Theories of Dictatorships: Sub-Types and Explanations

Abstract

Dictatorships remain a pervasive global issue despite the third wave of democratization.
Comparative scholars have shown renewed interest in dictatorships, leading to increased research.
Research lacks cumulative progress and a holistic perspective.
This study reviews research, defines non-democracies, and develops a framework for empirical explanations.
Identifies gaps in previous definitions of dictatorships and provides a theoretically grounded conceptualization.
Examines typologies of dictatorships, addresses flaws, and suggests solutions.
Discusses systematization of the existence, transitions, and variants of dictatorships.
Presents a framework for future research.
Concludes that much remains unknown, but the article aims to provide a more unified strategy.
Keywords: dictatorship, comparative politics, political regimes, regime transitions.

Introduction

Political scientists study democracy, focusing on power distribution, representation, and governance.
Traditional lack of interest in non-democracy is unfounded (Gandhi, 2008; Karvonen, 2008).
Gandhi (2008, p. 7) notes the shortcoming of defining dictatorship as a residual category, defined only by what it is not.
A bias in favor of democracy is problematic, hindering the understanding of why dictatorships exist and transitions to them.
Recent years have seen increased interest in dictatorships, enhancing knowledge of their characteristics, origins, and endurance.
Scholars identify a need to create order and systematization in the growing body of research (Art, 2012; Köllner & Kailitz, 2013).
There is a need to review literature to connect previous studies and enable future research.
Dictatorship is used to denote all kinds of non-democratic regimes.

Core Issues

Review of literature is delimited to two core issues: how dictatorships are defined and explained.
Descriptive ambition relates to a ‘model mania’ (Sartori, 1993) that remains unresolved.
Explanatory ambition is to categorize explanations of dictatorships holistically, considering factors with different theoretical backgrounds operating on various spatial levels.
The purpose is to provide and discuss definitions of dictatorships and develop a framework for empirical explanations.

Research Questions

How does earlier research define and describe dictatorships?
What factors, endogenous and exogenous in relation to societies, explain the transitions to and the existence of dictatorships?

The study aims to lay the foundation for descriptive and causal inference.
Defining dictatorships in a way that provides a non-negative understanding is described as problematic (e.g. Gandhi, 2008; Wahman, Teorell, & Hadenius, 2013).
Systematizing and critically assessing the causal effects of explanations of dictatorships provides additional leverage (King, Keohane, & Verba, 1994).
The study distinguishes factors derived from ‘within’ a political system from those found outside it.
A comparative point of departure is taken in both theoretical and empirical inquiries.

Defining Dictatorship

The first research question is addressed in two stages:
- Investigating literature that distinguishes dictatorships from democracies.
- Examining how different sub-types of dictatorships can be described.
Moving away from a negative definition of dictatorship should be a simple task.
Defining dictatorship is not obvious.

Historical Context

History of political thought implies ambition, ranging from Aristotle’s (2000) discussions to Moore’s (1966) approach.
When democracy developed during the age of enlightenment, its institutional mechanisms changed, but the fundamental idea did not (Dahl, 1989; Dunn, 2005).
Modern typologies of political regimes have a normative character.
The distinction between good and deviant is analogous to the distinction between democracy and non-democracy.
All desirable forms of political regimes are democracies, and those that are not democratic contain some form of dictatorship.
This leads to determining which type of democracy (Held, 2006; Lijphart, 1999; Schmitter & Karl, 1991) or non-democracy (e.g. Geddes, 1999; Linz & Stepan, 1996; Linz, 2000) it can be classified as.
No typology in the social sciences is undisputed.
Research has focused on regimes that cannot easily be categorized as either democratic or non-democratic.
Different approaches are proposed (Bogaards, 2009; Diamond, 2002; Møller & Skaaning, 2010), resulting in labels for hybrid regimes: competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky & Way, 2010); illiberal democracies (Zakaria, 1997); and semi-authoritarianism (Ottaway, 2003).
After illustrating that political regimes that are democratic and non-democratic exist, and that there are some that have features of both forms, then continuing with the review of how contemporary research defines dictatorships.

Minimalist Standpoint

Theoretically regarded as a minimal standpoint.
Dictatorship is an empirical residual category of democracy (Przeworski, Alvarez, Cheibub, & Limongi, 2000).
Gandhi (2008, p. 7) argues that rulers acquire power by means other than competitive elections.
Questioned similarly to the corresponding minimal definition of democracy (Collier & Adcock, 1999; Munck & Verkuilen, 2002; Snyder, 2006).

Expanded Conception (Linz)

Linz’s (2000) work nuances the distinction between democracy and totalitarian states.
Totalitarian states have three characteristics:
- All major powers are based on a monistic center.
- Exclusive and autonomous ideology influences policies.
- Civic mobilization is requested, encouraged, and rewarded by the ruling single party.
Pioneer works focused on these dogmatic regimes (Arendt, 1968; Friedrich & Brzezinski, 1956).
Linz (2000, p. 159) defines authoritarian regimes as:

political systems with limited, not responsible, political pluralism, without elaborate and guiding ideology, but with distinctive mentalities, without extensive nor intensive political mobilization, except at some point in their development, and in which a leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined limits but actually quite predictable

ble ones.

Karvonen (2008) discusses the lack of pluralism, absence of civil rights, and close scrutiny of citizens’ movements.
Dictatorship is characterized by the violation of rights and basic individual freedom, complementing Dahl’s (1989) expanded definition of democracy.
For democracy, a Rechtsstat [legal state] is necessary.
In dictatorships, institutions serve the regime's interests without regard to laws or a constitution (Diamond, 1999).
Linz presents an alternative to minimalistic approaches.
A ‘thicker’ description can add details but raises additional questions.
Questions include: Are all factors necessary? Can they be ordered hierarchically? Are they internally consistent? What is the travel capacity?
The literature does not provide answers.

Middle Way

A middle way is proposed to navigate between too much minimalism and too much detail:
- In dictatorships, methods other than competitive elections are used for distributing political power.
- Political and civil rights of individuals are frequently violated.
This construction makes two properties necessary for classifying a country as a dictatorship.
Leads to a conceptualization that is highly universal and situated at the top of the ladder of abstraction (cf. Sartori, 1970).
Similar to ambitions of defining democracy, or ‘polyarchy’, by Dahl (1989).
Balanced standpoint on the distinction between democracy, dictatorship, and hybrid regimes (Levitsky & Way, 2010).
Criticisms include:
- Regimes between democracy and dictatorship are regarded as hybrid regimes.
- Identification of these types of regimes is another research field (Bogaards, 2009; Diamond, 2002; Levitsky & Way, 2010; Ottaway, 2003; Zakaria, 1997).
- Snyder (2006) underlines the disparate group of closed regimes: totalitarian, theocracies, sultanates, personalistic regimes, monarchies, ethnocracies.
- Internal heterogeneity is the downside of general concepts.

Sub-types

In democratic theory, this has been handled through the elaboration of sub-types of democracies (Held, 2006).
This article scrutinizes the analogous ambitions of dictatorships (Cheibub, Gandhi, & Vreeland, 2010; Geddes, 1999; Hadenius & Teorell, 2007; Kailitz, 2013; Wahman et al. 2013), thereby climbing down the ladder of abstraction (cf. Sartori, 1987).

Variants of Dictatorships

Following Linz’s distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, the extensive field identifies different types of dictatorships.
Two categories were added: post-totalitarian and sultanic regimes (Linz & Stepan, 1996).
Contemporary research abandoned this typology and described it as obsolete (Hadenius & Teorell, 2007; Snyder & Mahoney, 1999).
The criticism is about the lack of generality and the mismatch with empirical reality.
Recent research focuses on creating more valid models and identifying sub-types.
Updated approach is based on an empirical point of view.
Extensive data sets are associated with each of the approaches.
Geddes’ (1999) typology of three variants of dictatorships is groundbreaking.
Dictatorships differ from each other as much as they differ from democracy (Geddes, 1999, p. 121).
The categories are separated on the basis of who has control over access to power.
Three types of dictatorships: ‘personalist’, ‘military’, and ‘single-party’, as well as combinations.
- Personalist: Power is in the hands of one individual.
- Military: Influence is carried out by a group of officers.
- Single-party: Political power is derived from a dominating party.

Classification Problems

Even this straightforward approach is not without classification problems.
Uncertain distinction between the personalist and the military rules (Geddes, 1999).
The leader can have a background in the military and even wear a uniform but still be an individual leader.
Several others have focused on improving this typology.
Research can be separated into those contributions that see the need for modifying Geddes’ typology and those that suggest different perspectives.

Modifying Geddes’ Typology

Hadenius and Teorell (2007) represent the first approach.
Both the theoretical underpinnings and the applied data have been revisited to also include Wahman (2013).
The contribution represents a different approach that takes more of an institutional approach to the classification of regimes.
Arguing that Geddes has omitted two important types of dictatorships, they launch ‘monarchies’ and ‘electoral dictatorships’.
Monarchies differ from other categories since the succession of political power is inherited inside the royal family.
Regarding the electoral forms of dictatorships, Hadenius and Teorell (2007) with Wahman (2013) increase the accuracy in Geddes’ third category by letting it be constituted of three sub-groups: ‘no-party’, ‘one-party’, and ‘multi-party’ regimes.
Even if elections exist in such regimes they are neither competitive nor crucial in distributing political power.
Many dictatorships allow some sorts of manipulated elections.
In relation to Geddes’ description of personalist rule, Hadenius and Teorell (2007) dismiss it and argue instead that it is better to treat personalism as a trait that can vary in extent among regimes.
Brooker (2000) distinguishes between the ‘traditional monarchies’ and ‘presidential monarchies’ as a way to identify personal rulers.
The latter category reflects the stereotypical idea of a dictator.
Classifying them as monarchies has its background in their many similarities to traditional monarchies.

Kailitz's Perspective

Deriving from Geddes’ typology, Kailitz (2013) presents a different perspective on how to separate dictatorships.
Regimes can be distinguished on the basis of how they legitimate their existence endogenously or exogenously.
Definitions of five types of ‘full’ dictatorships are reached.
‘Communist’ dictatorships and ‘monarchies’ are found to do the latter.
Remember that differentiating communist regimes has been questioned for its weak empirical connection.
‘Personalist’ dictatorships resemble monarchies.
‘One-party’ and ‘military’ dictatorships justify their existence through internal institutions.
Kailitz also adds electoral dictatorships as something of a hybrid form.
Elections are not exclusively applied by this form of dictatorship.
Kailitz’s approach risks low validity due to uncertainty in the theoretical framework.

Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland (2010)

Launch a systematized alternative to Geddes’ typology.
Place the focus on the inner sanctum that is related to this ruling and the actual ruler.
Leads to three variants of dictatorships: ‘monarchy’, ‘military’ and ‘civilian’.
Monarchies are characterized by the order of succession.
Military dictators: major political power is in the hands of a current or past member of the armed forces.
Civilian dictatorships are defined based on the dichotomy of democracies and dictatorships.
They classify all dictatorships that are not found to be monarchies or military, as civilian.
The rulers in these regimes do not have a family or kin networks, or the military to rely on.
The consequence of this approach is a definition that is based on the same logic as the negative definition of dictatorships.
Reviewing the associated data set verifies concerns and reveals how different dictatorships such as Cuba, Iran and Russia are all placed in the same civilian category.

Analytical Clarity

Can be strengthened by an explicit comparison of different approaches.
Common traits that are found in at least three of the four typologies are highlighted.
The outcome also appears to be quite consistent.
Monarchies and some forms of electoral regimes are found in three of the four typologies, while military regimes are found in all of them.
In several cases, the scholars behind these typologies declare that a combinatory form can be applied as well.
Geddes (1999) is the only scholar who does not distinguish a ‘monarchy’ as a certain form of dictatorship; instead, she includes such regimes in the broader concept of personalist rule.
Military dictatorships are found in all typologies.
Some form of coherence seems to exist.
Elections in dictatorships, although they are not by definition free, are frequent (Wahman, 2012).
The typologies of Hadenius, Teorell, and Wahman (2013) are most detailed in this matter, distinguishing between three forms of electoral dictatorships.
A classification this narrow risks being so detailed that it becomes idiosyncratic.
Kailitz (2013) reaches something of a middle way.
His concept of electoral dictatorship entails a multi-party system.

Ambiguity

Poses problems and no given answers are found to this.
If elections are applied to legitimize a regime (Kailitz, 2013), functioning as ‘Potemkin villages’, it would be relevant to account for this specific strategy.
Kailitz (2013) argues that communist regimes make up a specific type of dictatorship.
Cheibub et al. (2010) have a hard time convincing readers about what, analytically, unites the civilian form of dictatorships.

Conclusion

It seems appropriate to refer to the model mania (cf. Sartori, 1993).
One solution to this problem is to refocus future research on the four categories that represent the common denominator for the majority of the reviewed typologies.
Since most scholars seem to agree upon the division of sub-types into monarchy, military, and electoral or party regimes, this appears to be a suitable strategy for future ambitions.
These variants are ones that are founded on those theoretical assumptions that can be regarded as being the least problematic.

Explaining Regimes: Existence and Transitions

Descriptions of the social world are not sufficient.
Explanations, that is, reaching causal inferences about social phenomena, are necessary (Gerring, 2012b; King et al. 1994).
Throughout the history of researching political regimes, confusion has existed regarding the existence of and transition to
Przeworski et al. (2000) noted the difference between these two dimensions.
An undertaking to examine these questions considers the explanations of both stability and transition.
The same logic should be applied, and adding the dynamic from the review of sub-types of political regimes, a battery of questions appears to be legitimate (see Table 2).
This generic table describes different potential research strategies.
An implicit function of this framework is that the analytical precision increases when shifting to approaches that are listed in the right-hand column of the table.

Absence

Karvonen’s (2008) statement about the absence of a comprehensive theoretical model creates a necessary point of departure.
The lack of holistic theoretical contributions about why and how dictatorships come into being and survive creates uncertainty for additional research (for a recent exception see Ezrow & Frantz, 2011).
This shortcoming originates from a failure to systematize varying explanans of dictatorships.
Regarding the research that does exist on this topic, it varies between theoretical results and empirical results.
One suitable way to present it is to distinguish between where different approaches have their analytical background.
Deriving from Lidén (2011), three levels are found from where factors may originate.
These three are of a spatial character.
The first level refers to characteristics from the political system.
The second approach is based on factors external to the given society’s political system but still found inside the society in question.
Collectively, these two alternatives are considered endogenous in relation to the study object because the determinants are extracted from within.
The third level refers to explanations that are found outside the concerned society.
A temporal dimension can also be added that is related to the importance of the development of time.
By building on the classification shown in Table 2, Table 3 presents a compilation of explanations of dictatorships in form of hypotheses from the most relevant research in this field.
Endogenous explanations of dictatorships: Inside the political systems

Political Institutions

The first level includes political institutions.
Institutions influence political processes by having relevance to both creating and shaping policies.
Recently, something of an ‘institutional turn’ has arisen in which scholars of dictatorships have emphasized the importance of such factors in explanatory approaches (Pepinsky, 2013).
Møller & Skaaning (2011) show how the existence of ‘stateness’ appears to be a crucial factor,
It can be assumed that similar institutions play a significant role in the phase of transition to dictatorships, as well as their state of durability.
Regarding a perspective on how institutions obstruct dictatorship, the main argument is that institutionalization in such regimes can imply the approval of at least some allowed political engagement that could be expected to result in a demand for increased civil rights (Gandhi, 2008, p. 138).
It has been suggested that these ideas, in the form of hypotheses, affect transitions of regime types, on a general level and for sub-types.
Gandhi (2008, p. 123) measures institutions by the number of political parties in the legislature.
Wright and Escribá-Folch (2012) add specification to the argument by showing how the presence of parties increases the chances for democratization in military and dominant-party regimes
The idea that the level of institutionalization instead results in enduring dictatorships can have different backgrounds.
It is either based on the notion of the stability and efficiency that these institutions could bring (Huntington, 1968) or on a completely different perspective in which institutions are only regarded as instruments for their creators, the ruling elite
Focusing on movements of transitions, and specifically considering elections in dictatorships as one form of institutionalizing, arguments show how these can be used to co-opt elites, party members or the opposition
Combining this with some of the elements of ambitious campaigns and initiatives for electoral monitoring procedures gives hope for victory and can thereby attract voters.
Teorell and Hadenius (2009) prove that elections can promote democratization, while Wahman (2013) notes that the alternation of an incumbent regime through elections is only a short-lived democratic effect.
Another characteristic of a political system is how the political regime can be classified and different sub-types of dictatorships are, in themselves, potential explanations of transitions.

Subtypes continued

The different types of dictatorships have been used here both as explanans and explanandum.
Kailitz (2013) provides data for the average lifespan of regimes and finds that military regimes are among the most short-lived, verifying results from Geddes (1999), but he also finds a tendency that is similar to that found in the data of Hadenius & Teorell (2007).
Brownlee (2007) expands this and verifies the findings that show a short endurance of military regimes, while also noting that single-party regimes are the most long-lasting ones.
Turning to the second level, there is a long tradition of research that focuses on explanations of dictatorships that are found in the surrounding society.
Examples are the outcome of society’s internal balance of power (Moore, 1966), which can be connected with how modernization can create an unholy alliance between political and economical elites (O’Donnell, 1973).
Later on, Rueschemeyer et al. (1992) partly revise Moore’s famous standpoint on the role of the bourgeoisie as a trigger of democratization, adding that their role in the process of democratization varied from case to case and time period to time period, being more ideographic than nomothetic.
Among the more quantitatively oriented research, Wright’s (2008) is a good example of a study in which Geddes’ variants of dictatorships are not used as independent variables but as dependent ones.
GDP covary with transitions to democracy, while low values are significant in transitions to dictatorships. This leads on to an alternative approach to the question of regime outcome, often denoted as the economic approach, which applies the ideas and methods of political economy (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2006; Wintrobe, 1998).
It is argued by Boix (2003), that it is not the economic level but the distribution of income that is the crucial factor.

Natural Resources

Possession of valuable natural resources can cement dictatorships.
Rentier effects, where the wealth from oil or minerals can be used to keep the population loyal, or where the income can be invested in police or military forces.
The review of literature implies that these resources prevent democracy (Ross, 2001), who has noticed that these resources prevent democracy.
Empirical study shows how authoritarian features in Islam create intolerance toward democratic values (Anckar’s empirical study (2012)).

Exogenous Explanation

The third level of explanation is exogenous in relation to the studied objects, and states that phenomena outside countries affect their political orientation.
Theoretically known as Galton’s problem, the spreading of ideas has been studied both with geographical and more traditional comparative approaches.
Turning to the empirical examples, O’Loughlin et al. (1998) prove that dictatorships, as well as democracies, are geographically clustered.
The importance of exogenous factors has also been emphasized by research that simultaneously examines these explanations with control for domestic ones.
Economic interventions from foreign powers actually only lead to a strengthening of the path towards dictatorship (Teorell’s (2010) study).
Gleditsch and Ward (2006) find that a high proportion of democratic neighbours lowers the chance that a dictatorship will survive.

Consolidations

A type of explanation that cannot be categorized as spatial, needs to be brought up.
Regimes that have been democracies for a long time only have a negligible risk of turning into a dictatorship (Svolik (2008)).
The greatest challenge for a new dictatorial regime is to stay in office for the first few years; thereafter, the risk of deposition declines sharply.

Summarizing

All in all, explanations of dictatorships are possibly found on three spatial levels and one temporal dimension.
One of the main results in this article is the identification of a shortcoming in the comprehensive way of explaining sub-types of dictatorships.

Amendment

Economic development and the traits of the economic sector still represent a dominant school but also a tradition under amendment (Przeworski et al. (2000)).
The external influence of dictatorships has recently been given particular attention (Teorell (2010)).
It is necessary to account for all of these theoretically and empirically valid results and their different relations with endurance or transitions when reaching future explanations of dictatorships and their sub-types.

Conclusions

This article has reviewed the literature of two related areas, corresponding to the two research questions.
On reviewing previous research, this article has noted gaps in the definition of dictatorships and contributed by trying to fill some of them.

Theoretical Innovation

A theoretical innovation is reached by providing a definition of dictatorships.
Dictatorships use methods other than competitive elections to distribute political power and that they also frequently violate individuals’ political and civil rights.
This conceptualization contrasts with how liberal democracies are defined
The review of different types of dictatorships points out both the advantages of and the flaws in the most comprehensive approaches

Studies

Inquiry in this area gives rise to several questions.
Ambiguous results in studies create issues in research that is far from settled.
There is a ‘democratic bias’ creates a situation in which the existence of and transitions to dictatorships should be understood as the residual

Finally

The increasing amount of research that focuses on dictatorships must be much applauded.
By systematizing previous research and assessing both the description and explanation layers, the scientific inquiries of tomorrow can be created.
When answers to those inquiries have been found, we will be better able to ensure that political science can give feedback to decision-makers on how dictatorships can be understood and explained.