Sources of Popular Support for Authoritarian Regimes

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Most dictators rely on some level of popular support to prevent restiveness and maintain power. How do autocrats persuade citizens to support their rule? Existing literature on authoritarian regimes has focused primarily on autocrats’ use of coercive power to intimidate their citizens, or on their distribution of material rewards to incentivize loyalty. While these mechanisms certainly matter for authoritarian persistence, scholars have increasingly recognized the need to understand how authoritarian regimes also maintain support by leveraging ideology and manipulating political beliefs. This panel includes four papers about a diverse set of autocracies that demonstrate different strategies by which autocrats convince people to support their rule. The first paper shows how Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile used censorship primarily to reward ideological conservatives by blocking violent or sexual content, rather than as a tool of repression. The second paper discusses labor policy in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to illustrate a theory of authoritarian policy change as a tool for reshaping a regime’s coalition of support. The third paper implements a survey experiment to study the Chinese Communist Party’s use of advertising in foreign media to bolster their international reputation. And finally, the fourth paper demonstrates that Jordan’s monarchy has successfully shifted blame for poor performance away from the king by delegating policy making responsibility to the cabinet and parliament. Given the decline of democracy and the resurgence of authoritarianism around the world, it has become ever more important for scholars to understand how authoritarian regimes use strategies such as these to acquire popular support both at home and abroad.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 44: Comparative Democratization

Individual Presentations

• Pop Culture Censorship and Authoritarian Stability - Jane Esberg, Princeton University

• Policy Appeals and Coalition Change under Authoritarianism - Andrew Leber, Harvard University

• Soft Propaganda, Misinformed Citizens, and Source Credibility - Yaoyao Dai, New York University Abu Dhabi; Luwei Rose Luqiu

• The King Can Do No Wrong: Delegation and Blame Avoidance in Jordan - Scott Williamson, Stanford University

Chair

• Rory Truex Princeton University

Discussant

• Michael K. Miller George Washington University