Electoral Authoritarianism

In competitive authoritarian systems, aspiring autocrats must win elections and marginalize the political opposition. In Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko's strategy for political hegemony heavily relied on socioeconomic co-optation, offering privileges to supporters and imposing sanctions on dissenters. In an economy dominated by the state, co-optation had a coercive effect on behavior. Without sizable areas of activity autonomous from the government, citizens could not defy or mitigate the cost of reprisals to openly support the political opposition. Through co-optation, Lukashenko weakened the opposition and built an authoritarian regime without resorting to extensive political violence, which could have undermined his claim of public legitimacy.

How does co-optation of oppositional party elites influence their protest behavior in times of cross-societal protest mobilization? Rational-Choice theories of authoritarian stability postulate that opposition elites receive material incentives in parliaments that motivate them to demobilize their radical supporters, which leads to increased regime stability. Based on a novel dataset, this article examines the protest behavior of the Russian parliamentary opposition parties (the CPRF, the LDPR and JR) and their activists during the protest wave of 2011/12 as a function of each party's co-optation in the regional parliaments. Co-optation is measured by the number of leadership posts that a party holds in the regional legislature. Protest mobilization is captured by (1) the number of protest events organized by each party and (2) the aggregate number of party activists present at protest events per region. The results show clear differences between the parties: Whereas the protest behavior of the communist CPRF is not influenced by regional elite co-optation, the analysis shows negative correlations for the LDPR and JR. The results suggest that co-optation may indeed be effective in reducing protest in contentious times – but that its effect varies for different actors.

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.

The majority of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are democracies; however, a few SIDS have experienced coups and subsequent installation of authoritarian regimes. After Fiji, Seychelles, and Maldives attained independence from Great Britain in the 1960s–1970s, coups and features of authoritarianism emerged there at different times. Fiji is located in the Pacific Ocean and has a multiethnic population of over 800,000 people. Maldives and Seychelles are located in the Indian Ocean with populations of over 400,000 and 93,000 people, respectively. The post-coup, single-party, and/or one-man rule regimes in the three countries are examples of authoritarian rule. Eventually, the three countries returned to multiparty elections which were manipulated to serve particular interests. A look at the course back to multiparty electoral democracy in the aftermath of coups shows that instead of democracy, the new, modern, and hybrid forms of authoritarianism—such as authoritarian elections, competitive authoritarianism, and electoral autocracy—emerged. An analysis of the conduct of multiparty elections shows executive interference in elections through repressive laws, judicial manipulation, interference in the independence of electoral bodies, politicised disciplined forces, and lack of separation of the state and ruling party including state-sponsored media, which led to multiparty elections resulting in an autocratic government rather than an electoral democracy.

Why do some Arab citizens regard democracy favourably but see it as unsuitable for their country? Modernization theory contends that economic development creates modern citizens who demand democracy. Cultural theories see Islam and democracy as incompatible. Government performance theories argue that citizens who perceive the current authoritarian government as acting in a transparent manner will demand greater democracy. I argue that attitudes toward democracy are shaped by beliefs about its political, economic, and religious consequences, including those related to sectarianism. I test this consequence-based theory using Arab Barometer data from six nations. Sixty percent hold favourable views of democracy generally and for their country, while 7% reject democracy. Twenty-seven percent support democracy generally but see it as unsuitable for their country. Beliefs that democracy will have negative consequences and perceptions of poor government performance are the most important predictors of democracy's unsuitability. Modernization theory receives support, but Islamic identity and beliefs do not consistently predict attitudes in the expected direction. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of Arab public opinion and suggest that concerns about the consequences of free elections affect support for democracy as much as assessments of the political and economic performance of the current authoritarian regime.

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.

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.

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.

En el 2013 Rafael Correa afianzó las bases del modelo autoritario-competitivo iniciado en 2007. Más allá de la infraestructura y la inversión pública –que cualquier gobierno con recursos económicos también pudo realizar–, la administración de Correa se caracterizó este año –al igual que en los previos aunque ahora con más intensidad– por la persecución a todo aquel que planteara una opinión contraria a su gestión. En dicho escenario político, el último escollo que queda a Correa para consolidar su permanencia en el poder luego de 2017 es la reforma constitucional que permita la reelección indefinida –o al menos por un período adicional–. Si las
condiciones políticas y económicas no varían en el corto plazo, Ecuador tendrá al menos hasta 2021 un gobierno caracterizado por muchas obras públicas y pocas libertades. Más allá de la coyuntura, la gran aceptación popular que genera el modelo
autoritario-competitivo de Correa es una de las preguntas clave que debería orientar la investigación científica sobre Ecuador en el futuro inmediato.

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.

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’.

Scholarship on electoral authoritarianism has increasingly recognized state capacity as an element enhancing electoral control. Building on such arguments, I examine the interaction between state capacity and regime strength in authoritarian elections. Drawing on empirical evidence from Egyptian elections under Mubarak, I show that the degree to which official regime candidates were able to profit from state penetration depended on the strength of the ruling party. In urban settings where party structures were stronger, service provision by the state helped secure the dominance of the hegemonic National Democratic Party (NDP); in rural constituencies where the party was weak, by contrast, service provision strengthened local elites who often ran and won against the party's official candidates. This suggests that variation in regime capacity to channel political support needs to be taken into account when examining the relationship between state capacity and electoral control under authoritarianism.

This article explores the relationship between competitive authoritarianism and popular protest. Building upon comparative regime analysis and social movement research, it argues that this hybrid regime type facilitates popular protest by providing opposition forces with considerable institutional resources to organize themselves and confront regime elites, along with grievances that provide strong incentives for popular challenges. In turn, popular protest may trigger regime crisis and extract important concessions from regime incumbents. In the long run, popular politics strongly shapes the interests, identities and capacities of regime elites and opposition forces, as well as the regime’s formal and/or informal institutions, and may lead to government change and/or regime change. Evidence is provided from Serbia under Milošević, which experienced massive opposition protest campaigns in 1991, 1992, 1996-1997, 1999 and 2000, which resulted in regime change.

The aim of the article is to analyse the phenomenon of security integration of Central Asian states within regional international organisations created around Russia and China. It enabled the authoritarian leaders to lower the cost of maintaining the non-democratic systems. The tactical strategies invented in one country, institutional and legal solutions and mythological constructs were also used by other participants. Moreover, they provided international infrastructure that not only gave external legitimacy to authoritarian regimes, but also served to weaken civil society and eliminate all forms of political competition. The article attempts to answer the questions of how threats were defi ned within regional integration structures and how international infrastructure was built to combat regional threats such as extremism, terrorism and separatism. Furthermore, preventive strategies at the institutional and legal levels are considered. Finally, the article analyses selected aspects of the so-called cultural prevention, which was intended to combat security threats and ensure regional stability. Wprowadzenie Organizacje utworzone wokół Rosji i Chin oraz szerszy kontekst międzyna-rodowy mają coraz większy wpływ na kwestie integracji i bezpieczeństwa re-gionalnego w Azji Centralnej. W praktyce mimo ambitnych celów nie przy-czyniały się one do koordynacji polityk narodowych, integracji rynków czy zapewnienia bezpieczeństwa regionalnego. Organizowane w ich ramach szczyty i spotkania były raczej platformą do kontaktów i dyskusji między pre-zydentami i kończyły się przyjmowaniem deklaracji intencji pozbawionych

“Party hegemony” is a macro-level characteristic of party systems, which is a product of persistent and overwhelming electoral victories that leads to domination of the parliamentary system by a single party. Party hegemony
can only emerge through a collection of individual-level (albeit aggregated), lower-level structural, and macro-level institutional factors. This article intends to shed light on hegemonic party systems by incorporating all of these aspects. It analyses the case of the Justice and Development Party
(AKP) in Turkey as a hegemonic party in the making. Based on individual-level survey data as well as an original province-level dataset, the article examines the role of ideology, pork barrel politics, economic voting, demographics, and political institutions in AKP’s rising hegemony. The replicable nature of the dataset enables further testing of these findings in
comparable cases for generalizability.

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.

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.

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.

Electoral autocracies have become the world’s most common form of non-democratic rule. In hegemonic autocracies in particular, where the president, or his party, always wins by more than 70 percent of the vote, the electoral process comes across as mere window-dressing. Still, both the regime and the opposition take elections seriously. Why? What role do elections play? The article deals with this question while focusing on the Azerbaijani 2013 presidential election, and consists of three parts. The first is a theoretical introduction dedicated to electoral autocracies and authoritarian stability.
The next summarizes the election, stressing its purpose for the opposition. The third part analyses whether and how the election contributed to strengthening the authoritarian
regime. The study concludes that developments during and after the election year are an illustration of what in previous research is sometimes referred to as the politics of insecurity. Even though the opposition “lost”, the relative success of their
campaign indicated that change might, after all, be possible. The regime, depending on regular multi-party elections for its democratic alibi, did not appreciate the uncertainty and tried to minimize it by using the “three pillars” on which authoritarian states’ stability can be said to rest: legitimacy, repression and cooptation.

El principio de unicidad social y política rige el
discurso y la práctica del populismo chavista. Mas
la imposición de este principio ha encontrado
resistencias dentro del movimiento y en la sociedad
venezolana. Así, el régimen ha derivado hacia un
autoritarismo electoral que refleja las contradicciones
entre la aspiración a la hegemonía y la inevitable
diversidad consustancial a los sistemas políticos
pluralistas. Este autoritarismo electoral se aplica a
los actores opositores, percibidos como «enemigos»,
pero también se ejerce en el interior de las
organizaciones «amigas», es decir, leales al gobierno.
Estas prácticas intentan reducir la diversidad sin
lograrlo completamente, por lo que las tensiones
siguen presentes ante la coyuntura electoral y la
incertidumbre sobre la capacidad del presidente para
seguir ejerciendo sus funciones.

Abstract
The principle of social and political unity governs
the discourse and practices of Chavist populism.
But the imposition of this principle has found
resistance within the movement and in Venezuelan
society. Thus, the regime has drifted into an electoral
authoritarianism that reflects the contradictions
between the desire for hegemony and the inevitable
diversity inherent to pluralistic political systems.
The electoral authoritarianism is exercised against
opponents, perceived as «enemies», but also
within «friendly»– i.e., loyal to the government–
organizations. The combination of those practices
is meant to reduce diversity, whithout achieving its
goal: the tensions are still present in view of the
electoral circumstances and the uncertainty about the
president’s ability to perform his role.

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.

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

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.

had been anticipated by the PRD during the election campaign and denied by Medina. The president's popularity, however, remained high one year after the election: according to a May 2013 poll for the media group Corripio, three out of four Dominicans were satisfied or very satisfied with Medina's election (Newlink Research, 2013).

Up until 2020 Aleksandr Lukashenka’s authoritarian regime had ruled Belarus for 26 years without major challenges. Thus, the popular mobilization that took shape in connection with the August 2020 presidential election came as a surprise. It was not the first time that elections in Belarus were not fair – but it was the first time that large sectors of the population reacted openly. Six months later, Belarusians all over the country were still contesting the falsified results. What contributed to this mobilization and politicization of a previously largely apolitical society? Why does that development represent such a serious threat to the authoritarian system? This study sees the Belarusian presidential election and its aftermath as illustrating the ‘politics of uncertainty’ of electoral authoritarian regimes. Because of the intrinsic insecurity of authoritarian systems, all regular elections in that context entail risks, which in theory might lead to change. In Belarus, the emergence of latent threats to the regime’s legitimacy in the form of social cleavages and an economic crisis, combined with the fundamental dynamics of the ‘election game’, amplified this instability. The election served as the starting point for a process of transformation that became the most serious threat ever faced by the Lukashenka regime.

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?

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.

22. november 2003 stormet den unge, karismatiske lederen Mikheil Saakasjvili gjennom dørene til det georgiske parlamentet og inn på verdens tv-skjermer. Bak seg hadde han titusener av georgiske borgere, som demonstrerte på Frihetsplassen og området rundt parlamentet. Ved sin side hadde han sine nærmeste medarbeidere og venner, som banet vei og beskyttet ham. Foran ham stod landets aldrende president, Eduard Sjevardnadse, forfjamset og omgitt av sine nervøse livvakter. I sin fremstrakte hånd holdt Saakasjvili en rose. Denne artikkelen tar for seg bakgrunnen for den politiske utviklingen i Georgia høsten 2003 og våren 2004, og ser deretter på veien fremover for landets nye ledelse.

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.

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 chapter examines the tensions between the governance networks of the former regime (Mubarak), the Muslim Brotherhood and the people who drove the revolution. It argues that resolving this tension will be central to any prospect of a democratic Egypt.

This paper deals with the process through which Falange got involved in the organization of the elections to the representatives of the family heads at the councils, whose celebration was initially set by the Government by March 1946. The empirical basis of the work is based on records housed in the Archivo General de la Administración and coming from two institutional bodies of FET-JONS: the Vicesecretaría General de Ordenación Social and the provincial headquarters of the Movement. The information obtained from these primary sources is inserted in the framework of the adaptation of FET-JONS and the regime itself to the new international community that emerged from the defeat of the Axis powers in 1945. In addition, this information is used to describe in detail the mechanisms articulated by the Falange to intervene in all phases of the organization of the aforementioned elections. The paper concludes that, despite the difficulties it went through since mid-1945, Falange did not remain passive faced with the 1946 electoral call. On the contrary, it reacted immediately with the aim of not being negatively affected by those elections and, at the same time, taking advantage of them to consolidate its power. The Spanish Trade Union Organization was in charge of carrying out this intervention. The way it coped with such a task showed that, by the end of 1945, the Party enjoyed a powerful institutional apparatus perfectly rooted within the regime and with great coordination between national and peripheral bodies.

United Russia (UR), which has served as one of the pillars of Russian authoritarianism, experienced a radical decline in its support around the time of Putin’s return to Presidency. In this study, I examine the regime’s responses to the declining support for UR by focusing on the nuanced relationship between the regime and UR. Especially important in this context is that UR can be characterized as a “party of power” that is embedded in the political system; this allows the regime to be opportunistic toward the party, but there is also a limitation in the extent that the regime can distance itself from the party. I demonstrate that the regime took various measures, including the creation of the All-Russia People’s Front (ONF) to escape the ire of voters; however, the range of responses adopted did not lead to the replacement of UR.

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

The Electoral College is under attack. Some people want to scrap the College and adopt a rule that would determine the presidency on the basis of majority vote. This paper reviews the reason for the Electoral College and presents additional options that are not often considered by those who want to abolish the Electoral College.

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