Power-Sharing, Personalization, and Regime Stability Under Autocracy

Session Submission Type: Virtual Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel explores the power dynamics of the leader-elite relationship in autocracies and their consequences on regime survival and democratization. Successfully gaining control over ruling elites is crucial for leaders as an overwhelming majority of authoritarian leaders lose power through coups rather than through popular uprisings or civil wars. A large body of work has focused on how political institutions can stabilize power-sharing between a dictator and ruling elites. However, we do not know much about leaders’ strategies to repress and purge elites to gain control over them and how such methods would affect the regime’s ability to cope with threats posed by those outside the regime. With that in mind, this panel aims to improve our scholarly understanding of this issue by, first, examining dictators’ strategies to directly affect the composition of elites by appointing and purging individuals in key regime positions, and, second, by investigating how such strategies and leader’s control over elites would affect the regime’s ability to counter mass protests and survive longer.

First, Shen-Bayh and Choi examine the logic of judicial appointments and purges by focusing on patterns of selection and dismissal in an authoritarian judiciary. Using an original dataset of judicial turnover in postcolonial Kenya from 1963 through 1992, they illuminate how the politics of autocratic survival shape geographic and ethnic patterns in the make-up of the Kenyan judiciary. Second, Sudduth analyzes the dynamics of elite purges by differentiating whether the targets of the purges are military officers or civilian elites. Using original data on civilian and military purges from 1980-2010, she shows that whether dictators execute extensive purges of civilian elites crucially depends on whether they have purged enough strong military officers and, thus, the possibility of counter-coups is low enough. Third, Casey, Lachapelle, and Slater examine the factors that shape military loyalty to the dictatorship by focusing on authoritarian regimes arising from violent rebellions. In particular, they demonstrate that whether emerging rebel regimes gain control over their military depends on 1) whether a civilian front controls the creation of an armed wing before the war; 2) whether political leadership is located locally; and 3) whether political or military leadership presides over the transition from a guerrilla force to a conventional army after the war. Finally, Chin, Song, and Wright explore how security force personalization shapes the prospects for success of mass uprisings against dictatorships. They show that protesters are less likely to mount a major nonviolent uprising against dictatorships with personalized security forces because these dictatorships have mitigated the moral hazard issue among security agents and are more likely to repress the protest as the fate of security agents is tied closely to the dictator.

Sub Unit

• Division 44: Democracy and Autocracy

Individual Presentations

• The Logic of Judicial Appointments and Purges in Authoritarian Regimes - Fiona Shen-Bayh, William & Mary; Danny Choi, Brown University

• Timing and the Target of Elite Purges in Autocracies - Jun Koga Sudduth, University of Strathclyde

• Ruling After Rebelling: Civilian Supremacy and Authoritarian Durability - Adam E. Casey, University of Michigan; Jean Lachapelle, University of Oslo; Dan Slater, University of Michigan

• Personalization of Power and Mass Uprisings in Dictatorships - Joseph Wright, Pennsylvania State University; John Joseph Chin, Carnegie Mellon University; Wonjun Song, Seoul National University

Chair

• Anne Meng University of Virginia

Discussants

• Arturas Rozenas New York University

• Anne Meng University of Virginia