Civil Society and the Role of State-Administered Mass Associations in Autocracy

• In Event: Education, Civil Society, and Autocracy

Abstract

Authoritarian rulers systematically restrict civil society organizations and repress opposition movements as civic engagement can lead to an overthrow of the regime. At the same time, they found their own civil society organizations targeting particular groups of society. Examples for so-called state-administered mass organizations include women federations, youth leagues, and trade unions. Membership in these associations is mandatory or at least a prerequisite for a successful career in the state bureaucracy. However, we know relatively little about state-affiliated civil society under autocracy compared to independent civil society organizations. In this paper, we argue that such organizations serve three primary purposes: tying relevant social groups to the regime (co-optation), disseminating ideology (propaganda), building networks to organize local-level support (mobilization). To study state-administered mass organizations from a comparative perspective, we use new data on civic engagement in such organizations and pro-autocratic citizen mobilization from the Varieties of Democracy project (V10, 1900-2019; 182 polities). Empirically, we analyze the emergence of such organizations and their effect on contentious politics in authoritarian regimes. We compare the strength of what we call authoritarian civil society across authoritarian regime types and investigate how it matters for authoritarian persistence.

Authors

• Sebastian Hellmeier, WZB Berlin Social Science Center

• Anna Luehrmann, University of Gothenburg