Trajectories of Authoritarian Consolidation

• In Event: Authoritarian Elites and Survival

Abstract

What are the growing signs of personalism and consolidation in authoritarian regimes? Extant efforts to categorize personalist regimes often do so ex post, rather than ex ante, hence there is limited understanding for what the pathways to personalism are. This paper proposes a method for predicting the emergence of personalist regimes, using the strategies employed by leaders to map out what trajectories of consolidation look like: the actions of consolidation that dictators take can be organized by the degree to which they disrupt the balance of power between the leader and the elite coalition. I show evidence that though personalism is believed to be an absorbing state, the 'path' or strategies that leaders take to consolidate power matters for the eventual durability of the personalist regime. Counterbalancing measures are more effective than purges in consolidating a personalist regime.

Author

• Gloria Cheung, Duke University