Institutional and symbolic aspects of illiberal politics: the case of North Macedonia (2006–2017)

ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the underlying characteristics of Macedonian illiberal politics during the 11-year rule of the centre-right party VMRO-DPMNE (2006–2017) focusing on two aspects: institutional and symbolic. We argue that the unfair political competition was enabled by the weakness of pre-existing institutions and the population’s clientelist preferences, which were systematically exploited and expanded by VMRO-DPMNE. We also argue that the multi-ethnic character of the country, the disputed Macedonian national identity and the lack of viable international prospects allowed VMRO-DPMNE to construct a strong nationalist narrative that appealed to voters and further isolated the opposition.     

Authoritarian but responsive: Local regulation of industrial energy efficiency in Jiangsu,China

Regulatory behavior and effectiveness in authoritarian settings are subject to alternative characterizations. By tracing enforcement processes through a variety of case studies, this article proposes and refines a new model, at least with respect to energy efficiency regulations in China: authoritarian but responsive. Local rulemaking and operationalization is authoritarian, with strong and coordinative bodies of regulation, strategic plans, and active involvement of local authorities. Local authorities, however, often find themselves facing a welter of laws imposed on companies that create competing priorities for these local officials who then must struggle to find pragmatic solutions. On numerous occasions, such satisficing behavior by local officials makes them responsive to the performance and demands of regulated firms. Embedded in the decentralized authoritarian context, the authoritarian but responsive approach is found to be a rational choice of local governments and different from previous conceptualizations. It helps local governments coordinate across a diverse array of regulatory issues. Drawing on environmental enforcement in China, the model provides consistent explanations for the seemingly changing and discretionary enforcement incidents.     

Morocco: the Promise of Democracy and the Reality of Authoritarianism

The survival of the Moroccan monarchy amidst the wave of protests that characterised the Arab uprisings did not come as a surprise to observers of the Kingdom. Despite the size of the protests in February 2011, demonstrators never demanded the fall of the monarchy and the king was never in danger of being dethroned. Once the King reclaimed political leadership through the launch of a constitutional reform, the protest movement faded and whatever challenge to the pre-eminence of the monarchy might have existed ended quickly. A number of explanations have been advanced for the survival of authoritarianism in Morocco, but they generally rehash conventional wisdoms about Moroccan politics that might no longer be as valid as they were in past. Less obvious factors, ranging from repressive practices to ‘de-politicisation through technocracy’ and from the complex impact of neo-liberal economics on social relations to divisions within the opposition, contributed to the survival of the monarchy.     

From victorious rebels to strong authoritarian parties: prospects for post-war democratization

ABSTRACT

In a number of cases, rebel movements that won civil wars transformed into powerful authoritarian political parties that dominated post-war politics. Parties whose origins are as victorious insurgent groups have different legacies and hence different institutional structures and patterns of behaviour than those that originated in breakaway factions of ruling parties, labour unions, non-violent social movements, or identity groups. Unlike classic definitions of political parties, post-rebel parties are not created around the need to win elections but rather as military organizations focused on winning an armed struggle. Key attributes of victorious rebel movements, such as cohesive leadership, discipline, hierarchy, and patterns of military administration of liberated territory, shape post-insurgent political parties and help explain why post-insurgent parties are often strong and authoritarian. This article seeks to identify the mechanisms that link rebel victory in three East African countries (Uganda, Ethiopia, and Rwanda) to post-war authoritarian rule. These processes suggest that how a civil war ends changes the potential for post-war democratization.     

Mainstreaming Authoritarianism

Starting from the debate on democratic decline, this article introduces the concept of ‘mainstreaming authoritarianism’ in a bid to turn attention to the role and agency of traditional political actors in the process. The article summarises key findings of relevant studies on autocratisation and highlights issues with the many concepts employed to describe the problem. It moves on to define authoritarianism and suggests a turn towards practice-based approaches. This facilitates the analysis of authoritarian discourses and practices of mainstream political actors in established democracies and helps bridge the gap between social psychology-based and political science-based classic conceptualisations of authoritarianism. Testing the hypothesis that authoritarianism has been mainstreamed, the author develops a comparative survey of the actions and practices of key political actors in Europe, concluding with a note on the importance of acknowledging this authoritarian turn, dealing with its consequences and focussing on the role of agency.     

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.     

Going to the ground (or AstroTurf): a grassroots view of regime resilience

While disproportional resources and curbs on civil and political rights clearly matter to electoral authoritarian persistence, long-term acculturation to political norms and modes of governance on the ground in such regimes – of which Singapore and Malaysia are the most durable examples – complicate transformation. A combination of what amounts to classic machine politics with the structural “assist” of sub-par elections renders electoral authoritarianism extraordinarily increasingly resilient over time, not just because it is hard or unlikely for voters to vote in new leaders, but also because the aspiring or elected opposition may end up reproducing rather than subverting key attributes of that regime. Clientelist political praxis may be highly responsive, offer direct accountability, and align with voters’ rational self-interest, at least in the short term. However, its persistence impedes pursuit of new ideological or programmatic objectives, perpetuates piecemeal and inefficient allocation of resources, assumes that most voters should expect little from state policies, and discourages attention to proactive legislation, in favour of a more localized, reactive politics. A machine-oriented political regime, then, is not only exceptionally hard to shake, but suboptimal in the long term.     

Why fascists took over the Reichstag but have not captured the Kremlin: a comparison of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia

Like Weimar Germany, contemporary Russia is home to fascist actors and widespread nationalism. But unlike interwar Germany, the party system in post-Soviet Russia is heavily manipulated and civil society remains underdeveloped. This means that fascists have not had a chance to use elections or to penetrate civil society in order to build up political support. The continuing presence of a resolutely authoritarian, yet non-fascist “national leader” (Vladimir Putin) keeps the country from becoming a liberal democracy but it also, for now, makes it less likely that the regime will become fascist.     

Social services to claim legitimacy: comparing autocracies’ performance

ABSTRACT

Autocrats cannot rule by repression and co-optation alone, and need to instil some sense of legitimacy in the populace. Lacking democratic legitimacy, and being in shortage of other identity-based sources of diffuse support, legitimation claims in post-Cold War autocracies increasingly rests on rulers’ ability to achieve concrete outcomes, including the improvement of citizen living conditions. However, autocracies differ from each other, and different institutional arrangements could influence a leader’s ability to deliver social services, and chase performance-based legitimation. Accordingly, this article compares the social service performance of different post-Cold War authoritarian regimes. The analysis demonstrates that so-called electoral autocracies outperform single-party and military regimes, although they show a capacity to provide for their citizens that is similar to hereditary regimes. These findings suggest that the legitimacy returns of introducing semi-competitive and participatory institutions could grow exponentially. Besides procedural legitimacy, these institutions could help rulers pursue legitimation through social services.     

Do multiparty elections improve human development in autocracies?

Improvements in human development under democratic institutions are often attributed to electoral contestation. We evaluate the effect of multiparty contestation on infant mortality in the authoritarian context. Contrary to what extant scholarship argues, we find no evidence that multiparty elections in authoritarian regimes reduce infant mortality. Specifically, we show that electoral autocracies do not produce better infant mortality outcomes compared to closed autocracies holding no multiparty elections. We also demonstrate a non-monotonic effect of electoral competition on infant mortality: Infant mortality increases in levels of electoral contestation common in electoral authoritarian regimes and decreases only at levels of contestation that are nearly exclusive to democracies. Finally, we show that increases in infant mortality in electoral authoritarian regimes operate partially through increased political violence and reduced state capacity.