Electoral Authoritarianism

The beginning of Vladimir Putin’s third term was characterised by the politicisation of corruption. Opposition forces focused on corruption and criticised the regime for tolerating it. This article explores how the regime reacted to opposition criticism. The regime encountered a dilemma: it could not ignore the opposition but promoting anti-corruption reforms was risky for the regime. This study focuses on the regime’s use of the All-Russia People’s Front (Obshcherossiiskii Narodnyi Front—ONF) and concludes that it functioned as a ‘parastatal’ anti-corruption movement, enabling the regime to deflect the blame without directly involving itself in the process.

The paper uncovers determinants of turnout in Iran by studying the role of institutional and socio-economic variables in parliamentary politics since the 2000s. The paper argues that Iran’s electoral system has dichotomized the pattern of participation between center and periphery. The dynamic of participation in the center stems primarily from national shifts in the factional rule. However, in provincial peripheries, Iran’s electoral system promotes the personal particularistic demands of voters in the MP-citizen linkage. In this environment, the discretionary power of local state machinery over the daily lives of provincial citizens lays the ground for the role of local bureaus to influence participation. This argument draws on statistical analysis of parliamentary turnout and the study of several Iranian newspapers and official reports. The findings of the paper suggest a new mechanism by which institutional settings may shape the pattern of participation more generally.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-020-09605-6

В монографии исследуются леворадикальные, популистские режимы Уго Чавеса в Венесуэле и Эво Моралеса в Боливии, ставшие составной частью «левого поворота» в Латинской Америке в конце ХХ — начале ХХI в. Отталкиваясь от определения понятий «популизм» и «популистские режимы», автор определяет историческое место современных лево-популистских режимов в общем ряду популистских режимов в Латинской Америке ХХ в. Проанализирована совокупность факторов — макроэкономических, институциональных и субъективных, способствовавших формированию политических режимов в Венесуэле и Боливии. Впервые в отечественной научной литературе проведен сравнительный анализ практик массовой мобилизации — дискурсивных, социальных и плебисцитарных, использовавшихся обоими режимами.

Политические машины в регионах России, созданные губернаторами в середине 1990-х годов, оказались наиболее эффективными в национальных республиках. Этому способствовало несколько причин, среди которых плотность
патронажных сетей среди аграрного населения этнических меньшинств, экономическое наследие советской эпохи, политизация и институционализация этничности. Все это позволяло региональным элитам интегрировать этнические
меньшинства в структуру клиентелистского распределения символических и материальных благ в обмен на их электоральную поддержку. На современном этапе, однако, федеральные власти существенно сократили автономию национальных республик и лишили их многих преференций. Проведенный анализ электоральной статистики итогов президентских выборов 2018 г. дал автору возможность исследовать политические последствия перемен в отношениях между центром и регионами и изменения в функционировании региональных политических машин в условиях сокращения ресурсной и институциональной автономии губернаторов. В результате обнаружена диверсификация
электорального поведения этнических меньшинств в разных республиках. На основе сравнительного анализа пяти кейсов (Республики Башкортостан, Республики Татарстан, Республики Коми, Чувашской Республики и Республики Саха (Якутия)) представлено объяснение причин этой диверсификации.

Last year, independent and secular segments of civil society ran against the established traditional political parties in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections. While their campaign elicited much hope, the results were disappointing. Why did they fail in breaking through and what lessons can be drawn from the campaign?

In order to understand the functions of elections in non-democratic regimes, about 100 national elections between 1992 and 2012 in eleven successor states of the Soviet Union are examined. A comparative analysis of both presidential and parliamentary elections reveals systematic patterns according to regime subtype. The findings allow a detailed evaluation of the functions of “authoritarian elections”, which vary remarkably by regime (sub-)type, type of election, timing of the election and the existence or absence of a dominant “party of power”. On this basis, the paper contributes to the conceptual debate on regime classification. The dividing line between democracy and autocracy should be drawn by the criterion of whether the executive office, i.e. the presidency, is filled through contested elections or not. The competitiveness of parliamentary elections, in contrast, is a valuable criterion for distinguishing between non-democratic regime subtypes, i.e. electoral and closed autocracies.
Keywords: electoral authoritarianism; hybrid regimes; presidential and parliamentary elections; post-Soviet Eurasia

This article investigates how hybrid regimes supply governance by examining a series of dilemmas (involving elections, the mass media, and state institutions) that their rulers face. The authors demonstrate how regime responses to these dilemmas -typically efforts to maintain control while avoiding outright repression and societal backlash -have negative outcomes, including a weakening of formal institutions, proliferation of "substitutions" (e.g., substitutes for institutions), and increasing centralization and personalization of control. Efforts by Russian leaders to disengage society from the sphere of decision-making entail a significant risk of systemic breakdown in unexpected ways. More specifically, given significantly weakened institutions for interest representation and negotiated compromise, policy-making in the Russian system often amounts to the leadership's best guess (ad hoc manual policy adjustments) as to precisely what society will accept and what it will not, with a significant possibility of miscalculation. Three case studies of the policy-making process are presented: the 2005 cash-for-benefits reform, plans for the development of the Khimki Forest, and changes leading up to and following major public protests in 2011-2012.

Caspian Energy Politics analyses the role of oil and gas in the development of the three main petroleum exporters in the Caspian region – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – and how energy resources influence interactions with Russia and China. Due to volatile commodity prices and competition for the resources in and around the Caspian Sea, the governments of these petroleum-exporters face a series of difficult decisions. These governments have sought to balance short-term incentives to spend oil revenues as a means to maintain power against the need for a long-term strategy for managing these assets, choices which have further implications for how these countries align themselves internationally. By illuminating important linkages between domestic and international dynamics in these states, the book provides a fresh perspective on energy politics and the impact of petroleum on the development of the Caspian petroleum producers. Expert contributors from Central Asia and the South Caucasus and international scholars provide context-specific insights into the incentives affecting decision-makers that can provide a foundation for strategies to help the countries in the region overcome the negative effects of reliance on oil and gas. As such, the book will be a valuable tool for business actors seeking to understand the role of Chinese and Russian companies in the region, as well as local and international policymakers and non-governmental organizations.

Проведено теоретико-методологічний та емпіричний розгляд політичних режимів сучасності, а також історії становлення та сучасного стану розвитку кількісних та якісних методів типологізації та порівняльного вимірювання політичних режимів сучасності. Окреслено і структуровано економічні та політичні свободи у контексті політичних режимів сучасності. Проаналізовано різновиди та концепти демократії (демократизації) та автократії/автократизації. Простежено параметри оцінювання ефективності та якості демократії і демократизації. Означено сутність і типологію субнаціональних політичних режимів. Розкрито параметри порівняльного аналізу трансформації/транзиту політичних режимів сучасності. Визначено економетричні атрибути різних типів політичних режимів сучасності.

The hybrid regime framework provides a useful approach for analysis of (post-)Third wave political regimes, yet there has not been sufficient effort to develop adequate systematic measure of ‘mixed’ regimes. Several measures that exist suffer from various measurement validity problems. This article introduces an alternative method and demonstrates how it can be used to classify post-Soviet regimes in the 1991-2005 period. Future research can employ this new classification to explore the question of change and stability of hybrid regimes in post-communist Eurasia as well as to study causes and consequences of regime change and democratisation in comparative perspective.

Bu bölümde siyasal rejim tipleri tartışılmaktadır. İlk olarak, demokratik olmayan rejim sınıflandırmaları, daha sonra demokratik rejim tanımları, en son olarak da bu iki rejim tipinin arasında kalan karma rejimler (seçimli/rekabetçi otoriterlik, hibrid rejimler ve sorunlu demokrasiler) incelenmektedir. Bölümün asıl amacı rejim tanımlarına açıklık getirmek olsa da, farklı rejim tanımlarının karşılaştırmalı siyaset araştırmalarının sonuçlarını nasıl etkilediği de yazının bütünleştirici teması olarak önemli bir yer tutmaktadır.

In this paper, I claim that Turkey is moving out of its tutelary democratic regime and is moving towards a populist competitive authoritarian regime. A tutelary regime is a form of defective democracy that aims to normalize a certain level of non-elected supervision (by the military, the high courts, etc.) over the elected representatives. Turkey is transiting out of this tutelary system, but rather than transiting into a consolidated democracy as many expected, the move is towards electoral/competitive authoritarianism: a regime that advocates democracy and competitive elections, but practices populist majoritarianism and treats elections as mere confirmations of the government's rule.

Lebanese state institutions have shown increasing signs of fragility and unreliability in recent years. Considering that prominent political elites have been in office for decades, it is fair to hold them responsible for the state’s failures and poor governance, and one would imagine that Lebanese people would want to hold them accountable. Nonetheless, despite their poor performance, Lebanese citizens continue to re-elect these same parties and leaders. This thesis seeks to examine why is that so, and why political activists and progressive opposition groups who try to challenge the situation have been failing to undermine elite control over state power in the postwar period. By combining findings from past scholarship on sectarian dynamics with interviews with Lebanese activists, I argue that dominant patterns in voting behavior are a result of complementary and self-enforcing institutional and repressive mechanisms that thwart the emergence of alternative political forces. The institutional structures of the sectarian system are first explored to underscore the social and political realities characterizing citizens’ relationship with the state. The lived experiences of secular and cross-sectarian alternatives to the political and ideological rule of traditional elites are then highlighted and include insights from the electoral campaigns of Beirut Madinati (2016) and Kulluna Watani (2018). This thesis concludes with a discussion on the future of progressive anti-sectarian resistance in the country.

In this article, I critically engage with the populism literature, and predicated on a conceptualization of modern democracy as a mixed regime (combining oligarchy and democracy), I provide a mechanism to connect populism-in-power to authoritarianism. As such, I elucidate a particular populist path to authoritarianism in a competitive setting by exploring two questions. First, what is the impact of populism-in-power on the modern democratic mixed regime? Second, what is the locus of populism in a modern democratic institutional framework? Utilizing the Turkish and Argentinean cases as illustrative examples of populism-in-power, I conclude that, first, unless a populist vision is accompanied by democratic institutions outside of the spectrum that modern democracy offers, when that vision which sacralizes and singularizes competitive elections becomes preponderant, it will lead to the opposite of its claim of making the people sovereign, and instead will make the rulers sovereign. Second, I argue that although there is no internal contradiction between modern democracy's liberal or constitutional and democratic elements, there is still a paradox surrounding modern democracy. This paradox is found between the sources of its imaginative appeal and its practice as a mixed regime, and this is where we should place the perennial potential of populism.

Bu yazıda, AKP'nin neo-muhafazakar popülist ideolojisinin, Türkiye'de var olan yarı-otoriter rejimin otoriterliğinin derinleşmesine yol açtığını iddia ediyorum. Daha teorik bir ifadeyle, AKP'nin neo-muhafazakar popülizminin, modern demokrasilere içkin olan yöneticilerin yönetilenlerden göreli özerkliğini yok etme iddiasına rağmen (milli iradenin yönetime yansıtılması iddiası), tam tersi bir etkiyle, yürütmeyi güçlendirip, yöneten-yönetilen ayrımını yönetilenler aleyhine geliştirdiğini savunuyorum. Bu durumu göstermek için, önce AKP'nin ideolojisinin üç öğesini yani neo-liberalizm, muhafazakarlaştırmacılık ve popülizmini inceliyorum; ikinci olarak, bu iktidar ideolojisinin, var olan 12 Eylül kurumları çerçevesinde ve Kemalistlerle çatışmasının doğasından dolayı, nasıl yönetenlerin özerkliğini arttırdığını (rejimi otoriterleştirdiğini) tartışıyorum. Son olarak da, neden bazı sosyal bilimcilerin ve kanaat teknisyenlerinin, AKP Türkiye'sindeki otoriterleşmeyi, demokratikleşme olarak gördüklerini anlamlandırmaya çalışıyorum.

In August 2020, the presidential election took place in Belarus, followed by unprecedented mass protests due to apparent election fraud. Aliaksandr Lukashenka, the country's long-term authoritarian leader, faced the biggest electoral challenge since his first election in 1994. This article analyzes his official rhetoric during the campaign and after the election focusing on the image of the society. For this purpose, discourse-historical approach is applied to understand his political vision of the developments in Belarus and to explore changes in his rhetoric caused by the unprecedented challenge to his power. The research demonstrates that Lukashenka acts as a classical authoritarian ruler with respective discursive strategies. The text shows that he adopted the imaginary role of Belarus's strict father, who has assumed full responsibility for its fate and offensively reacts to every challenger of this role. It also reveals that Lukashenka sees his personal contract with the Belarusian society as a stable and durable instrument that does not require changes and per se implies his personal engagement as a party to it. Finally, the analysis of Lukashenka's rhetoric in 2020 suggests that a voluntary transition of power in Belarus remains rather wishful thinking.

The emergence of India as a fascist nation ruled by the BJP with Modi as its figurehead is no surprise considering the origins of the BJP. Nor is it a surprise considering the identity of those unmarried, fanatically devoted party workers and their army of youngsters who provide the BJP’s infrastructural base. Nor is it a surprise considering the history of Modi himself.

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.

This paper aims to accomplish two goals. First, to present recent empirical evidence to the claim that Serbia is on the path towards embracing a more radical version of electoral authoritarianism. This is accomplished by examining most recent illiberal politics aimed at controlling electoral processes and the media sphere, and extracting public funds for partisan purposes. I claim that the incomplete design of democratic institutions in Serbia set up between 2001 and 2012 is primarily responsible for the democratic decline. The second goal is more general and aims to emphasise the importance of extracting public funds for hybrid regimes. Extractive institutions matter because they directly impact other critical segments of electoral authoritarianism (notably, elections and media freedom), but also because they explain the type of leadership they promote in politics. If public resources remain without proper institutional oversight and are simply 'up for grabs,' this will attract leaders more willing to dismantle democratic institutions and violate democratic procedures. Serbia serves as a good and current example of this linkage.

This article explains how the electoral one-party state of United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) in Malaysia is maintained through constituency delimitation. It examines how the means of inter-state malapportionment, intra-state malapportionment, gerrymandering, pre-delimitation boundary changes and seat increase are used in the on-going delimitation exercises. Malapportionment and gerrymandering in the last cycle of delimitation exercises in 2003–5 had secured Prime Minister Najib Razak a comfortable 60% parliamentary majority in 2013 despite winning only 47% of popular votes. While Razak may sufer greater attrition of votes due to his global fnancial scandal involving Malaysia’s state sovereign fund, 1MDB, he may still win a bigger parliamentary majority in the upcoming election, which must be held latest by August 2018. The article questions if the First- Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system, which is not only susceptible to manipulations, but also very winner-takes-all in nature, suits Malaysia’s plural society.

After toppling the 61-year dominant Barisan Nasional through a historic election victory in May 2018, expectations are high for the new ruling government led by Mahathir Mohamad and the Pakatan Harapan to fulfil their promises for socio-economic reforms and regime change in Malaysia. But what have been the institutions of the prevailing regime that need to be reformed and changed? This article offers a critical review of the evolving development agendas since the 1990s of the successive governments of Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Badawi, and Najib Razak, each couched in different catchphrases: Wawasan 2020, Islam Hadhari, and 1Malaysia. A close reading of these programs suggests that their substance articulates two persistent logics: the ruling elite’s constant requirement for political stability enforced by a strong state; and, the need to adapt to the demands and opportunities of accumulation in specific phases of Malaysia’s capitalist development in the context of globalization. The analysis reveals the attempts at maintaining authoritarian neoliberalism, or a neoliberal economy embedded in an authoritarian polity, as the de facto social regime in contemporary Malaysia. By examining policy documents, speeches, and news reports, the article discloses how this regime had been enunciated or reified in public discourses, policies, and actions of the respective administrations.

See p 63-81.

Political leadership in Africa is changing. Evidence of this can be found in the Arab Spring, democratic elections on the continent and the rejection by the African Union (AU) of undemocratic and unconstitutional regime change on the continent. However, procedural rather than substantive democracies operate on the continent, often entrenching authoritarian regimes through elections. These elections show some signs of democratisation and democratic participation, but result predominantly in the extension of the competitive authoritarian regime. The AU subscribes to universally accepted democratic norms, which are often not realised in member states, or sanctioned by the AU. This tacit approval of electoral authoritarianism requires an investigation into the role, if any, of the AU in entrenching electoral authoritarianism on the continent. Applying Levitsky and Way’s (2002; 2010) analytical framework leads to the conclusion that the AU has exerted leverage over authoritarian presidents and their regimes in all but a few cases. However, the AU is not yet able to advance the democracy project on the continent, as linkages focus predominantly on socio-economic development and infrastructure expansion rather than the promotion of democracy per se.

and Keywords Considering incidents that make headline news internationally, given the modern information and communication technology revolution, the facility of citizens to rapidly mobilize represents a considerable threat to autocratic survival. While the speed with which popular movements emerge has increased exponentially, and the news of their existence spreads faster and farther, civil unrest has threatened the stability and survival of dictators for centuries. The paranoia and machinations of dictators depicted in films, such as the portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, while sensationalized, capture the astounding array of threats with which unelected leaders must concern themselves. On the one hand, they must worry about insider threats to their standing, such as conspiratorial plots from people within the dictator's own circle or mutiny among government soldiers. On the other hand, dictators also must monitor threats originating from non-regime actors, such as new alliances forming among once-fragmented opposition groups or the possibility of sustained insurgency or a popular revolution. From force to finesse, autocratic leaders have developed a broad and evolving range of tactics and tools to diminish both internal and external domestic threats to their reign. The success of dictators' endeavors to insulate their regimes from forces that might challenge them depends on accurate and reliable information, a resource that can be as valuable to the leader as would a large armory and loyal soldiers. Dictators invest significant resources (monetary as well as human capital) to try to gather useful information about their existing and potential opponents, while also trying to control and shape information emitted by the regime before it reaches the public. New information and communication technologies (ICTs), which have drawn a great deal of scholarly attention since the beginning of the 21st century—present both risks and rewards for dictators; inversely they also create new opportunities and hazards for citizens who might utilize them to mobilize people opposed to the regime. While civil unrest could encompass the full range of domestic, nonmilitary actors, there also needs to be a specific focus on various forms of mass mobilization. Historically, more dictators have been forced from office by elite-initiated overthrows via coups d'état than have fallen to revolution or fled

This paper looks at the special case of military-guided electoral authoritarianism in Myanmar. Examining why electoral authoritarianism crumbled so easily, it looks into the historical importance of elections, the formation of the electoral authoritarian regime under military guidance, and its demise. This article identifies the strong charisma of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as the increasing struggles within the ruling party and the incumbent government's promise to the international community to hold free and fair elections as the main triggers of the downfall of electoral authoritarianism. This demise, however, did not bring an end to the dominant position of the military, which retains ultimate veto power for all far-reaching changes in the country.

NOTE: This document includes the TOC, Introduction, and Conclusion of the dissertation. To download the full thesis, please go to https://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/141/

ABSTRACT:
This dissertation examines Dutertismo as an event in the context of what it put forwards as the problem-spaces of Philippine postcolonial modernity: nationalism, democracy, and development. Specifically, it investigates the substance of the contemporary disjunction between the discourse of liberal democracy, which often frames critiques of Dutertismo, and Philippine social experience. Its objective is to examine the underlying causes of the democratic "crisis" that Dutertismo represents, both material/structural and discursive/ideological.

“Dutertismo,” a populist political movement and discourse, is characterized by its subversion of the inherited norms and mores of Philippine society, and consolidation of popular support for a charismatic leader who advocates autocracy and state violence in the pursuit of national development. For its repudiation of liberal-democratic principles (human rights, rule of law, due process) in rhetoric and policy, Dutertismo has been interpreted as proof of the failure of democratization in the Philippines since the end of the Marcos dictatorship and the Cold War period. This interpretation, however, is insufficient to account for Dutertismo’s resonance. Rather than the “failure” of democracy, this research seeks to understand Dutertismo as a symptom of the conflictive nature of democracy in the Philippine neocolonial context, where liberal-democratic values may have dominance but not hegemony. What Dutertismo surfaces and amplifies are the deep-seated contradictions between the moral and political discourses that shape the elite subjects of democracy and civil society, and those that shape the politics of the governed masses, contradictions that have been effaced in official political discourse in the name of building a modern, liberal-democratic, postcolonial nationstate, and creating productive nationalist subjects.

To elucidate these contradictions that have propelled Dutertismo, this thesis analyses a range of contemporary cultural productions, including literature, feature films and documentaries, photojournalism, and music to surface the narratives that the discourse of Dutertismo constructs and perpetuates. It asks, What emotions animate Dutertismo’s movement? What structures of representation and sentiment does it draw on and shape, and how does it sustain the engagement of affective publics? What can the examination of this phenomenon teach us about the Philippine contemporary and prospects for democracy? Augmenting its primarily textual analytic approach, this research also draws on ethnographic narratives gleaned from participant observation and interviews with Filipino migrant domestic workers, Duterte supporters, labor organizers, and rights activists in Hong Kong, focusing on their political practices and embodied experience. In doing so, this thesis offers understandings of democracy beyond the terms set by the discourses of liberalism, populism, or electoral politics, and surfaces the possibilities for democratization from below. In analyzing and historicizing Dutertismo, this study aims to present a narrative about the (post)colonial experience of modernity, and what that means for the continuing translation of democracy in our present context.

TO CITE (MLA):
Reynaldo, Kristine Marie. <i>Tracing the Roots of Disjunction: Dutertismo and the Discourse of Liberal Democracy in the Philippines</i>. 2021. Lingnan University, PhD dissertation. <i>Digital Commons @ Lingnan, https://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/141/.

Bu yazıda, anayasa yapım ve referandum süreçlerini, Türkiye'nin son on yılına damgasını vuran eklemlenme/genişleme olgusu (yeni grupların siyasete katılımı) ve siyasal güç dengesindeki değişimi göz önünde bulundurarak inceliyorum. Yazı birbiriyle ilgili iki temel iddia içeriyor. İlk olarak, son anayasa yapım süreci ve içeriğindeki sorunlara değinerek, değişikliklerin yönetilenlerin gücünü arttırmak anlamında demokratik (sosyal ve ekonomik demokrasi) olmadığı gibi; bireysel ve kolektif özgürlükleri garanti altına alacak şekilde, siyasal gücü kullanan kurumların birbirlerini denetleyerek kısıtlaması anlamında da (siyasal/liberal demokrasi) demokratik olmadığını savunuyorum. Kısaca, AKP'nin neo-muhafazakar popülizminin yansıması olan anayasası ve anayasa yapım süreci, anayasacılık/liberalizm ile demokrasi/halkın egemenliği arasındaki çelişkiyi, ikisini de inkar edecek şekilde aşmış görünüyor. Yazının ikinci iddiasıysa, referandum sürecinin sonuçlarının otoriterleşmeyi arttırıp bazı toplumsal hiyerarşileri derinleştirdiği halde, siyasal sistemin kapsamının genişlemesi sürecinin de bir uğrak noktası olduğu. İki iddiayı birleştirerek ifade etmek gerekirse, Türkiye son on yıldır sancılı ve karmaşık bir şekilde de olsa bazı toplumsal kesimlerin (İslami sermaye/kültürel grupları ve mütedeyyin Sünniler) siyasal süreçlere dahil olması ve vatandaşlık tanımının bu yeni kesimleri içerecek şekilde genişlemesi sürecinden geçiyor. Ancak siyasetin kapsamının genişlemesi, AKP'nin neo-muhafazakar (neo-liberal ve muhafazakarlaştırmacı) popülizminin önderliğinde yapıldığı için kuvvetli anti-demokratik (otoriter) öğeler taşıyor. Bu referandum da halihazırda kuvvetli otoriter öğeler taşıyan eklemlenme/genişleme sürecinin gittikçe daha da otoriterleşmesi anlamına geliyor.

“Neformalʹni instytuty ta neopatrymonialʹna demokratiya v Ukrayini (Informal Institutions and Ukraine’s Neopatrimonial Democracy),” Agora, No. 17 (2016): 9-13.

Стаття присвячена аналізу українського політичного розвитку після революції Євромайдану в лютому 2014. Нова система української неопатримоніальної демократії сприяє створенню як формальних, так і неформальних перешкод і обмежень для розвитку суперпрезидентського режиму та формування режиму особистої влади (перш за все, завдяки прем’єр-президентській системі та впливу конкуренції кількох олігархічних клієнтарно-патронажних мереж на розподіл влади на національному та регіональному рівнях). Формальні і неформальні правила конкуренції неопатримоніальних акторів у прем'єр-президентській республіці ускладнюють «захоплення держави» представниками однієї олігархічної групи, як і монополізацію політичного простору одним політичним і економічним кланом.

In this article, we re-analyze the hypothesis that the relationship between the type of political regime and its political instability forms an inverted U shape. Following this logic, consistent democracies and autocracies are more stable regimes, whereas intermediate regimes (anocracies) display the lowest levels of political stability. We re-test this hypothesis using a data set that has not been previously used for this purpose, finding sufficient evidence to support the hypothesis pertaining to the aforementioned U-shaped relationship. Our analysis is specifically focused on the symmetry of this U shape, whereby our findings suggest that the U-shaped relationship between regime types and sociopolitical destabilization is typically characterized by an asymmetry, with consistently authoritarian regimes being generally less stable than consolidated democracies. We also find that the character of this asymmetry can change with time. In particular, our re-analysis suggests that U-shaped relationship experienced significant changes after the end of the Cold War. Before the end of the Cold War (1946-1991), the asymmetry

This article examines the characteristics of the current political regime in Turkey in an attempt to classify it on the democracy-autocracy spectrum. Borrowing the definition of competitive authoritarian regimes from Levitsky and Way, three defining regime attributes are investigated: elections; protection of civil liberties; and a level playing field for the opposition. The main argument is that the current Turkish regime fits the definition of ‘electoral authoritarianism’ on multiple fronts, especially considering the lack of civil liberties protection and the uneven playing field for the political opposition. The prospects for further democratization also look bleak for the foreseeable future.

This book proposes a significant reassessment of the history of Iraq, documenting democratic experiences from ancient Mesopotamia through to the US occupation. Such an analysis takes to task claims that the 'West' has a uniquely democratic history and a responsibility to spread democracy across the world. It also reveals that Iraq has a democratic history all of its own, from ancient Middle Eastern assemblies and classical Islamic theology and philosophy, through to the myriad political parties, newspapers and protest movements of more recent times. This book argues that the democratic history of Iraq could serve as a powerful political and discursive tool where the Iraqi people may come to feel a sense of ownership over democracy and take pride in endorsing it. This could go a long way towards mitigating the current conflicts across the nation and in stabilizing and legitimating its troubled democracy. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and referring to some of the most influential critical theorists to question ideological assumptions about democracy and its history, this book will be useful to those interested in political and legal history, human rights and democracy.Reviews: 'This book is a serious and in-depth reading of Iraqi political history. Isakhan's argument, bolstered by an impressive array of source material, is a direct affront to the use of violence to impose a wholesale American "democracy" on a society that has its own rich history of egalitarian and collective forms of governance.' Muhsin Al-Musawi, Columbia University, USA 'Democracy in Iraq expertly excavates democratic traditions that have long been buried in Western Orientalism and Bathist totalitarianism. In demonstrating that a will towards collective and participatory governance has existed over the centuries, Benjamin Isakhan rescues assessments for Iraqi democratisation from the kind of negative determinism, deracinated from history and local culture, that has dominated scholarly and policy debates.' James Piscatori, Durham University, UK

This article examines the historical evolution of Tunisia’s Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) from its beginnings in 1987, when President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali took power, until his ousting in 2011 when the party was outlawed. I argue that the RCD evolved from a political force with wide popular support during a short democratic era (1987–89) into a repressive interest group in the 1990s, when the regime cracked down on political dissidents and popular freedoms whilst rewarding party members with lucrative bene ts. In the 2000s the RCD adopted a quasi-ma osi structure that pro ted the Ben Ali family, which increasingly monopolized economic and political power. Tunisia’s transformation into a near dynasty marginalized many RCD members and its wider networks, a central dynamic to understand Ben Ali’s ousting in 2011.

We explored links between competitive authoritarianism and populism in Serbia under Vučić via mixed methods. We conducted the quantitative content analysis of 228 political cartoons (2013-2017) of Dušan Petričić, a leading cartoonist and government critic, and qualitative visual and contextual analysis of 4 cartoons that reflected key themesmedia freedom violations, unfair political competition and populist and abusive rule. We found that populism appeared as a 'soft' face of competitive authoritarianism, tolerable to domestic audiences and acceptable to influential international actors because of its reliance on more informal and sophisticated and less repressive forms of authoritarian manipulation.

Bu yazıda, 2014 yerel seçimlerinin rejim bağlamı ve bu bağlamda şekillenen parti stratejileri tartışılmaktadır. Türkiye siyasal rejimini şu şekilde sınıflandırmak mümkündür. Öncelikle, 2007-2010 arasında AKP yönetiminde Türkiye’nin seçimli/rekabetçi otoriter bir düzene geçişi tamamlanmıştır. Seçimli/rekabetçi otoriterlik tesis edildikten sonraki 2010-13 arası dönem boyunca ise, Türkiye esasen otoriterleşmeyi değil, sınırlandırılamayan bir yönetimin sağ, muhafazakâr ve popülist ideolojisi doğrultusunda ürettiği politikaları tartışmıştır. Bu bağlamın yol açtığı politik krizlere yanıt olarak da AKP seçim sandığını göstermiştir. Bir başka ifadeyle, hem rejimden (otoriterlik) ve onun politikalarından (muhafazakârlık ve neoliberalizm) oluşan rahatsızlığa (Gezi), hem de keyfiyet, yolsuzluk ve hukuksuzluk sorununa (17 Aralık süreci) çözüm olarak millî iradenin tecelli ettiğini iddia ettiği sandığı işaret etmiştir.

Retired military officers often continue to wield significant influence in regimes built after the end of junta rule, sometimes helping to bridge enduring civil-military divides. Myanmar's recent legislative elections offers a counterintuitive case. There has been a rapidly decreasing influence of military retirees in the electoral landscape shaped in the 2010s. I reveal this decline using data on the sociological background of candidates for the 2015 and 2020 elections. Then, building on field interviews with retired officers who ran for office, I offer five explanatory propositions: (1) the depletion of moral capital held by soldiers; (2) military socialisation and the difficulties for veterans to transition to political life, with rivals from other sectors emerging as better equipped; (3) the existence of worthier avenues for power, influence and wealth acquisition; (4) the failure of the authoritarian successor party to manipulate votes and be voted back into office; and (5) the lingering authority and political sway of serving officers. The findings illuminate the persistent insulation from Myanmar society of its active military-even before the 2021 coup-and challenge the claim that veterans can help close the widening gap in Myanmar's civil-military relations.

In May 2018, the Malaysian opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan or Hope Alliance won the federal elections for the first time in the history of the country. The electoral authoritarian system is now in a state of transition. The electoral breakthrough was the result of longer-term socioeconomic transformations, but the formation of a strong pre-electoral coalition was ultimately decisive for the victory. The article compares various coalitions and their performance during seven elections since 1990. The structured, focused comparison analyses the coalitions during this period because prior to 1990 the opposition was fragmented. On the basis of a three-level concept regarding the strength of pre-electoral coalitions, the article argues that Pakatan Harapan was successful because the coalition was sufficiently comprehensive (as indicated by the number and the competitiveness of candidates), cohesive (concerning ideological proximity and behavioural routinization) and well-rooted in society (in terms of linkages to voters/supporters and to civil society networks or organizations).

The collapse of Malaysia’s multiethnic reformist government by a party coup in February 2020 called “Sheraton Move” can be assessed along at least three dimensions: first, inter-personality-clash power struggle between key Malay leaders and their parties; second, the deep ethnic divide which drives for rejection of a multiethnic government in favour of return to a more pro-Malay equilibrium; third, dysfunctional legislative-executive relations and dysfunctional parties, which reduce Parliament to the Prime Minister’s electoral college, deny constructive roles in policy competition and law-making to opposition parliamentarians and government backbenchers, so centralise power within parties that cyclical infighting and splintering is made inevitable, collectively making the party system vulnerable to defections and chaotic realignments. This paper focuses on the parliament-party dimension and examines how Malaysia’s deviations from the Westminster model have contributed to the political impasse, how the payroll vote is cynically used to sustain a fragile government and how keeping the system unchanged may lead to greater instability and cause multiparty democracy to be discredited.

The southern African nation of Angola was included in the third wave of democratisation which began rolling over the African continent in the late 1980s. Structural political and economic reforms, including multiparty elections, were introduced in Angola as part of a peace settlement designed to set the country on a path to effective democratisation. However, the resumption of the armed conflict in the aftermath of the country’s founding elections in 1992 blocked Angola’s transition towards the consolidation of a multiparty democratic dispensation. The end of the civil war in 2002 renewed hopes for normal democratic development through a return to electoral politics. Building on the conception of elections as both instruments of democracy and tools of authoritarian rule, this article examines the progress, problems and prospects for democratisation brought about by the resumption of electoral politics in post-war Angola. The analysis of the evidence gathered from qualitative secondary sources suggests that, since the end of the war in 2002, Angola has seen the establishment of electoral hegemony. The MPLA has total dominance of not only the electoral process – its rules, their implementation and adjudication – but also of electoral results, allowing the winner to rule unchallenged. This has subsequently been used to engender other types of political domination, including constitutional and central government hegemony, thus ensuring regime entrenchment.

In countries like Russia, where legal institutions providing political accountability and protection of property rights are weak, some elite actors accept the use of violence as a tool in political and economic competition. The intensity of this violent exposure may vary depending on the position the province had had in the Soviet administrative hierarchy. The higher the province's position before 1991, the greater the intensity of business violence one is likely to observe there in post-communist times, because the Soviet collapse left a more gaping power vacuum and lack of working informal rules in regions with limited presence of traditional criminal organizations. Post-Soviet entrepreneurs also often find it worthwhile to run for office or financially back certain candidates in order to secure a privileged status and the ability to interpret the law in their favor. Businessmen-candidates themselves and their financial backers behind the scenes may become exposed to competitive pressures resulting in violence during election years, because their competitors may find it hard to secure their position in power through the existing legal or informal non-violent means. To test whether Soviet legacies and Provincial elections indeed cause spikes in commerce-motivated violence, this project relies on an original dataset of more than 6000 attacks involving business interests in 74 regions of Russia, in 1991e2010. The results show that only legislative elections cause increases in violence while there is no firm evidence that executive polls have a similar effect.

Why do authoritarian legislatures support regime durability? Existing literature utilizes country-level or case study data, but lacks detailed, within-country evidence on rent distribution to citizens which is needed to understand why authoritarian legislatures support regime durability. Drawing on original surveys from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Jordan conducted 2007-2014, this paper shows that institutional setting and resource endowments systematically shape parliamentarian-citizen linkages and have implications for regime stability. Socially-embedded, personalistic linkages are more common in monarchies and oil rich economies than resource-poor and single-party dominant regimes. Yet, non-personalistic linkages are less effective than personalistic linkages in fostering government satisfaction. By empirically demonstrating variation in the social embeddedness of rent distribution and its impact on citizens’ attitudes, this paper extends literature on political clientelism, authoritarian institutions, and regime breakdown and helps explain why resource-poor, single-party dominant regimes (i.e., Tunisia, Egypt) were vulnerable to regime challenges during the Arab spring.

The electoral authoritarian regime of Singapore has experienced two very different general elections in 2011 and 2015. The first was a watershed election that allowed the opposition to capture the largest number of seats ever, including a group representative constituency, which was once believed to be impossible. It had also fielded the most candidates ever, running in all but one constituencies. The latter, however, was a major setback for the opposition which had to suffer a significant reduction in the share of popular vote. As the ruling party won in a landslide, the opposition Workers' Party even lost one seat that it had gained in a by-election in 2013. Opposition supporters , who had hoped to make additional gains, were devastated. Observers even saw in the election result a clear victory for the soft-authoritarian regime. This paper, however, argues that Singapore, in spite of the 2015 election, continues to be on the path to a fundamental political transformation. The majority of Singaporeans still wants a responsive government with sufficient checks on arbitrary power. The ruling party now has to be much more responsive to popular desires and quirks than in the past and can no longer act according to what it claims to be the long-term interests of the country. In addition, it is important to recognize that the 2015 election was conducted under extremely favorable conditions for the ruling party including Sin-gapore's 50 year celebrations and the death of the «founding father» Lee Kuan Yew. Overall, this demonstrates that the ruling party's hegemonic position is in decline while it remains to be seen how the ruling party will fare in the upcoming leadership transition amid growing challenges and the lack of a clear successor.

This chapter argues that one key legacy of the US effort to bring democracy to Iraq has been that many elements within Iraq’s Shia Arab political elite have viewed democracy through the lens of a cynical majoritarianism and manipulated it to catapult themselves to power. This has had a further legacy, enabling the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to utilise his incumbency to maintain the veneer of democracy while becoming increasingly dictatorial and authoritarian. Although Maliki has been widely criticised for deploying a host of authoritarian strategies to retain power – including blatant sectarianism, undermining key state institutions, the creation of a shadow state loyal to himself, and the concentration of military and political power in his own hands – this chapter focuses on his less well-known efforts to shatter the unity of his Shia Arab political opponents. It focuses on his first two terms in power and examines the ways in which he has been able to systematically fracture the Shia political elite to such an extent that once tenuously united factions now stand bitterly divided. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the reasoning behind such an approach and the prospects of Iraq’s democracy moving beyond the blatant power grab of the Maliki government.

The paper shows that sustained popular protest is a recurrent feature in many authoritarian regimes and that a regime type strongly shapes its characteristics. Popular protest often leads to important changes in the personal composition and policies of elites, which considerably affect the structure and operation of authoritarian regimes, and at times produce regime change. Evidence is provided from authoritarianism in Poland and Yugoslavia, in which sustained protests contributed to the fall of communism, and from competitive authoritarian regimes in post-communist Serbia and Ukraine, which were repeatedly undermined by protest waves and brought to an end by pressure ‘from below’.

Il presente file, titolo: Republicanismvs Geopoliticvs Fontes Origenes et Via, contiene testi e link di Massimo Morigi sull’estetizzazione della politica e sul ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’. Il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’ è una dottrina politologica e filosofico-politica elaborata negli ultimi anni dall’ autore  in cui i sette paper copia-incollati nelle  pagine di questo file costituiscono l’elaborazione storico-filosofica che ha portato all’elaborazione finale del ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’,  di cui si potrà prendere visione cliccando nei link posti nella parte finale del file al termine dei sette paper copia-incollati nel file. In questi precedenti paper era stato messo a fuoco, fra le altre cose,  un nuovo tipo di repubblicanesimo profondamente debitore delle suggestioni dell’estetizzazione della politica, con le sue luci delle avanguardie artistiche e con le sue terribili ombre dei regimi totalitari, così come si era manifestata nel corso del Novecento (il numero della nota a piè di pagina che all’inizio di ogni nuovo paper non riparte da 1 ma aggiunge 1 all’ultimo numero di nota del precedente paper pur essendo dovuto ad un automatismo del copia-incolla è, se vogliamo, anche un accidente altamente simbolico del filo rosso, fra riflessioni sul repubblicanesimo e sulla estetizzazione della politica, che attraversa tutti questi interventi). Il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’ raccoglie queste suggestioni ed intende innestarle nel tronco della tradizione realista della Geopolitica. Un realismo politico quello del ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ che però, rinnovato dalla scuola costruttivista delle relazioni internazionali (Alexander Wendt), pone in primo piano una spazialità non solo geografica  ma anche di natura mentale, rappresentativa e culturale (in fondo la moderna noopolitik non è che una riscrittura postmoderna dell’estetizzazione della politica novecentesca)  e che, proprio perché strettamente vincolato in senso machiavelliano all’effettualità, rifiuta con irrisione tutte le ingenue, quando non interessate, visioni  liberal-neopositivistiche alla Popper e si riallaccia direttamente ai grandi pensatori dialettici Hegel e Marx (da questo punto di vista, il ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ si distacca drasticamente da tutte le vulgate neomarxiste: in primo luogo perché integralmente dialettico, in secondo luogo perché non cerca surrogati salvifici alla classe operaia ma individua, sulla scia di Gianfranco La Grassa, negli agenti strategici interni ed internazionali gli autentici operatori dell’evoluzione delle società capitalistiche – ma a differenza della versione lagrassiana del marxismo, il ‘Repubblicanesimo geopolitico’ si tiene ben stretta, ed intende sviluppare, la visione dialettica hegelo-marxiana della realtà). Possiamo così affermare che generare una profonda dialettica fra realismo politico e le mai sopite pulsioni verso l’estetizzazione della politica (impresa alla quale fu dedicata la vita del più grande rappresentante della filosofia politica del Novecento, Hannah Arendt, alla quale però fece sempre velo la sua formazione kantiana) sia il compito che si prefigge il ‘Repubblicanesimo Geopolitico’. Un repubblicanesimo, quello geopolitico, che ha pertanto definitivamente abbandonato una visione della libertà intesa come non dominio che ha segnato – ed estenuato – le ormai  vecchie ed attardate  vulgate del neorepubblicaneismo e che è invece fermamente indirizzato alla realizzazione di una autentica, profonda ed intima Vita Activa.

Massimo Morigi – Ravenna, 8 ottobre 2014