authoritarianism

What are some examples of the prelude to authoritarianism?

-          For example Kim Jong Un’s daughter is set to take over after him. But we don’t know because it’s up to his own discretion as an authoritarian leader, alike to how data about his popularity and satisfaction with his rule is likely to be disinformation or manipulated

-          Consider Venezuela, Maduro rigged the election, and this is a crude version. Typically it doesn’t get this far, meanwhile more sophisticated regimes like Singapore manage this years before.

-          January 2021 insurrection: discrete form.

o   Consider the framework provided in ‘How democracies die’ and its manifestation within the USA.

What is the government?

A group of people in power at any particular time

What is the state?

A set of permanent administrative, legal and coercive systems that maintains a monopoly over the legitimate use of force in a given territory. Consider; army, police, taxation ‘bureacracy’ etc

What is a ‘regime’

A set of rules and procedures by which state power is accessed and exercised

What is the ‘political system’

A subheading of the regime: eg democracy, authoritarian regime.

What exactly is authoritarianism?

Authoritarianism is a residual category. The absence of democracy. If you do not meet the criteria for a democracy, you are by definition an authoritarian regime.

What is a general definition by academics of democracy?

“a political regime in which governments are chosen in free and fair elections with universal suffrage, and citizens possess all the civil liberties necessary to criticise and oppose these governments”

What are the procedural minimum definitions of democracy?

1. free and fair elections (tabulation must be accurate; there must be free media to advertise. also multiple parties)

2. free adult suffrage (race, religion, etc, does not affect voting rights)

3. civil liberties (ie freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and association)

4. no tutelary bodies (no unelected authorities behind calling the shots, ie religious authorities, military)

What are the big three categories of authoritarianism?

• Military regimes

• Single party regimes

  • Personalist regimes

What are some categorisations of authoritarianism?

-          Often it’s easy to categorise nations. Consider Cuba or North Korea which may have full adult suffrage but nothing else.

-          Consider difficulties in categorising South Africa – Apartheid prevented full adult suffrage.

-          Consider Singapore under the PAP (1965-present)… it has no civil liberties.

-          Myanmar/Burma is an example of tutelary bodies interfering. The military had a clause and constitution that the president or vice president had to be a military or prior military officer.

What are the key characteristics of military regimes?

• ruled by a group of military officers

  • often forms a ‘junta’

What are the key features of single party regimes?

• ruled by one party, sometimes de jure one party systems (ie Cuba and China)

  • sometimes defacto or hegemonic-party regimes' (EG SINGAPORE)

What are some key characteristics of personalist regimes?

• ruled by one person (and or family)

• sometimes monarchies, (ie Saudi Arabia) or sometimes not (ie Russia under Putin)

What is competitive authoritarianism?

“Competitive authoritarian regimes are civilian regimes in which formal democratic institutions exist and are widely viewed as the primary means of gaining power, but in which incumbents’ abuse of the state places them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis with their opponents. Such regimes are competitive in that opposition parties use democratic institutions to contest seriously for power, but they are not democratic because the playing field is heavily skewed in favour of incumbents. Competition is thus real but unfair”.

How do competitive authoritarian regimes entrench themselves?

1. limited fraud (Morales in Bolivia used fraud to win 47%)

2. Limited coercion (Zimbabwe hasn’t had democracy since post-colonisation. Tsavangira was beaten up [opposition leader]).

3. Legal repression (abusing law to go after opposition, including tax audits, ‘corruption’, libel (eg Ibrahim in Malaysia)

4. Access to the media (restricting what can be said about the government, Chavez’ closure of RCTV in Venezuela in 2006-07)

5. Access to state resources: campaigning with public money, threatening public sector jobs (eg 2006 Venezuela election)