Notes - The Rise of Competitive authoritarianism S. Levitsky, L. Way PDF

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Notes - The Rise of Competitive authoritarianism S. Levitsky, L. Way...

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Notes - The Rise of Competitive authoritarianism S. Levitsky, L. Way

- Hybrid political regimes are democratic (elected) and authoritarian (governed by coercive control)

- Post Cold War there have been hybrid political regimes in Africa, post-communist Eurasia, some of Asia, and Latin America.

- Academics thought hybrid regimes were transitional forms of democracy. However, in Africa and SU, many regimes remained hybrid or moved into authoritarian.

- There are other hybrid regimes such as semidemocracy, virtual democracy, electoral democracy, psuedodemocracy, illiberal democracy, semi-authoritarianism, soft authoritarianism, electoral authoritarianism. - There are two important weaknesses of these hybrid regimes is that they are just transitional forms of democracy, this is not the case. However, some hybrid regimes Mexico, Senegal and Taiwan transitioned to democratic regimes and Azerbaijan, Belarus transitioned to authoritarian regimes. FINISH Defining Competitive Authoritarianism - This is a hybrid regime - Democratic institutions are the principal means of obtaining and exercising political authority - However, people in power do not abide by democracy and do not listen to the people. - Examples of competitive authoritarianism is Croatia under Franjo Tudjman, Russia under Vladimir Putin - Competitive authoritarian regimes is between democracy and authoritarianism. They are not fully democratic and are only a little. They are not authoritarian fully but do sometimes violate. - They are not delegate democracies which are characterised by low levels of horizontal accountability and therefore exhibit powerful abusive executives and thus have little democracy. This is because if competitive authoritarian regimes fall short of democracy, they also fall short of full scale authoritarianism. They may manipulate democratic rules but they cannot get rid of them or reduce them. - Competitive authoritarianism is different to facade electoral regimes, regimes in which electoral institutions exist but do not have the action for power. Four arenas of democratic contestation - Competitive authoritarian regimes have democratic institutions which have arenas of contestation where opposition forces can challenge, weaken or defeat autocratic holders. The four arenas of democratic contestation are the electoral arena, legislature, judiciary and the media. Electoral arena - In authoritarian regimes.. elections do not exist or are not seriously contested - In competitive regimes elections are bitterly fought. The electoral process consists of large scale abuses of state power, biased media coverage, harassment of opposition candidates and activists and lack of transparency. Elections are regularly held, competitive, and usually free of massive fraud. - There is uncertainty in the elections as the votes are very close. The legislative arena - In authoritarian regimes, legislature do not exist or the ruler controls them. - In competitive authoritarianism, legislatures exist but are weak, but can become focal points of opposition activity as in the cases of Ukraine and Russia in the 1990s where the presidents power was limited by the uncooperative Parliaments. - Even where the presidents enjoy legislative majorities, the legislature can be used by opposition forces to use it as a public platform to attack the regime.

Judicial arena - Competitive authoritarian regime governments try to manipulate the judiciary by making them inferior or lower by removing them from their post, through bribery and forcing payment upon them. This occurred in Peru, where Supreme Court justices were manipulated by Vladimiro Montesinos, the intelligence chief. - They also manipulate the judiciary through threats and violence, as in Zimbabwe after the SC ruled occupations of white owned farmland had to be redistributed under the government’s land redistribution policy. - The judiciary and executive are supposed to be separate, however they aren’t which leads to judges being influenced by the executives. - The governments may punish judges who rule against them but this may ruin the governments or regimes domestic and international legitimacy. The media - There are independent media outlets which are very influential. Journalists are frequently threatened and attacked and usually become opposers. - Independent media outlets investigate and expose government wrongdoings by criticising them - Media outlets are used to voice opposition views - Executives try to suppress independent media through bribery, censorship, manipulating debts and taxes of media outlets, through restrictive press laws. - Repressing the media can have negative effects on the government as the Tudjman government tried to revoke Radio 101 license and massive protests broke out and temporarily split the ruling party. Inherent Tensions - Competitive authoritarianism government may use bribery or legal persecution to limit opposition challenges to stop protests happening. - Democratic rules and autocratic methods create instability in leadership since the presence of elections, legislatures, courts and an independent media allows oppositions to challenge. - It is expensive to repress them since they legally and domestically and internationally seen as legitimate. - Democratic challenges may lead to those in power to lose their power and therefore this leads to leaders choosing between violating the democratic rules and to lose their power. An example of this occurred in the Zimbabwe’s March 2002 presidential election. - The ones that were successful in doing this and keeping power were Kenya, Malaysia, Russia and Ukraine. However, Nicaragua 1990, Zambia 1991, Ghana and Mexico 2000 failed and lost power. - However the success by the opposition does not mean democratisation in the country. In Croatia, Nicaragua, Peru, Slovakia, Serbia there was democratic transitions, however, in Albania, Zambia, Ukraine there was not. - In regions which have closer ties to the West such as Latin America and Central Europe, the democratisation transition had occurred in the post Cold War period. In Latin America 4/5 competitive authoritarian regimes democratised after 1990 the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua. In Central Europe 4/5 as well Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia and Romania. - This suggests that the shift from a competitive authoritarian regime in the 1990s to a democratisation occurred in governments which had a proximity to the West. - Whereas where there was not proximity to the West, competitive authoritarian regimes remained or moved to an authoritarian direction. Paths to Competitive Authoritarianism - Competitive authoritarianism came from three different regime paths in the 1990s. - One of the paths was the decay of the authoritarian regime. As in Sub Sharan Africa - Path two was the collapse of an authoritarian regime. As in post communist countries. - Path three was the decay of a democratic regime. As in Peru (early 1990s) and contemporary Venezuela.

- Competitive authoritarianism also came about since it was hard to keep both democratic and

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authoritarian regimes in the immediate post Cold War period. There was a global advance of democracy in the 1990s and they were different to establish or sustain. Authoritarian regimes were difficult to sustain due to the post Cold War international environment, Western liberalism’s triumph and the Soviet collapse which undermined the legitimacy. Transitions took place in countries with high poverty, inequality, illiteracy, weak states and civil societies, institutional instability, former communist world. The 1990s was a period of Western liberal hegemony, broader than that of the 1920s. It was accepted in by elites in the post communist and Third world....