How Dictatorships work?
By Barbara Geddes,
Joseph Wright, Erica Frantz
Publisher: Cambridge
university press
August 2018
The reading
“How Dictatorships Work?” by Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright and Erica Frantz, in
more detail entails chapter 3 “what do we know about coups?” which talks about “coups
within the military with global references and states these are the main ways to
start and end dictatorships” (Geddes, 2018) . It goes into detail about coups, global
examples, various purposes for coups and how to measure coups.
The reading
talks about the theoretical perspectives of dictatorships and coups through
claims from various scholars and different political regimes. The reading starts with the
basis of coups and dictatorships, then the various ways that coups are used to
change the political status quo and why we might expect these different uses to
be associated with different officer motivations, political contexts or social
forces. Then it compares the conditions associated with coups that end
democracies and those that replace one dictatorship with another. Finally, it
talks about the retest Svolik’s argument about the association between popular
mobilization and coups, thus indicating that coups have little to do with elite
fears or redistribution or with the build up of military resources in response
to popular mobilization. These chapters show the explanation of the reading and
the reasoning behind what the writer is trying to accomplish (connection
between coups and dictatorship).
Nordlinger
also observes that “although some military-led governments choose policies that
benefit existing economic elites, others expropriate private property and
pursue redistributive policies” (Geddes, 2018) . He also takes the
perspective that
defends “that
the personal interests of officers and their desire for promotions, political
ambitions, and fear of dismissal are used for coup participation” (Geddes, 2018) . This
claims that officers partake in coups for their own personal gain rather for
the collective cause. Another scholar Svolik, “proposed an interesting
synthesis of these two views: he suggests that incumbent political leaders
increase the funding of their military agents when organized mass opposition
threatens their political control, but that then the military uses the
additional resources to seize power for itself, rather than serving as a loyal
guest” (Geddes, 2018) .
What is a
coup?
A
coup as a political regime, “is the sudden, violent overthrow of an existing
government by a small group who takes control of part of the armed forces, the
police and other military elements” (Adam, 2019) . From this
definition it seems obvious that this piece of historical account is a
political regime due to the onset of rules etc. An example of a coup would be
the corrupt Egyptian monarchy ending which is referenced at the beginning of
the reading, which only took a few hours and took over the ruling of King
Farouk who had ruled for 16 years previous.
Coups
can be used for various purposes; “change of leadership, emphasize the
difference between regime initiating coups and leader shuffling and transition
of power” (Geddes, 2018) . Leader shuffling is
the idea of introducing new leaders over old ones, this means they are
replaced. This is not a military power move due to the replacement of
leadership instead of adding to the leadership. Regime initiating coups are
different due to the cause and effect of this action compared to leadership
reshuffling. There are “two different regimes initiating coups: one just talked
about which replaces democracy with dictatorship and one that replaces one
autocracy after another” (Geddes, 2018) . The beginning of a coup is established by popular mobilization, this is the support that emerges for coups to occur and increases political participation in the matter.
Regimes
A regime is the “ruling government
of a country. The amount of freedom and restriction that citizens of a country
have can change
from regime to regime. Regime takes its militaristic and government feel from the
Latin word regimen” (Vocabulary.com, 2019 ) . Another paper; “The
Coup d’Etat in Theory and Practice: Independent Black Africa in the 1960’s”
talks about attempts to explain coups d’Etat by reference to macro social and
economic variables, structural features of the military in general, and more
commonly, of military elites, or by reference to the individual psychological
qualities of the coup participants” (Wells, 1974) . This is the basis
of coups and is explained a bit easier compared to this reading. There are two regimes that
are focused on; those that replace democracy with dictatorship and those that
replace one autocracy with another. These two regimes are present in
pre-conditions for regimes that initiate coups. These regimes have different
causes and different analysis. The reading seems pretty factual compared to
journalistic opinion piece.
However, there is a lack of
measures for soldiers, Nordlingers argument ‘about gaining soldiers in
reference to seizing power is using past grievances against them whilst using
measures of ethnic representation that might affect these grievances” (Geddes, 2018) . Military intervention can occur through many factors that affect society e.g oil, wealth and growth, these can measure a countries worth.
How do we
measure a successful coup?
Within the reading there is a lot of statistics and research that has been done by the author to distinguish variables within a society of how a coup occurs and whether it is successful or not. These variables can determine whether power is seized or if the coup will fail. Data given below of a graph shows that “The coefficient labeled
“Coup” estimates the chances of a regime-change coup in year N against
dictatorships first established by coup relative to the left out group,
dictatorships that achieved
power in less violent ways” (Geddes, 2018) .
In
the reading, they use another measure to improve the standard model of coups. This is different to the data/graph shown before as more characteristics have been added amongst the data showing new research. Variables such as ethnic fractionalization and ethnicity excluded from political power have been added, "while ethnic fractionalization per se is not associated with coups, ethnic political exclusion increases the likelihood of coups against democracies” (Geddes, 2018) .
(Geddes B.,2018)
(Geddes B.,2018)
This suggests that
the military is more likely to intervene against incumbent democrats when
executive power is not shared widely across ethnic groups. This finding is consistent
with the earlier argument that coups are more likely when dissatisfaction with
the incumbent is widespread.
(Geddes B.,2018)
Svolik claims through his statistical research that we should “separate the leader entry coup data into two groups: (1) those that correspond to military seizures of power, i.e. regime changes, and (2) reshuffling leadership changes in ongoing authoritarian regimes”
For
coups that involve the "exit of dictators, 39 percent initiate regime
transitions. The other 61 percent are leadership reshuffles among members
subject to the the same ruling group. Altogether, the majority of coups in these
data are reshuffling coups” (Geddes, 2018) . Unmeasured factors such as identifying countries that were democratic before dictatorship and countries with previous military ruling are used as clusters of data. This is the basis of researching the link between military coups and dictatorship.
In
conclusion, this reading states "that results found suggest that officers are
motivated by their own interests compared to the claim that popular mobilization
increases chances of coups" (Geddes, 2018). The reading also states "that coups are less likely to end democracies, when ethnic representation amongst leaders is present" (Geddes, 2018). This shows that certain aspects outside of power effect the success rate of coups. The reading highlights
certain examples across history of coups that have been successful and ones
that have failed and teaches a statistical stand point of how coups can be
measured.
It shows results and chances of regime changing, ethnic
representation, characteristics of coups and lastly uses the gini co-efficient
to measure if a coup will be successful or not. It talks about scholars such as
Nordlinger and Svolik who make claims about coups and provides their own
methods on how to go about coups. The reading conveys main messages of the
special capacities of the military, the organization of military bargaining and
acting in self interest.
Analysis of the reading
The reading
uses statistical data and research to make a political science attempt to try
and understand aspects such as characteristics in coups, ethnic representation
and success/failure rate of coups.
To my
understanding, the reading claims that coups are motivated by an agents self
interest and are determined by variables whether it will be successful or not.
These variables have been mentioned before. I guess it intervenes with the
debate on if coups are statistically measured for success or are other
variables present the determinant. The reading claims that ethnic
representation is one of the main determinants of success or failure.
Critically, it seems most of the findings contradict the conclusion of this
reading, as it states “Our findings on the causes of coups fail to support the claim that
popular mobilization in protest or rebellion increases the likelihood of coups
against, subject to the either democratic or authoritarian governments” (Geddes, 2018) . Claims such as self interest
in agency is correct as if this was not present there would be no popular
mobilization. Nordlinger states this in his claims surrounding coups.
The methods used to arrive at the conclusions are not
appropriate and do not support the main findings of the reading. Statistically,
I do not think there are any problems with the concepts or measures used in the
study. The study, however, does not have certain data for research on whether
democratic militaries are ethnically heterogeneous and cannot test for the
sample. This shows not every aspect of sampling and data was thought about and
could be seen bias to the claims of the reading.
The
reading is obviously relevant to course content as it touches on ideas of authoritarianism,
autocracy, totalitarianism, institutions and personal ruling.
Authoritarianism = “refers to strong central
power and a strict limit on personal freedoms” (Kiprop, 2019) .
Autocracy = An autocracy is “political power is held by
one person who can control most or all aspects of people's lives” (Robert.S, 2018) .
Totalitarianism = “Totalitarianism is a form of government in
which the state’s power is unlimited and is used to control virtually all
aspects of public and private life. This control extends to all political and
financial matters, as well as the attitudes, morals, and beliefs of the people” (Longley, 2019) .
Institutions = “Consistent and organized
pattern of behaviour or activities (established by law or custom) that is self
regulating in accordance with generally accepted norms. For example, political
institutions are involved with (and regulate) competition for power; and economic
institutions (such as markets) encourage and regulate production and
distribution of goods and services’ (Association, 2019) .
Personal ruling = “personal rule is a dynamic
world of political will and activity that is shaped less by institutions or
impersonal social forces than by personal authorities and power; it is a world”
(Jackson.H.Robert, 1984) .
The reading
talks about useful political aspects in democratic and dictatorial regimes.
These aspects include measures of economic growth, free and fair elections,
inequality, access to voting as well as the obvious prevention of these in
coups. Important theoretical ideas illustrated in the reading are the turkey
and the failure of the military coup, the strategic coup of military coups, the
idea of institutions and these ideas are relevant to the dictatorial regime.
Bibliography
Adam, A. B.
(2019). Coup-detat. Retrieved from Encyclopaedia Britannica:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/coup-detat
Association, A.
P. (2019, July 29). institution . Retrieved from BusinessDictionary:
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/institution.html
Geddes, B.
(2018). What we know about coups? In B. W. Geddes, How Dictatorships Work
(Vol. 47, pp. 3-18). Cambridge University Press.
Geddes, B. (2018 ).
How do dictatorships work?. What do we know about coups? Cambridge
University Press. Images x3.
Jackson.H.Robert,
R. (1984, July). Personal rule, theory and practice in africa. Comparative
Politics, 16(4), 421-442.
Kiprop, J. (2019,
November 10). What is Authoritarianism? Retrieved from WorldAtlas:
https://www.worldatlas.com/what-is-authoritarianism.html
Longley, R. (2019,
may 25). Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism and Fascism . Retrieved
from ThoughtCo. :
https://www.thoughtco.com/totalitarianism-authoritarianism-fascism-4147699
Robert.S. (2018,
9 3). What is autocracy?- Totalitarianism vs Authoritarianism .
Retrieved from study.com :
https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-autocracy-totalitarianism-vs-authoritarianism.html
Vocabulary.com.
(2019). regime. Retrieved from vocabulary.com:
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/regime
Wells, A. (1974,
January). The Coup d'Etat in Theory and Practice: Independent Black Africa in
the 1960s. American Journal of Sociology, 79(4), 871-887.
Thanks for this summary and discussion of a very difficult reading, Maddy! I appreciate especially the extensive additional research you have done.
ReplyDeleteIf you had to summarise in a few sentences the key point they make about coups, what would it be?