The Power of Elections in Autocracies: Stabilising or Democratising Authoritarian Rule?
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sussex
Department Name: Sch of Law, Politics and Sociology
Abstract
Elections in autocracies are a particularly puzzling phenomenon: Why would an autocratic regime hold regular elections - a process that is usually considered a cornerstone of democracy? And why, given the opportunity, do voters not simply vote the autocratic regime out of power?
Seen from a historical perspective, cases of authoritarian regimes holding elections are not new. For example, dictators in Malaysia, Singapore or South Korea held elections as early as in the 1960s. However, there is consensus among scholars that the number of these regimes has greatly increased over the past two decades, as about 60 per cent of all non-democratic regimes now conduct regular elections (Croissant and Lueders 2012).
This trend has sparked great interest among political scientists. In particular, two bodies of literature have focused their attention on the 'power of elections' under authoritarian rule: the 'new institutionalism' in the study of authoritarianism and the democratisation literature. However, the two bodies of literature come to contradicting conclusions: The authoritarianism literature argues that elections are just another weapon in the dictator's arsenal and will further consolidate the authoritarian hold on power. The democratisation literature, on the other hand, argues that elections can facilitate regime change - either through the mechanism of 'creeping democratisation' or through 'liberalising election outcomes' (Howard and Roessler 2006).
One possible explanation for these contradicting conclusions is that both strains of literature derive much of the empirical evidence from highly biased case samples. While the 'democratisation through elections' literature looks primarily at Sub-Sahara Africa (Lindberg 2006; Wahman 2012), the 'authoritarian resilience' literature has mostly focused on cases in Eastern Europe and - to some extent - the Middle East (e.g. Lust-Okar 2006). Other regions, such as Latin America and - in particular - Pacific Asia, have been mostly neglected.
Outside of academia, organisations working in the area of democracy promotion have been troubled by similar questions: When do elections threaten authoritarian rule and, when do they contribute to the reproduction of non-democratic governance? In other words, these organisations struggle to decide in which cases supporting the electoral process will lead to democratisation and in which cases programmes of democracy promotion run the risk of provoking the opposite - that is, helping the autocratic regime to consolidate its power.
The proposed seminar series aims to provide, for the first time, a platform to discuss the role and impact of elections under authoritarianism from the four perspectives just described: (1) area studies, (2) democratisation studies, (3) authoritarianism studies, and (4) the practitioner's point of view.
So far, these four groups have been working on the same question - Do elections democratise or consolidate autocratic rule? - but have largely done so in isolation within their own disciplines and professions. The proposed seminar series offers a unique opportunity to considerably further our understanding of the phenomenon of 'electoral authoritarianism' by organising a joint forum to ~
- integrate single case studies - produced by area-studies experts and practitioners - into an international, multilateral network that allows to compare findings in a systematic and sustained programme.
- discuss methodological issues in the study of electoral authoritarianism and provide recommendations for future research.
- translate research findings into a strategic framework to guide practical work in the field of democracy promotion.
Seen from a historical perspective, cases of authoritarian regimes holding elections are not new. For example, dictators in Malaysia, Singapore or South Korea held elections as early as in the 1960s. However, there is consensus among scholars that the number of these regimes has greatly increased over the past two decades, as about 60 per cent of all non-democratic regimes now conduct regular elections (Croissant and Lueders 2012).
This trend has sparked great interest among political scientists. In particular, two bodies of literature have focused their attention on the 'power of elections' under authoritarian rule: the 'new institutionalism' in the study of authoritarianism and the democratisation literature. However, the two bodies of literature come to contradicting conclusions: The authoritarianism literature argues that elections are just another weapon in the dictator's arsenal and will further consolidate the authoritarian hold on power. The democratisation literature, on the other hand, argues that elections can facilitate regime change - either through the mechanism of 'creeping democratisation' or through 'liberalising election outcomes' (Howard and Roessler 2006).
One possible explanation for these contradicting conclusions is that both strains of literature derive much of the empirical evidence from highly biased case samples. While the 'democratisation through elections' literature looks primarily at Sub-Sahara Africa (Lindberg 2006; Wahman 2012), the 'authoritarian resilience' literature has mostly focused on cases in Eastern Europe and - to some extent - the Middle East (e.g. Lust-Okar 2006). Other regions, such as Latin America and - in particular - Pacific Asia, have been mostly neglected.
Outside of academia, organisations working in the area of democracy promotion have been troubled by similar questions: When do elections threaten authoritarian rule and, when do they contribute to the reproduction of non-democratic governance? In other words, these organisations struggle to decide in which cases supporting the electoral process will lead to democratisation and in which cases programmes of democracy promotion run the risk of provoking the opposite - that is, helping the autocratic regime to consolidate its power.
The proposed seminar series aims to provide, for the first time, a platform to discuss the role and impact of elections under authoritarianism from the four perspectives just described: (1) area studies, (2) democratisation studies, (3) authoritarianism studies, and (4) the practitioner's point of view.
So far, these four groups have been working on the same question - Do elections democratise or consolidate autocratic rule? - but have largely done so in isolation within their own disciplines and professions. The proposed seminar series offers a unique opportunity to considerably further our understanding of the phenomenon of 'electoral authoritarianism' by organising a joint forum to ~
- integrate single case studies - produced by area-studies experts and practitioners - into an international, multilateral network that allows to compare findings in a systematic and sustained programme.
- discuss methodological issues in the study of electoral authoritarianism and provide recommendations for future research.
- translate research findings into a strategic framework to guide practical work in the field of democracy promotion.
Planned Impact
The potential impact of the proposed seminar series is not restricted to academic research, but the workshops will also generate policy-relevant conclusions concerning the effects of elections on the persistence of authoritarian rule. Hence the likely beneficiaries of the proposed seminar series not only include the scholarly community but also governments and NGOs, both nationally and internationally, working in the field of democracy promotion.
Democracy assistance is a growth industry. According to World Bank data the total amount spent on democracy promotion increased tenfold between 1991 and 2000 - from 0.5 to 5.0% of developmental aid - and the number of institutions involved in such aid has multiplied as well. Several bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, foundations and institutions have developed a strong interest in the promotion of democracy and good governance. The US government, in 2011, increased the annual 'governance and democracy' funding by 10%, from US$ 204.3 million to 225.7 million (Patterson 2012). In many EU countries, spending on democracy promotion has also increased in recent years (Youngs 2008).
While the menu of strategies, instruments and measures to promote democracy has considerably diversified in the past two decades, promoting elections remains the central cornerstone of democracy promotion for most agencies. For example, the UK government - through the Department for International Development (DFID) - has committed itself to supporting 13 countries to hold freer and fairer elections by 2015.
Academic members of the core seminar team have - through previous projects - established close links with many of relevant organisations, including International IDEA, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the German political foundations (such as the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, FES). What is more, the Durham Global Security Institute maintains close links with relevant UK government departments and NGOs.
In addition, the core group also includes Mette Bakken - an Electoral Assistance Specialist at the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES) - who, through her job, maintains excellent relationships with the industry.
In the early design stage of the proposed seminar series, a number of relevant organisations were consulted on a regular basis (including, for example, FES and ECES). These consultations revealed that the main issue in the field of democracy promotion is the persistent uncertainty over whether implemented strategies are working or not. Organisations lack both a systematic framework to evaluate the effectiveness of programmes and, because programmes are usually developed and managed locally, cross-nationally comparable data to guide strategy adjustments.
Over the medium-long term, it is thus expected that the proposed seminar series will be able to deliver the following benefits to the different parties identified:
- Enhanced capacity to develop evaluation frameworks for current and projected programmes by: (a) increasing knowledge about the methodological challenges in assessing the effectiveness of democracy promotion efforts; (b) providing new understanding of theoretical work on electoral authoritarianism; and (c) providing assistance in translating methodological and theoretical scholarship into practical diagnostic tools and applications.
- Contributing to effective policy and investment decisions on democracy promotion: The seminars encourage co-produced research that furthers our understanding as of when democracy promotion under electoral authoritarianism has a democratising effect and when it will have the unintended effect of stabilising autocratic rule.
- Establishing a sustainable network for knowledge exchange between researchers and non-academic stakeholders that can be used to assess the effect of future policy interventions and assist in adjusting strategic frameworks.
Democracy assistance is a growth industry. According to World Bank data the total amount spent on democracy promotion increased tenfold between 1991 and 2000 - from 0.5 to 5.0% of developmental aid - and the number of institutions involved in such aid has multiplied as well. Several bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, foundations and institutions have developed a strong interest in the promotion of democracy and good governance. The US government, in 2011, increased the annual 'governance and democracy' funding by 10%, from US$ 204.3 million to 225.7 million (Patterson 2012). In many EU countries, spending on democracy promotion has also increased in recent years (Youngs 2008).
While the menu of strategies, instruments and measures to promote democracy has considerably diversified in the past two decades, promoting elections remains the central cornerstone of democracy promotion for most agencies. For example, the UK government - through the Department for International Development (DFID) - has committed itself to supporting 13 countries to hold freer and fairer elections by 2015.
Academic members of the core seminar team have - through previous projects - established close links with many of relevant organisations, including International IDEA, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and the German political foundations (such as the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, FES). What is more, the Durham Global Security Institute maintains close links with relevant UK government departments and NGOs.
In addition, the core group also includes Mette Bakken - an Electoral Assistance Specialist at the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES) - who, through her job, maintains excellent relationships with the industry.
In the early design stage of the proposed seminar series, a number of relevant organisations were consulted on a regular basis (including, for example, FES and ECES). These consultations revealed that the main issue in the field of democracy promotion is the persistent uncertainty over whether implemented strategies are working or not. Organisations lack both a systematic framework to evaluate the effectiveness of programmes and, because programmes are usually developed and managed locally, cross-nationally comparable data to guide strategy adjustments.
Over the medium-long term, it is thus expected that the proposed seminar series will be able to deliver the following benefits to the different parties identified:
- Enhanced capacity to develop evaluation frameworks for current and projected programmes by: (a) increasing knowledge about the methodological challenges in assessing the effectiveness of democracy promotion efforts; (b) providing new understanding of theoretical work on electoral authoritarianism; and (c) providing assistance in translating methodological and theoretical scholarship into practical diagnostic tools and applications.
- Contributing to effective policy and investment decisions on democracy promotion: The seminars encourage co-produced research that furthers our understanding as of when democracy promotion under electoral authoritarianism has a democratising effect and when it will have the unintended effect of stabilising autocratic rule.
- Establishing a sustainable network for knowledge exchange between researchers and non-academic stakeholders that can be used to assess the effect of future policy interventions and assist in adjusting strategic frameworks.
Publications
Croissant, A.
(2018)
State Capacity, Elections and the Resilience of Authoritarian Rule
| Description | The main objective of this ESRC Research Seminar series was to further our understanding of "electoral authoritarian" regimes - that is, authoritarian regimes holding regular elections. Specifically, the Seminar series aimed to address the following question: Do repeated elections under authoritarian rule facilitate democratisation or do elections help dictators cling to power? The existing academic literature on electoral authoritarianism had largely failed to give satisfactory answers to these questions - for mainly two reasons. First, existing work has been dominated by statistical analyses and thus suffers from a number of methodological weaknesses, such as problems of endogeneity or the difficulty to establish causal mechanisms. Second, the literature can be criticised for case selection bias, as it mainly focuses on cases of electoral authoritarianism in Sub-Sahara Africa and post-Communist Europe, while neglecting cases - both contemporary and historical - in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East or, in particular, East Asia. The Seminar series addressed these weaknesses in the existing literature through a number of workshops that brought together quantitative and qualitative perspectives on electoral authoritarianism, and by bringing regional studies experts into the general debate on electoral authoritarianism. Specifically, workshops came to focus on the role of the state as an intervening factor that may influence the effect of elections on authoritarian regime stability. The Seminar series generated significant new knowledge in this direction, highlighting how the stabilising (or destabilising) effect of elections hinges on properties of the state. Findings have been published in a special issue of the International Political Science Review in early 2018 and we currently have a proposal for an edited volume under review at Cambridge University Press. Moreover, based on these findings, the Seminar series also opened up important new research questions. Most significantly, breaking with the long tradition in political science to generate new knowledge through cross-country comparison at the national level, the final workshop in January 2016 focused on the sub-national level (i.e. within-country comparison), exploring how processes of democratisation and state building may unfold unevenly across a given territory. Specifically, the workshop stressed the importance of interdisciplinary research to develop methodological tools and analytical frameworks to study these uneven processes. Finally, the Seminar series laid the foundation for new international research networks by facilitating knowledge exchange across different disciplines. Participants were drawn from different career stages, with a particular focus on giving early-career researchers and postgraduate research students the opportunity to join the academic debate on electoral authoritarianism. |
| Exploitation Route | Given the uncertain effect of elections on the stability of authoritarian rule, organisations working on democracy promotion are faced with complex strategic challenges. In particular, when will investments in supporting electoral processes yield positive results and under what circumstances are they likely to achieve the opposite effect - that is, help consolidate autocratic rule? Over the medium-long term, we expect that the findings generated through the Seminar series will contribute to effective policy and investment decisions on democracy promotion. Specifically, the findings have the potential to help organisations working in the field of democracy promotion to develop strategic frameworks that provide clearer guidance on the likely effect of democracy promotion programmes. Most importantly, the Seminar series has stressed the institutional properties of the state as a factor that needs to be taken into consideration when designing democracy promotion programmes. |
| Sectors | Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy |
| Description | One of the main starting points for this Research Seminar series was the observation that organisations working on democracy promotion have difficulties deciding under what circumstances their programmes will have liberalising effects on authoritarian regimes and under what circumstances they are likely to achieve the opposite effect - that is, stabilise authoritarian rule. To jointly work towards a better understanding of the contextual factors that affect the effectiveness of democracy promotion programmes, we engaged with relevant stakeholders from the very early stages of the Research Seminar series, giving them an opportunity to shape the content and direction of the series. Workshops were attended by a broad range of organisations, such as the Department for International Development, the OSCE, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, International IDEA, and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The most obvious impact of the Research Seminar series is thus the establishment of collaborative network that links scholars working on questions of democratisation to organisations working in the field of democracy promotion. We continue to use these network links to explore opportunities for joint research projects. Second, through informal feedback we know that non-academic stakeholders found the workshops very useful in terms of informing their own internal discussions about strategy and policy. We maintain contact to organisations that participated in the Research Seminar series to monitor whether strategic changes can be linked back to workshop debates. Third, we published the key findings of the third workshop as a special issue with the International Political Science Review in January 2018. We subsequently circulated an executive summary of the special issue among relevant non-academic stakeholders and requested feedback on whether our findings informed policy changes within the respective organisations. So far, we have no evidence for such a link. However, we maintain open lines of communication with relevant organisations to keep informed of policy developments. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Workshop on democracy assistance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Organised one-day workshop that was attended by representatives from various democracy assistance organisations. Workshop consisted of individual presentations and a concluding roundtable discussion. Exchange of emails with workshop participants after the workshop, who expressed an interest in further activities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
| URL | http://thepowerofelections.net/2014/05/06/first-workshop-strategic-issues-in-democracy-promotion/ |