Elections without Effects? Autocratic Elections and Government Composition

• In Event: The Dynamics of Elections in Autocracies

Abstract

According to conventional wisdom, elections in autocracies enable credible power-sharing arrangements and lasting cooptation into the regime by constraining dictators and regulating access to government. Yet, prior research has not empirically investigated this for access to the highest level of government – the cabinet. Using individual-level data on cabinet members across the world in the period 1966-2021, this article - the first to empirically study how elections shape access to cabinet - shows that the conventional wisdom overstates the importance of autocratic elections. Compared to closed autocracies, electoral autocracies do not exhibit lower rates of minister purging or reshuffling, indicating that elections do not effectively constrain dictators’ discretion over cabinet appointments. However, while not affecting overall rates of cabinet purges, elections strongly affect their timing. In electoral autocracies, incumbents rarely purge ministers between elections but instead concentrate cabinet purges in the periods before and after elections. Thus, while not increasing strong restraints on the incumbent’s capacity to select and purge ministers at will, elections impose real limits on the timing of minister purges.

Author

• Jonas Willibald Schmid, Stockholm University