New Perspectives on Authoritarian Survival Strategies

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The existing literature on authoritarianism has provided valuable insights into the causal complexity of authoritarian durability. Scholars have shown that autocratic rulers utilize a myriad of different techniques, ranging from cooptation and repression to redistribution and legitimation, to maintain their rule. This panel provides fresh perspectives on autocratic survival strategies to further unpack the “many faces of authoritarian persistence.” Contributors utilize different methodological approaches (1) to reveal how, contrary to scholarly expectations, financial liberalization and repression generate support, rather than discontent, for autocratic practices and (2) to illuminate new mechanisms behind the prolonged authoritarian rule—such as cultural/political identification with an authoritarian regime and religious education. As such, the collection of papers in this panel both uncovers new dynamics shaping autocratic rulers’ prospects and invites scholars to reconsider the mechanisms that are associated with authoritarian endurance and collapse.

Sub Unit

• Division 44: Democracy and Autocracy

Individual Presentations

• Repression and Support for Authoritarian Rule - Jean Lachapelle, Université de Montréal

• Financial Liberalization and Autocratic Survival: The Role of Commercial Banks - Ibrahim Oker, Union College

• Micro-Dynamics of Prolonged Authoritarian Populism - Basak Gemici, University of Michigan

Chair

• Thalia Gerzso University of York

Discussant

• Margaret Hanson Arizona State University