The Autocratic Citizen: Political Socialization and Partisanship in Autocracies

• In Event: Public Opinion Under Autocracy

Abstract

Under what conditions do citizens of authoritarian regimes participate in politics, and why do some become active in the opposition while others actively support the regime? Most of the extant work on this question is theorized largely from the perspective of the regime; arguments focus on the role of regime tactics such as patronage, vote-buying, and repression in driving partisanship and vote choice. In contrast, this paper starts theoretically from the perspective of the citizen. Given an ordinary individual’s political, social, and economic experiences as a citizen of an autocratic state, what reasons would one have for participating in politics? The theory highlights the role of social networks, political socialization, and political geography in producing variation in partisanship. The paper uses original survey data from Cameroon in order to map the social and political networks of hundreds of ordinary citizens within an autocratic regime. The data is designed to visualize an individual’s social network and show how politically active citizens tend to have more relations who are also politically active, and how this is reliant upon political geography. It also reveals other ways in which ruling party, opposition, and nonpartisan networks differ (or not); for example in relation to socioeconomic status, ethnicity, network size and structure, reliance on patronage and exposure to electoral repression. I argue that links to opposition parties and the ruling party are built primarily through these social networks.

Author

• Natalie Wenzell Letsa, University of Oklahoma