stable than institutionally inconsistent polities. The least stable political systems are dictatorships with high levels of political participation. The most unstable configuration for polities with an elected executive is one where the executive is highly constrained, but the electorate is very small.