Lecture 1: Introduction
Variance
Variance refers to a certain variability, or difference between units. Some countries are below, and others are
above the means level of democracy
Variance can be either cross-sectional or time-series (longitudinal), or sometimes both. And it is important to
consider what exactly induces different changes, either across space, or across time, or both.
Why do some countries become democracies and others not? Why do some countries remain more democratic
whereas others slide back toward authoritarianism? Are social, economic or international forces the key
determinants of these processes? Is it about actors like elites or the masses, is it structurally determines? Is it
the same in the short run as in the long run?
Since the roughly 1970s Third wave of democratization (tidal change in the establishment of democratic
practices around the globe):
o Following the first and second waves culminating after World War I and II
o Depicted in quantitative terms:
The average level of democracy in the world has been steadily on the rise since the late 1970s,
with a significant peak in the speed of change around 1990.
o Beneath the general trend of democratization, however, the third wave has also been marred by serious
undercurrents pulling in the opposite direction
In Latin America democratic deterioration in the 1990s significantly struck longstanding
democracies such as Colombia and Venezuela.
Cross-National Variance
Liberal Democracy Index (2018)
From coups to the ballot box
Many people, especially from the media have made a remark in relation to a possible retreat and erosion of
democracy
There is a democratic ladder:
, o Some countries fail to go up, some fail to stay up, and so on.
Most of the global south has experienced coups
The Cold War is special because mainly there were proxy wars instigated by either the Soviet Union or the US
o A lot of coups d’état that appeared were part of this hegemonic conflict between the two powers.
o And you can see a difference between the period of the Cold War and the present day
Nowadays you rarely see coups anywhere
How democracies die
“We tend to think of democracies dying at the hands of men with guns. During the Cold War, coups d’état
accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic breakdowns, and more recently, military coups toppled
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014. In these cases
democracy dissolved in spectacular fashion, through military power and coercion.
Blatant dictatorship—in the form of fascism, communism, or military rule—has disappeared across much of the
world. Military coups and other violent seizures of power are rare.
o It is important to realize that in the present day, pure forms of autocracies are quite rare. They have
given way for more hybrid forms.
But there is another way to break a democracy. It is less dramatic but equally destructive.
o Democratic backsliding today begins at the ballot box.”
Longitudinal variance
o Countries can change over time. In some countries you can see incremental rises and incremental falls.
In some you can see sudden regime changes.
o E.g.:
Hungary:
It was pretty much autocratic before the Cold War
Then there is a sudden change into democracy after the Cold War. This change can be
seen also with many of its neighboring countries
But today, you can see a more incremental transition (perhaps back towards an
autocracy)
The United States is also an incredibly interesting case
Most of the backsliding occurs nowadays because of elected leaders:
o There a much more incremental breakdown, slow erosion of democracy
o It is a rather quasi-legal erosion of democracy
Much of the erosion occurs through illegal meddling with elections, or through censorship, and
not through military action
Down here is a scatterplot with a level of democracy in 2007 in a country and then the level 10 year sin 2017:
o Countries below the line are the ones backsliding.
o Backsliding is not occurring in random countries, but in perhaps the largest democracies in the world
(US, Brazil, India)
o It is not a perfect correlation, but in general most of the countries are pretty close to where they were
10 years ago. This says something about the path dependency of regimes. It is not easy for countries to
change towards one way or another, it is a slow, hard, and incremental process
,The ballot box to protests
What the people are doing in relation to what elites are doing. How does this different within democracies from
within autocracies?
Within democracies
Protests within democracies are usually not about changing regimes, but about a certain aspect of that country,
a policy, or something that the government is doing.
Protests in some democracies (usually those that are somewhere between a full democracy and a certain level
of autocracy) can lead to crackdowns and reversals, if they threaten too much. It really depends on how the
government reacts and how it decides to handle the situation.
o E.g. Lebanon, Iraq, Indonesia, Philippines, Yemen, Hong Kong, Egypt, Puerto Rico
Chile Protests to?
o In Chile there a simple thing that sparked huge protests: A raise in the Metro de Santiago subway’s fare
o Chile also demonstrating but pushing for institutional reforms.
o Chile has constitution from 1990, end of the Pinochet dictatorship that started with a coup in 1973.
Constitutions most of the times put a lot of power in the hands of elites. Now protesters are
turning their attention from the basic issues with transportation to much bigger systemic
problems.
o Also, elections in some democracies can lead to reversals (through coups, like in Chile)
In Chile:
o Ballot box Coup Elite pact Protests? ?
o Protests can transform into demands that are much larger than the initial thing protesters were
bothered by Can turn into, for example, a demand for a new constitution And a new
constitution does represent in a certain way a regime change.
Role of structural factors? Inequality in Chile
o Chile is one of the most unequal country in the world. Billionaires in Chile have as much as 25% of the
GDP in Chile.
o The findings suggest that democracy is promoted by long-term structural forces such as economic
prosperity, but also by peaceful popular uprisings and the institutional setup of authoritarian regimes. In
the short-run, however, elite actors may play a key role, particularly through the importance of intra-
regime splits.
Within autocracies
, Questions:
o Are mass movements for democracy likely to be successful?
o What explains mass movements for regime change?
o How does international involvement influence regime type?
The international influence has a lot to do with persuasion coming from external states and
powers.
How do they influence regimes?
Regime change?
o Sometimes when you have mass movements, there can be schism within a certain mass movement.
o Referendum creates Islamic Republic of Iran March 1979
o 99% support
o Regular elections
Green revolution 2009 in Iran
o Results of elections were contested
o In mass demonstration result are uncertain Can lead to massive regime change, or can lead to even
more repression.
Hong Kong: Protests to?
o Hong Kong is an interesting case: it is officially part of China, since 1997 (interestingly also a former
British colony)
In Hong Kong, they are protesting a new policy. but also, the movement closer to becoming part
of China in 2047. The law would speed it up. Now it’s delayed but the protests have created new
demands.
But the protest started because of something rather benign, a bill (uncertainty about what to do
to someone who had committed a murder in Taiwan but was from Hong Kong) was proposed
that would allow suspects like this to be extradited to mainland China And this made people
see this as a rather faster move towards becoming part of China.
Now they are protesting about how their liberties will be safeguarded by Chinese law and other
similar things.
How do democracies and autocracies prevent or incite regime change?
o What is the life they are trying to avoid?
What makes a good concept? (Gerring 1999)
Familiarity
Resonance
Parsimony
Coherence
Differentiation
Depth
Theoretical utility
Field utility
A series of trade-offs between these 8 demands play out in concept formation. Good concepts comprise well defined
events or phenomena, the properties or attributes that define them and a label covering these.
, Lecture 2: What is autocracy?
Basic definitions
Autocracy
The most common form of governance throughout human history, until 1990s
o Still nearly half of all states are autocratic
It is so predominant in how we organize societies
But what is it?
o What are its contemporary forms?
o (How do they operate? When and why do they collapse?)
Svolik, Milan 2012. The politics of authoritarian rule.
The black line shows the percentage of dictatorships as a percentage of all countries.
Definitions (Gandhi 2008 Book)
Dictatorial rulers are quite inventive in how they organize their rule. Especially, when dictators run through
institutions, the institutional diversity makes it difficult to identify a consistent set of criteria by which to define
and classify dictatorship.
o Over time, however, the understanding of what constitutes dictatorship evolved due to political
manipulations of the term.
Track the historical understanding of this regime type
o Its conception has evolved from an institutional device used in ancient Rome to a system of rule that in
modern times is frequently associated with the absence of institutions and constraints.
o In contemporary usage, the terms tyranny and dictatorship maintain close association. Yet this was not
always the case. Although tyranny was recognized as a type of regime since Aristotle, it initially was not
linked to the concept of dictatorship
The term dictatorship only emerged later in Rome, referring to the man occupying the position
of dictator and other certain inherent institutions
, Back then, ,dictatorship was not associated with brutal or repressive rule.
o Over time, then, the term suffered different changes recognizing different characteristics (power, ruling
person or class, etc.)
A regime in which the ruler is not chosen through (competitive) elections, so rulers acquire power by means
other than competitive elections
o The opposite of democracy.
o It is a minimal definition, focusing on the procedural rather than substantive aspects of the regime type,
making causal connections easier and enabling better analytics
o Why this definition? Well, elections are the reason why political actors are expected to behave
differently and produce different outcomes in democracy and dictatorship
And distinguishing regime type on the basis of elections reminds us that even if dictators have
other nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures and parties, they are still dictators
Political life is different in a dictatorship than in a democracy
Also called authoritarian or autocratic regimes
Regime:
o A set of institutions that regulate governance (of a state). Separate from the state apparatus, it is
basically how state apparatus is used.
o Those regimes can be autocratic or democratic, but usually there are variations within the main types.
All autocracies are usually treated as “Residual” category = all regimes that are not democratic
o With this dichotomy, contemporary focus fell on the task of defining democracy, leaving dictatorship as
the residual category, defined only in terms of what it is not.
Should be note that, within regions, high variance in number of dictatorial spells and in duration of authoritarian
rule also exists among countries.
A state is an entity that uses coercion and the threat of force to rule in a given territory. A government is the set
of people who run the state or have the authority to act on behalf of the state at a particular point in time. A
regime is the set of rules, norms, or institutions that determine how the government is constituted, how it is
organized, and how major decisions are made.
Concept
What are the essential components of autocracies/dictatorships?
o Institutions are authoritarian: try to create a stable basis for domination – so try to stay in power (Slater
2003)
Domination over 2 key groups:
Civil society: Normal people, the masses (organized or not)
Potential rivals within the state itself
Tools for domination (It will look different depending on which country you rule):
Co-optation (loyalty – cheaper way)
Violence (repression – the threat of violence is often enough, but it is always very costly)
Types of autocracies
Types of dictatorship (And their rulers) – Gandhi book
Who are the dictators?
o Effective heads of government constitute the focus because we are concerned with the effects of
institutional features of dictatorial regimes on policies and outcomes, and decisions about the regime’s
institutional features and its policies are made only by those who truly have authority
o In dictatorships, the head of government goes by many different titles
o Also, dictatorships frequently have multiple executive figures – both nominal and effective.
, In communist regimes, for example, a prime minister, a chairman of the council of state(i.e., a
president), and a general-secretary of the Communist Party nominally constitute the authorities,
yet the prime minister and president are not effectively in charge.
o Also, for some countries, their political histories are largely about fighting over who the effective head of
government is.
Gandhi (2008: 19-21)
o Monarchs
Rely on family and kin networks along with consultative councils
Someone who calls themselves a king or a queen and create the right to rule through family
inheritence
In the Middle East, rulers of contemporary monarchies had to accept kin as holders of important
government positions, as legitimate recipients of state revenues, and as participants in decision-
making at all levels.
The main threat to monarchs, then, originates from family members who are the only people
legitimately qualified to succeed them.
Monarchs are not constrained by parliaments or courts but rather by family factions and
kin networks. Hence, rule by one has become rule by family.
o Military rulers/dictators
Rely on military organization (the established military)
In fact, all extralegal seizures of power require force even if the threat is implicit.
What constitutes military rule is the fact that the armed forces are the institution
through which rulers govern.
Contain key rivals from the armed forces within juntas
Within military regimes, then, the junta is the locus of decision making power.
For generals who take power on behalf of the institutionalized military, their juntas
typically are small and include heads of the various service branches. For members,
sometimes lower ranked, who seize power in a factional coup, their juntas tend to be
larger based on their need to attract members to their cause.
The preexisting organizational structure of the armed forces can be harnessed for the purposes
of governance
Unforeseen by the civilian elites who advocated military professionalization, however,
was that the creation of an autonomous military above civilian parties provided it with
the means to intervene on its own in politics
Later, with European colonialism, the armed forces came to be seen as leaders in modernization
that would transform traditional societies into well-organized ones that could provide for
citizens as well as the military did for its own.
The composition of the armed forces may be dominated by particular social groups, resulting
from rulers’ attempts to insure support from crucial constituencies.
E.g. Pinochet
o Civilians
Rely on parties (most common, The Communist Party, in its different forms)
Civilian rulers do not have a ready-made organization on which to rely.
So, they usually construct their own regime parties which are useful in not only
penetrating and controlling society, but also in maintaining civilian control over the
military.
The use of a single party to govern was widely emulated by civilian dictators throughout the
developing world:
