EBP 1: Regime [REDACTED], elite cohesion and the durability of autocratic regime types

 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0192512115616830

In our class studies of one-party autocracies, much emphasis has been placed on co-optation as a reason for successful regimes; a party’s ability to absorb potential opponents or inter-party fractures before they grow enough to pose a legitimate threat. However, this research article by Steffen Kailitz and Daniel Stockemer points out some flaws in this strategy that we (nor the recent research) have not gone into much depth on. Co-optation – providing resources to potential enemies in exchange for loyalty – might have the opposite effect, instead incentivising those potential enemies to act with the resources and power they’ve just been given. No examples of this happening in any specific regime are given, at least in the article’s introduction.

They also pose an alternate theory on the success of one-party autocracies: the most important mechanism for the survival of a regime is ‘legitimation’: presenting their right to rule as legitimate in the eyes of the citizens and, crucially, the regime’s own elites, who are more unified by a strong belief in their party’s on legitimacy. Different aspects of politics can all be legitimised, but this article focused on the legitimacy of regimes.

According to the article, if a regime can define a small group of ruling elites that is strongly tied to the fate of the regime, created by a ‘political formula’ of the regime. The ruling elites don’t necessarily have to believe this narrative, just believe in its benefit to the regime and their status of power. The authors classify regimes by type and by justification of power, and use their own methodology on others’ statistics to come to the conclusion that ruling monarchies and communist ideocracies last the longest.

The authors rule out civil wars and occupations from their study, which, while understandable as neither are established regimes, is disappointing – it seems like regime legitimation would have a significant part to play in both of those situations.

 

This is the chart used for classifying the regimes in the study, done mostly by verifying the actual ruler in a given regime. Most cases can be classified ‘unambiguously’. Monarchies (parliamentary monarchies excluded) are classified by the title of the ruler, ideocracies are classified by their totalitarian ideology, military autocracies are classified by rulers exclusively of military rank, personalist autocracies are classified by their lack of popular multi-party elections and near-unlimited personal power of the ruler that prevents unseating, one-party non-ideocratic autocracies are classified by the prior election rule and the existence of a single-party state, and electoral autocracies are classified by the existence of elections that aren’t free and fair and the lack of effective legislative constraints on the ruler. Borderline or crossover cases are classified by the key question of who actually rules.

Durability in an autocratic regime is measured along the axes of elite unity and differentiation. High unity and narrow differentiation are most desirable; elites should share values and beliefs as much as possible, be organised into unification, and have little individual autonomy apart from each other and the state. The shared beliefs and values should be strongly incorporated into the regime. It’s been argued in previous studies that ideocracies are the only regimes that provide this kind of stability; this study argues that monarchic elites achieve this too.

Totalitarian ideocracies achieve this well; their ruling elites’ power is justified by ‘sacred heritage’ that they embody, that feeds into the overall regime’s ideology that it is intended by nature, history, or God to exist.

Communist ideocracies are claimed by the authors to be the most durable kind of ideocracy. The ‘cadres’ are united by a utopian vision of rule (or at least go to efforts to appear as such), work closely together in highly centralised party networks, and their ‘destiny’ of success is tied closely to the regime’s destiny of success, via required demonstrations of commitment and the threat of being purged from the party. Every member of the elite, regardless of their true personal views, understands that they would be in a worse position were the regime to change – this keeps them united in the goal of ensuring the legitimacy of the existing regime. We’ve touched on these strengths of single-party non-democracies, but usually in the context of their ability to co-opting; again, the article sees these strengths through a different lens. 

The authors admit that elite defection in communist ideocracies is possible, such as with the late-stage Soviet Union, but posits that it’s just less likely in regimes of these types. As mentioned earlier, no examples of defection as a result of regime co-optation have been provided so far. It’s argued that one-party and electoral autocracies lack this strict political vision and unification of ‘destinies’ between elites and regime, making them more prone to instability.

Monarchic elites have no incentive to ‘overcome’ the monarchy; this is the basis for the authors’ argument that ruling monarchies are more durable than non-monarchic personalist regimes. While there is an argument to be made that the monarchs of such a regime are all united in the understanding that they would be worse off were the regime to change, it seems strange to overlook the simple factor that desire for personal power might cause fractures among a group of elites, especially ones related by blood.

The article also poses that military autocracies ‘lack a recognisably valid source of authority’ and lacks legitimacy because of the military’s ill-suited structure, having to justify its temporary rule with the presence of an outside threat to the state. This strikes me as odd. The source of authority of a military organisation is its force as a military; physical force (either realised or implied) ensures its orders are followed. It seems an odd comparison to make in a study on regime legitimacy, when a military regime does not particularly need to justify itself through ideology due to their monopoly on violence. Rule through coercion is still rule. Most tend to listen to orders when the person giving them has all the guns. However, it’s noted that military autocracies tend to step down or get overthrown, which is admittedly statistically true – I just disagree with the way they’re being characterised.

The article goes on to compare party-based ideocracies (strong legitimacy) with party-based autocracies (usually weak legitimacy, and strongly legitimised personalist regimes (like monarchies, despite my qualms) with less strongly personalised personalist regimes. Somewhat predictably, itt comes to the conclusion it set up at the outset: communist ideocracies and monarchies are more durable than other autocratic regimes.

The study excludes all ‘non-regime’ periods, such as foreign occupation and transition, and democratic episodes, from analysis. I found this confusing; surely those would qualify as breaks in the regime? Some small countries were also excluded, on account of not having any available data for one or more of their variables.

While this article presents an interesting alternative approach to analysing autocratic regimes (lots of A words), two issues stood out to me. First, despite claiming to focus on regime legitimation as the key tool to a regime’s survival, it spent a lot of time defining elite unity and not a lot of time explaining how the presence of that unity led to the regime being legitimised. I spent a lot of my reading time wondering whether the article wanted me to think of elite unity and regime legitimisation as cause and effect, or actual synonyms.

The article starts by making its own claims about which kinds of regimes have strong legitimation, and that those legitimated regimes are more durable. Then it tests what it considers to be legitimated regimes against non-legitimated regimes, by their own metric, to prove their own point. Even if they’re right, it’s not exactly an objective approach. Taking a cynical view, there’s no reason not to believe the authors worked backwards by identifying the most durable regimes, then created their justification for it and made sure the existing statistics backed it up.