IS 210 - Authoritarianism: contol, power-sharing, and acting "as if"

immmportaaaant things and ideas and examples and whatnot from this week 5 lecture!!

Dictatorship as described in Svolik’s minimalist definition is…

any regime that fails the basic test of democracy, which is: are the executive and the legislature chosen in free and competitive elections?

Barbara Geddes identifies four different regime types…

military, single party, personalist, and monarchy

A simple test of whether or not a state is an autocracy is…

whether or not the incumbent can lose and hand over power

True or false: Authoritarianism is a thing of the past.

false! in fact many researchers argue that in recent years more countries have moved away from democracy rather than towards it

According to Svolik, there are two problems that every dictator faces…

the problem of control - the regime vs. the masse, many people would like different rulers, so the regime must stop them from rising up

the problem of power-sharing - the dictator vs. his own allies: generals, party bosses, ministers, security chiefs

Of the dictators who power by non-constitutional means (1946-2008), more than ____ were removed by regime insiders, mostly through coups.

two-thirds

The two reasons why power sharing is so difficult are…

no referee - no independent courts, parliament or press to enforce deals at the top. A promise to share power can’t be made believable

violence in the background - when deals break down, force settles things: a coup am arrest, sometimes a killing

A “commitment problem” is defined as…

you can make a promise, but nothing forces you to keep it, so others can’t rely on it

A contested autocracy is defined as…

allies are still strong enough to check the dictator, and to remove him if he gets to greedy

An established autocracy is defined as…

when the dictator has gathered so much power that allies can’t stop him. He rules more or less alone

The two tools to “solve” the problem of control are…

co-optation - buy people off: jobs, contracts, money for loyal regions and groups

repression - police, prisons, surveillance, force

The “double edge of repression” is defined as…

someone has to do the repressing. The more a ruler depends on the military and security services, the more leverage they gain, and the more able they are to turn on him

Some regimes employ obvious propaganda not to make the people believe it but to make them…

act as if they believed

the “cult of personality” does four kinds of political work…

sets the limits of speech (everyone learns what can and can’t be said), makes people complicit (if you chanted the slogans, you helped keep the system going), isolates people (everyone privately doubts, but no one can be sure others do too, or act on it together), fills public space (little room is left for other ideas, symbols or ways of talking about politics)

An example of people upholding an authoritarian regime is…

the greengrocer’s sign in Czechoslovakia under communism - the man puts a sign in his shop window saying “workers of the world, unite!”, he doesn’t actually care about the workers of the world, the sign came with his veggies and he wants th authorities to leave him alone

Jokes, cartoons, and comedy in regimes forcing people to act “as if” can be two cases…

the case for resistance - a joke breaks the rule of acting ‘as if’. a shared laugh shows people they are not alone, and cracks the isolation

the case for a safety valve - some comedy is officially allowed. people blow odd steam, feel better, and go home. Nothing changes

In Svolik and Wedeen’s readings there are three contrasts…

who matters - elites (generals, ministers, the inner circle) vs. the ordinary people

what power is - material (guns, money, positions, deals) vs. also symbolic (language, images, rituals, performances)

how we know - counts cases and builds models vs. interprets meaning in one country

Through the lenses Svolik and Wedeen’s reading Cameroon’s regime survived through…

Svolik: survival - Biya managed his ruling coalition for decades. When the 2025 challenge came, it came largely from the inside

Wedeen: going along - decades of performance make it hard to see how many others felt the same way

sythesis - when an insider stops pretending it gives everyone else permission to stop too

An example of refusing to perform and its limits is…

Cameroon: October-November 2025 - people protested the election results despite the danger; dozens were killed. Tchiroma called for “dead city” shutdowns: shops closed, people stayed home. But as far as we know, the army held together and the regime survived