Policy Appeals and Coalition Change under Authoritarianism

• In Event: Sources of Popular Support for Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

When, how, and how successfully do authoritarian rulers change their social coalitions of support? Present studies of authoritarianism tend to portray a world of policy stasis – an equilibrium “bargain” between rulers and a coalition of supporters that underpins an enduring political order when promises are kept, and instability or regime change when the bargain breaks down. We know that the relationship between autocrats and the societies they govern can undergo significant revision over time without ending in regime failure, yet we lack a vocabulary or theoretical toolkit to describe and analyze these changes beyond noting the “decay” of founding bargains or the bankruptcy of rentier states in resource busts. In particular, this obscures cases in which authoritarian rulers seem to actively reshape their base of support through transformative policies, in which “new policies create a new politics.” This paper proposes a theory of authoritarian coalition changes, arguing that shifting threat environments encourage policy appeals to garner support from new categories of citizens. Qualitative evidence from recent labor-policy shifts in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are used to test some aspects of this theory.

Author

• Andrew Leber, Harvard University