Autocratic Decision-Making

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

While authoritarian leaders have the privilege of being largely insulated from power-sharing procedures and accountability, they do not operate in a vacuum. With each decision, an incumbent must calculate the ensuing costs and benefits to their legitimacy and durability. The papers of this panel explore and model four such decisions. In the first paper, authors Curtis Bell, Clayton Besaw, Jonathan Powell, and Jun Sudduth unpack the trade-off between the political rewards of early or cancelled elections and coup attempts. In the second paper, Colleen Wood and Alexis Lerner ask if there are patterns that predict when an autocrat will repress or co-opt their political opposition, using formal models and an original dataset of federal-level elections in the post-Soviet region. In the third paper, Ae Sil Woo examines the assumption that legislative power-sharing helps to reduce political threat to an incumbent, and considers its consequence of policy-related concessions. By weighing the actors, interests, and resources that impact each of these decisions, the scholars of this panel demonstrate that authoritarian decision-making is not just rational, but often cautious and calculated, with the goal of protecting an incumbent’s job security.

This panel brings together scholars from varied stages of their careers (PhD candidates, independent researchers, junior faculty, and senior faculty) and from all over the world—from Australia and the United Kingdom to Canada and the United States. The panel varies widely in its cases—from post-Soviet and African autocrats to large-N, global studies—, as well as in its methods, with papers that utilize qualitative tools, quantitative methods, and formal models. The chair, Larry Diamond, and the discussant, Lee Morganbesser, are both highly respected scholars of comparative democratization and authoritarianism. Dr. Morganbesser will serve as an excellent discussant, per his wide breadth of knowledge on authoritarianism across cases.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 44: Comparative Democratization

Chair

• Larry Diamond Stanford University

Discussant

• Lee Morgenbesser Griffith University

Individual Presentations

• Designing the Rules of the Game: Legislative Procedures in Authoritarian States - Ae sil Woo, University of California, Merced

• The Calculus of Dissent Management in Authoritarian States - Alexis Monique Lerner, The University of Toronto; Colleen Wood, Columbia University

• When Do Election Announcements Trigger Coup Attempts? - Clayton Besaw, University of Central Florida; Jun Koga Sudduth, University of Strathclyde; Curtis Bell, University of Tennessee at Knoxville; Jonathan M. Powell, University of Central Florida