"Authoritarian regimes have existed for hundreds of years, as the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, the Emperors of Rome, and the absolute monarchs of Europe exemplify. Yet, today’s authoritarian regimes have evolved considerably since their predecessors governed many centuries ago. So, what is an authoritarian regime?" the Moon asked a question after saying Basmalah and Salaam.
"And one night, my light focused on a forest, and it was reported that an old Lion, whose teeth and claws were so worn that it was not so easy for him to get food as in his younger days, pretended that he was sick. He announced he was sick and summoned the animals to come and hear his last Will and Testament. The Goat came to the Lion’s cave, stopped there and listened for a long time. Then a Sheep went in, and before she came out, a Calf came up to receive the last wishes of the King of the Beasts.
Many accordingly went in, but it was observed that the Fox very carefully kept away. The Lion noticed his absence, and sent one of his Jackals to express a hope that he would show he was not insensible to motives of respect and charity, by coming and paying his duty like the rest. The Fox told the Jackal to offer his sincerest reverence to his master, and to say that he had more than once been on the point of coming to see him, but he had in truth observed that all the foot-prints at the mouth of the cave pointed inwards, and none outwards, and not being able to explain that fact to his satisfaction, he had taken the liberty of stopping away.
Hearing this, the Lion rushed out to the mouth of his cave. He saw the Fox, who had been waiting outside for some time. 'Why do you not come to pay your respects to me?' said the Lion to the Fox. 'I beg your Majesty’s pardon,' said the Fox, 'before I enter, will Your Majesty hear what I'm going to to say?'
'Of course, I'm a good listener!' said the lion. The Fox said, 'In the human realm, there are a number of ways that scholars define an authoritarian regime. A regime is the 'set of basic formal and informal rules that determine who influences the choice of leaders—including rules that identify the group from which leaders can be selected—and policies.' A regime is authoritarian if the executive achieved power through undemocratic means, that is, any means besides direct relatively free and fair elections (e.g., Cuba under the Castro brothers); or if the executive achieved power via free and fair elections, but later changed the rules such that subsequent electoral competition (whether legislative or executive) was limited. In other words, in the operational definition of an authoritarian regime, the distinguishing factor separating authoritarian regimes from democratic ones is whether government selection occurs via free and fair elections.
This definition is minimalist. It does not integrate human rights violations or repressive acts, unless they pertain to the ability of the opposition to have a reasonable shot of competing in the electoral process. It says nothing about levels of wealth, economic openness, political stability, or state capacity. This definition is consistent, however, with the bulk of mainstream research on authoritarian politics, where democracies are regimes in which 'those who govern are selected through contested elections' and authoritarian regimes are 'not democracies.'
Under this definition of an authoritarian regime, multiple leaders may come and go within the same authoritarian regime. China under the Chinese Communist Party exemplifies this well, as does Nicaragua under the Somoza family. At the same time, multiple authoritarian regimes may come and go within the same authoritarian spell (or span of years). The experience of Cuba illustrates this. Cuba has been authoritarian since 1952, but two distinct authoritarian regimes have led it during this time period: the first under Batista (in power from 1952 to 1959) and the second under Castro and later his brother (in power from 1959 to the present).
Early authoritarian regimes typically featured monarchs and chiefs as the sole individuals with power; concentration of authority was the norm and there were few efforts to pretend otherwise. The goal was to demonstrate complete control, not hide it. Today’s authoritarian regimes, by comparison, exhibit a fuller range of behaviors. In some power is highly concentrated in the hands of a single individual, while in others it is dispersed across an elite leadership group. Even in those instances in which there is one-man rule, today’s authoritarian regimes often go to great lengths to conceal that they are authoritarian. For example, though Jordan and Qatar today are monarchic dictatorships that use hereditary succession procedures for determining leadership, unlike the monarchic dictatorships of the past, they feature institutions that we typically associate with democracies, such as legislatures and elections.
Though in the past, scholars made clear distinctions between the terms 'authoritarian regime,' 'dictatorship,' and 'autocracy,' contemporary research increasingly use them interchangeably.
It is common to associate regularly held multiparty elections with democracy. After all, the defining feature of democracy is free and fair electoral competition. Not all electoral competition meets these requirements, however; simply holding a multiparty election by no means guarantees that the contest will be free and fair. A free election is one in which most of the adult population can vote; a fair election is one in which multiple parties are able to participate and compete on a relatively even playing field absent widespread fraud. If a government bars a certain sector of the population from voting, such as a specific ethnic group, the election is not democratic. Likewise, if a government bans a major political party from competing, jails its leaders, or stuffs the ballot box to ensure its own victory, the election is not democratic. This means that it is very possible for multiparty elections to fall short of standards of freeness and fairness, and consequently very possible to have multiparty electoral contests occur in authoritarian contexts.
A multiparty election, therefore, tells us little regarding whether a country’s political system is authoritarian or democratic. To make such an assessment requires many more details regarding the nature of the electoral race, as well as government behaviors leading up to and after it. For example, an election may appear competitive on election day, but conceal unfair activities that occurred prior, such as the incumbent prohibiting opposition parties from accessing the media.
Likewise, incumbents may lose a competitive election, yet opt to annul the results and stay in office. Put simply, multiparty electoral competition does not imply democratic rule.
In fact, most contemporary dictatorships feature institutions that mimic democracy, such as elections with multiple political parties. Though such institutions are a defining feature of 'hybrid,' 'gray-zone,' 'electoral authoritarian,' and 'competitive authoritarian' regimes, they are actually not unique to this subset of authoritarian systems. In modern dictatorships, it is common to see multiparty elections that occur on a regular basis.
Most scholars agree that authoritarian regimes incorporate pseudo democratic institutions for survival purposes. Though the logic explained for this varies, the evidence suggests that dictatorships with multiple political parties, legislatures, regular elections, and so forth last longer in power than those without them.
In conjunction with their survival benefits, post‒Cold War geopolitical dynamics have also incentivized authoritarian regimes to adopt pseudo-democratic institutions. In 1970, for example, 59 percent of all dictatorships held regular elections with multiple political parties. As of 2008, 83 percent of all dictatorships do. This indicates that the vast majority of today’s dictatorships feature multiparty electoral competition."
The Lion inquired, 'Who are the key actors in Authoritarian Regimes?' The Fox replied, 'Politics in authoritarian regimes, typically centers on the interactions of three actors: the leader, elites, and the masses. The leader is the individual in charge of the regime. The leader cannot maintain this position, however, without the support of others. In dictatorships, the individuals whose support the leader requires to stay in power are known as elites (often referred to in the collective as an elite coalition, support group, leadership group, or winning coalition). The term 'elite' can mean many things, but in this context it refers specifically to an individual who is part of the leader’s support group. The leader’s tenure is contingent on the backing of this group. The exact number of elites needed for a leader to maintain power is unknown; it likely varies from one environment to the next. The masses are the ordinary citizens living in an authoritarian regime, at least some of whose support the regime requires to stay afloat. As with elites, precisely how many citizens whose support a dictatorship needs to maintain power is unknown and likely conditional on circumstances. In democracies, formal rules stipulate the powers delegated to major political actors and how these actors are selected and deposed. Importantly, these rules are usually followed in practice. As a result, it is typically fairly easy to identify who key political actors are as well as whose support they need to maintain power. The process of removing key political actors from power is generally clearly spelled out, giving observers insight into how one would play out.
In dictatorships, by contrast, basic features of the political system such as these are often unclear. Informal politics is the norm. Formal rules usually exist, but they often do not guide behaviors in practice. Many major decisions are made behind closed doors, making it difficult to recognize who key political actors are, precisely whose support they need to maintain their positions, and the protocols that are followed to select or remove them.
While identifying who the masses are is straightforward in dictatorships, identifying who elites are often amounts to a guessing game. Observers usually have a sense of the nature of the broader group from which elites are drawn (such as a specific political party or branch of the military) but know considerably less about precisely who these individuals are and how much influence they hold. Even identifying who the leader is can be challenging in dictatorships.
The nature of authoritarian rule can obscure lines of authority, so much that it can be difficult to identify basic things we would like to know about an authoritarian regime. Though we know that the leader, elites, and the masses are the three central actors in dictatorships in theory, we often do not know the identity of elites and even the leader in practice.
The Lion inquired, 'What are the Major Goals of these actors?' The Fox replied, 'Leaders and elites in dictatorships want power and influence, just as they do in democracies. They are therefore engaged in a constant struggle for power, with each vying for greater political influence than the other. Not only do elites compete with the dictator, but they also compete with one another. Amid this cutthroat environment, leaders and elites have to secure and maintain the support of key segments of the masses, while ensuring that those who oppose them have not reached a critical size. What the masses want is more complicated, though it often boils down to the basics, such as whether they are better off today than they were yesterday.
The central motivation of authoritarian leaders is to stay in office. They resort to a variety of tactics to do so, including annulling elections, extending presidential term limits, and sidelining those who could seriously challenge them. Unlike democratic leaders, whose positions are protected by formal rules that make removing them before their time is up difficult, authoritarian leaders face a constant threat of overthrow, at the hands of both the elites and the masses.
Authoritarian leaders usually assess that the most imminent threat to their rule comes from elites. The group whose support they require to stay in office is, ironically, also the group they must fear most. After all, the main goal of elites is to maximize power. Elites vie with one another for the most political influence, while also scheming to find ways that they themselves could secure the leadership. For this reason, the elite coalition poses a serious threat to the tenures of leaders. Indeed, the vast majority of dictators have been toppled by internal coups as opposed to popular uprisings. As Winston Churchill said many years ago, 'Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount.'
Elites are the main political rivals of dictators and, consequently, the main source of their insecurities. Leaders engage in a variety of tactics to mitigate the threat elites pose to their rule.
Mass-led overthrows of authoritarian leaders have historically been far less common than elite-driven ousters. For this reason, leaders tend to prioritize minimizing the likelihood elites will overthrow them. Yet, mass uprisings are not unheard of, as the wave of revolutions during the Arab Spring in 2011 illustrates. Authoritarian leaders therefore cannot afford to totally ignore mass sentiments. Because mass-led overthrows of leaders usually take entire regimes down with them, elites cannot afford to ignore the masses either.
The goals of the masses are often diverse, but they typically center on basic needs, such as the desire for mouths to be fed, roofs to sleep under, and security. This is not to say that mass audiences in authoritarian regimes do not long for greater political rights, but simply that economic concerns often trump all others.
When assessing how to attract the support of mass audiences, leaders and elites are strategic. They do not need all members of the citizenry to like what they are doing, just key sectors. There will always be citizens who oppose them. Authoritarian regimes have a variety of tools at their disposal to silence and sideline such individuals, as well as substantial resources to do so.
This is a brief and generalized summary of the goals of the major actors in authoritarian regimes. Not all authoritarian regimes will fit this mold, but it is a reasonably accurate portrayal of broad political dynamics in many of them.
The Lion inquired, 'What is the difference between an Authoritarian Leader and an Authoritarian Regime?' The Fox replied, 'An authoritarian leader is the individual at the helm of the authoritarian regime. An authoritarian regime is a broader concept. It consists of the basic rules (whether formal and informal) that control leadership choice and policies. Sometimes, the leader and regime are indistinguishable, such as in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. But other times multiple leaders come and go during the lifetime of a single regime, such as in the Soviet Union.
It is important to differentiate authoritarian leaders from authoritarian regimes for two reasons. First, assuming that authoritarian leaders are synonymous with the regimes they rule masks the enormous variation that exists in the nature of leader‒elite relations in dictatorships. Though in some contexts the locus of power in the authoritarian regime is firmly in the hands of the leader, such as in Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko, in others leaders must share power with other members of the leadership group. In Vietnam, for example, General Secretary of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong exerts substantial influence over key choices, but members of the politburo still retain influence. To be clear, leaders nearly always wield disproportionately more power than elites do, but in some authoritarian environments this is more lopsided than in others. A focus on authoritarian leadership that ignores the broader concept of the authoritarian regime will miss these key variations.
Second, and in a somewhat similar vein, authoritarian regimes often last much longer than the tenure of any single leader. Despite this, observers often assume that the fall of the leader implies the fall of the regime. To be fair, there are a number of vivid examples that come to mind of a leader’s ouster ushering in a fundamental change of regime. In Iran, widespread protests in 1979 led to the Shah’s ouster. A group of Muslim clerics assumed control afterward, bringing to power a radically different group of elites and rules and norms for selecting leaders and policies. In Romania in 1989, security forces executed then-leader Nicolae Ceausescu, following weeks of unrest. This paved the way for democratic elections held the following year. In the first instance the leader’s overthrow led to the establishment of a new authoritarian regime, while in the latter it led to democratization.
Despite these famous cases, only half of all authoritarian leadership transitions result in authoritarian regime change. The rest of the time, the leader leaves power but the regime remains intact. In Myanmar, for example, the military ousted General Saw Maung in 1992. General Than Shwe, also a military officer and member of the State Law and Order Restoration Council elite, replaced him soon thereafter. The same group of elites controlled Myanmar despite the leadership transition; there was no change in regime. Intraregime leadership changes, it turns out, are quite common.
The frequency with which authoritarian leaders leave power without destabilizing the regimes they once led suggests that conflating authoritarian leaders with authoritarian regimes has the potential to distort our understanding of authoritarian regime vulnerabilities. This is important because it suggests that international efforts to destabilize dictatorships, pressure them to democratize, or otherwise change their behavior that focus on the leader as the unit of analysis may fail to bring about the intended effects.'"
