Class 5: Dictatorship - Definitions and Origins PDF

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This is the lecture on dictatorship, its definition, and its origins....

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What is dictatorship? ○ Dictatorships violate or lack features of democracy in many ways ■ REVIEW: What is democracy? ● Citizens select political leaders through free and fair elections; franchise is broad ● Incumbents must be able to lose elections ● Protection of individual rights and civil liberties ● Etc (chk slides/last lecture) ■ No elections ■ Elections not free and fair ■ Franchise heavily restricted ■ Only one political party is legal ■ Incumbent that loses an election stays in power ■ Few or no checks on executive power ■ Systematic repression of civil liberties or media Why should we care? ○ About half of the world’s population still lives under dictatorship today ○ For most of history, governments have been authoritarian ○ Authoritarian regimes often produce disastrous policies: repression, poverty, muzzling of free speech and assembly, lack of education and opportunity ○ All democracies were once some form of dictatorship; to understand how democracy emerges we must first understand dictatorship Stripes of dictatorship ○ Common perceptions ■ Dictators are one-man maniacal shows of power ■ Dictators stay in power by meting out repression and violence ■ Dictators are confident and strong ○ Realities of dictatorship ■ Come in many varieties ● One-man or few-man rule (personalism) ● Military rule ● Single-party rule ● Oligarchy (competition amidst restricted families) ■ Some of the most successful dictators share power (reasonably) broadly ■ Dictators are inherently insecure; nothing to protect them if they are overthrown, and many have incentives to double-cross them ○ Personalist regimes ■ Access to office and the fruits of office depends to a large degree on the discretion of an individual leader; decision-making by military and any political parties not insulated form leader’s influence ● E.g. N Korea, Libya, etc ■ Historically extremely few examples of female dictators ○ Military regimes ■ A group of officers decides who will rule and what policies will be

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implemented ● E.g. Chile under Pinochet, Egypt under Sisi, Portugal under series of juntas in mind-1970s ○ Single-party regimes ■ Access to political office and control over policy are dominated by one party, though other parties may exist and compete (unsuccessfully) in elections ● E.g. China under CCP, Cuba under Castros, Mexico under PRI ■ Tend to be long-lived ○ Oligarchies ■ Characterized by competition among a restricted set of elites with major limitations on suffrage ● E.g. Britain in mid-1800s, Colombia in early 20th century ■ Typically/historically a racially-privileged group of wealthy men who compete amongst one another for political support and exclude from political participation the rest of society Key features of dictatorship ○ The basics ■ Smaller groups have greater political influence and power than in a democracy ■ Stakes of controlling the state are high ■ Short-run calculations by dictator to survive in office are common ○ Who matters most for the dictator? ■ The group who helped launch him into office and other powerful elites who may have the power to remove him: ● ***The military*** ○ Always need to have them on your side ● The rich: landowners, industrialists, etc ● The church ● Labor unions ■ Few dictators are removed in popular revolutions ● The vast majority of dictators are replaced by other dictators ● Only rarely does a transfer of power from a dictatorship to a democracy occur through revolution ○ Lawlessness and uncertainty ■ Irregular transfer of power ● Most dictators come to office via irregular means: coups, insurrections, civil wars, revolutions ■ Uncertainty ● Powerful elites have uncertainty about the dictator’s intentions and capabilities ● Will the new dictator continue to be loyal to the supporters who launched him into office? ○ How do elites mitigate uncertainty?

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■ Ally with military or other powerful social actors ■ Threaten to withdraw revenues from dictator ■ Become part of government itself ○ Stakes of politics are high ■ Often no firm limits on government discretion and little difference between what belongs to state and what belongs to individuals; property rights are insecure ● Groups compete fiercely to capture state and define property rights in a way that is advantageous to them ● Once government is seized, land and politically generated rents can be redistributed to key supporters ○ Short-run calculations ■ Dictators who face political instability will have shorter time horizons ■ Dictators therefore engage in short-term thinking -- survive to the next day ■ Adopt policies that work in short-run but have negative consequences in the long run The dictator’s playbook ○ How does a dictator consolidate authority in light of considerable turbulence and uncertainty in their rule? ■ Median time in office since 1900: roughly 2 years -- how to pass this and be a “dictator all-star”? ○ Three phases of autocratic rule ■ Phase 1: Seize power, destroy your enemies, and secure revenues ● Deprive your enemies of their primary source of power (land, industry, banks, etc) ● Raise revenues quickly, even if it may harm development in the long run ○ Expropriate enemies via seizure of land and domestic foreign capital (e.g. banks, industry, extractive industries) ○ Set high tax rates on domestic profits ○ Print money ■ Phase 2: Consolidate support among the group that launches you into office ● Dictator needs to make promises to core supporters to secure loyalty (co-optation) ● However, at a later point, he may face incentives to break his promises ● Dictators must find a way to remedy this credibility problem if they’re to remain in power ○ How can a dictator generate trust? ■ Engage in costly activities that signal trust ● Cut ties to alternative bases of support ● Public displays of loyalty ● Most powerful way: Institutionalize system

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that establishes how spoils of office will be distributed ○ These institutions allow dictator to credibly commit to protect property rights and interest of launching organization and other key supporters ■ Institutionalize Rights Enforcement ● Gathering places such as legislatures and political party congresses: assemble and represent their interests ● Regular elections: identify and target supporters and leverage popular support ● “Competing” political parties: political leverage of core supporters increases because they can threaten to defect from ruling party and join opposition party ■ Credible commitment: create legislature ● Institutionalize political power by defining who remains regime insider ● Rights of political insiders and interests are protected: provides tools to defend rights and pursue interests ● Defines who will benefit from rents produced by coercive power of state: politicized regulation of economy ■ What do authoritarian legislature do? ● Provides forum for political elites to come together and coordinate ● Legislature allows for information to flow from the dictator to political elites and for feedback from the latter to the dictator ● Membership in … (chk slides) ● E.g. Egyptian legislature Phase 3: Make it hard for citizens and groups outside the regime to organize, protest, and challenge you ● Terrorize citizens and factions not in coalition ● Violate humans rights by using torture, stifling speech and dissent, and sexual violence ● Crack down against protests and purge the political parties and military of possible traitors and conspirators ● Security Apparatus ○ Size and organization of the military and police reflect the dictator’s need to mete out repression against citizens and

the opposition Organizational proliferation and weakening of different branches of armed forces by dictator to undermine threats from within regime ■ Also helps address dictator uncertainty without creating enemies that purges might ○ Many coups in Latin America from 1950-2006 (esp. 1950-1975/80) ■ Many more expropriations under dictatorship than under democracy -e.g. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela Consequences of strategies to hold power ○ Pitfalls of parties and legislatures ■ Individuals elected to legislature can conspire against the regime ■ Opposition parties can grow stronger and eventually take over power through the elections the dictator once rigged ■ E.g. PRI in Mexico mid-1900s ○ Pitfalls of repression ■ Dictatorships who focus on repression at home often very weak militarily and can be defeated by foreign armies (e.g. Saddam Hussein 1991; 2003) ■ Massacres against protesters leave regimes isolated on world stage (e.g. Syria today) ■ Troops and goons do not always obey orders to shoot (e.g. Egyptian military during Arab spring) ■ Repression can backfire and create more enemies ■ E.g. Fall of communism ● Oppression under East German dictator Erich Honecker ○ Did not accept any reforms as proposed by the people ○ Imprisoned anybody who criticized government ○ Killed anybody who tried to leave East Germany: over a hundred people… (chk slides) ● Opposition to Honecker’s regime ○ Large demonstrations made in summer and fall of 1989 to protest regime ○ One major protest was Monday demonstrations in Leipzig (1989) ○ Regime lost power to masses who resisted ○ As of Nov 1989, gov’t of E Germany had no legitimate power and by Nov 9, Berlin Wall fell ○

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