EBP 1: Authoritarian Power Sharing: Concepts, Mechanisms, and Strategies

 

Authoritarian Power Sharing: Concepts, Mechanisms, and Strategies

Anne Ming, Jack Paine and Robert Powell

The article "Authoritarian Power Sharing: Concepts, Mechanisms, and Strategies" from the Annual Review of Political Science discusses power sharing within authoritarian regimes. It does this by breaking up power-sharing into three previously underspecified sections: Concepts, Mechanisms and Strategies. The concepts section conceptualises power sharing, providing context for the rest of the article. It answers the million dollar question - what is power sharing? The mechanisms section looks at ways in which leaders commit to power-sharing deals, as well as the ways in which these deals can backfire, or not, on said leader. The strategies section looks at the necessary conditions for a leader to share power. 

Concept

Throughout the article, the idea of a “challenger” is referred to. This conceptually broad term essentially means any person who could potentially challenge the rulers authority. First things first, an understanding of the term “power sharing” must be reached. Power sharing between a ruler and an aforementioned challenger, as defined in the article, must meet two requirements. Firstly, spoils must be shared between the parties. Perhaps the most common example of spoils being shared is the distribution of cabinet positions to elites. With these positions typically comes other benefits, ranging from houses to luxury cars. Secondly, power sharing must reallocate power in a way that makes it difficult for a ruler to renege. Essentially, the challenger must have the means to enforce the power sharing deal or they run the risk of the ruler reneging on said deal. 

Mechanism

The article goes on to describe two types of enforcement mechanisms: institutional and coercive. These mechanisms are posited as the ways in which the leader can credibly commit to a power sharing deal. Institutional enforcement, the article argues, could come in the form of delegating agenda control, which would involve sharing decision making influence. By enabling challengers increased decision-making influence, the leader’s ability to renege on the power sharing deal is reduced. Another example of institutional enforcement is elections and term limits. Both give the challenger, it is assumed, some control. There are also third party enforcers, such as the judiciary, who can impose costs on the leader should they renege, although often the courts are in the rulers pocket. The ruler could also simply ignore a ruling that goes against them. The article continues by demonstrating a catch-22 of institutional enforcement - if institutions are weak, institutional enforcement is not credible. On the other hand, if the institutions are strong, the leader may give away more power than initially desired. 

Coercive enforcement is typical when institutions are weak. A challenger may utilise coercive means or the threat of coercive means, such as leveraging an institution to coordinate violent punishment against the ruler, to enforce their power sharing deal. The article speaks of coercive enforcement as being a double edged sword, in that on the one hand, the ruler can offer more policy influence and spoils to a coercively strong character, while on the other hand a challenger may use their coercive means to overthrow the leader. 

Strategies

The authors then discuss the conditions in which a ruler shares power. They describe three: 

1. Challenger credibility, 2. Challenger willingness and 3. Ruler willingness.

Challenger credibility refers to the challenger’s threat of punishment. Are they able to credibly punish the ruler if they renege on the power sharing deal? The authors assume punishment can either involve revolting or exiting.

Essentially, the challenger can use the threat of the masses revolting if the ruler reneges on the power sharing deal. If the challenger lacks credibility, the elites can simply buy off the masses with policy concessions. This is preferred by elites over power sharing because it does not provide permanent agenda setting powers to the masses. Coups are another form of popular revolt. Take, for example, a weak dictator with little experience. The threat of an attempted coup means it is in the dictators interest to share power. Challenger credibility therefore holds because the challenger is able to credibly punish the ruler if they fail to share power. On the other hand, if the ruler is strong and the threat of a coup is weak, challenger credibility falls. 

Exit is another way in which challengers can punish a ruler for reneging on a power sharing deal. Exit could come in the form of institutional concessions or the physical migration of persons and capital.

Challenger willingness is the extent to which a challenger is willing to forgo harmful actions after the leader has shared power. Both Roessler and Meng agree that sharing power increases the offensive capabilities of the challenger, therefore better positioning them to stage a coup. Where they disagree, however, is the credibility of the rulers commitments. Roessler assumes there is little commitment ability, resulting in constant internal security issues. If the ruler reneges, a coup will likely be staged. Meng, on the other hand, argues that high commitment ability guarantees that character willingness holds. Roessler argues that sharing power inevitably brings about conflict while Meng argues that sharing power brings about stability. 

The last condition that is required to facilitate power sharing is ruler willingness. The ruler must be willing to accept the power constraints and loss of rents inherent to a power sharing deal. A power sharing deal inherently increases the coercive capabilities of challengers while constraining the ruler themself. 

Overall, “Authoritarian Power Sharing: Concepts, Mechanisms and Strategies” provides a comprehensive analysis of power sharing in authoritarian regimes. It elucidates the complex dynamics between rulers and challengers, examining the necessary conditions, enforcement mechanisms and strategy involved in power sharing. The article demonstrates that while power sharing can be extremely beneficial for a leader, it can also have its pitfalls. It also demonstrates the necessity of institutional and coercive mechanisms in enforcing or undermining power sharing deals within an authoritarian context.

It is purely coincidental that I chose this article, the day after I watched The Death of Stalin - which for those who don’t know, is a satirical commentary of the Soviet Union’s elite after Stalin’s deaths. It demonstrates, in quite a humorous way, the pitfalls of power sharing. A successful coup results in the death of Beriya, the Minister of Internal Affairs, and the removal of Malenkov as the leader of the Soviet Union. The Politburo utilised coercive enforcement, leveraging the Red Army to stage the coup. 

Perhaps our great leader of the PURE party may take some notes from this article. His efforts to share power with the party, although commendable, may result in an attempted coup. The more agenda setting power he provides to the party, the more he may be providing coercive power to a potential challenger, who may in turn overthrow our great leader...

Meng, A., Paine, J., & Powell, R. (2022) Authoritarian Power Sharing: Concepts, Mechanisms, and Strategies. Annual Review of Political Science, 26, 153-173. https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052121-020406