Theorizing Ethno-autocracy: Comparative Analysis of Ethnic Repression and Survival of Authoritarianism in Deeply Divided Societies

• In Event: The Authoritarian Playbook: Tactics Across Time and Regime Type

Abstract

Under what conditions do multiethnic authoritarian regimes turn to ethnic repression as a central component of authoritarian survival? When do they employ highly repressive forms of ethnic exclusion leading to genocidal conditions? This study will attempt to explore these puzzles, focusing on the violent forms of ethnic repression under authoritarian regimes in deeply divided societies. Existing scholarship posits that the variety of each state’s political-economic system shapes its preference for repressive behavior while others show how elites’ rational choice and cost-benefit calculus turn them to repressive actions. Most authors, however, underscore the deeper historical and sociological logic of using high ethnic repression that leaves a gap to be addressed. Against this backdrop, the present study will investigate the causal roots of ethnic repression under authoritarianism, proposing an alternative theoretical explanation for authoritarian survival and its strategy of ethnic repression. Drawing principally on scholarly secondary sources, this study develops comparative case studies of ethnic repression under authoritarian regimes in Myanmar, Sudan, Rwanda, and China. The central argument of the paper is that autocrats use the issue of ethnic grievance rooted in colonial legacies of divide-and-rule strategy to conduct repressive ethnic exclusion. They seize upon incidents of ethnic insurgency to justify their repressive actions. Their aim is to increase popular support and legitimacy among the ethnic majority and to establish a single dominant ideology and/or religion. Thus, autocrats prolong their survival in power.

Author

• Mst Tahmina Tahmina Akter, University of Connecticut