Watching the Watchers: Elite Cohesion, Coercive Capacity and Social Order

• In Event: Surveillance, Repression, and Technology in Autocratic Politics

Abstract

Of all the implements in the dictator’s toolkit, the use of coercion and violence is the most distinctive and malign. However, it is also one of the least-studied aspects of authoritarian politics. In this project, I develop a new theory of delegation to, and control of, authoritarian coercive institutions. I test this theory using original cross-national data from six communist regimes in Cold War Europe. Autocrats enter a Faustian pact when delegating the detection and elimination of political opposition to coercive subordinates. Although indispensable, they are inherently threatening to the dictator because they could turn their coercive capacity against their superiors. Authoritarian ruling coalitions must therefore collectively monitor coercive agents and punish insubordination. Elite cohesion is the ability of ruling coalitions to cooperate to monitor and control the actors in charge of their secret police. Cohesive authoritarian elites grant coercive agents greater coercive capacity. Where post-Stalinist transitions after 1953 caused breakdowns in communist elite cohesion, collective oversight and punishment of coercive agents was compromised, the secret police could not be easily controlled, and insubordination could not be deterred. Post-Stalinist regimes significantly reduced the coercive capacity granted to their secret police. Where Stalinists remained in office and elite cohesion persisted, however, they continued to deter insubordination and delegate considerable capacity to their coercive institutions. I test this theory using detailed, original empirical data on Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania from 1945-1989. I show that the tenure of secret police chiefs was shorter, and the number of secret informants and full-time officers employed by the secret police agencies was lower under post-Stalinist regimes.

Author

• Henry Thomson, Arizona State University