Subnational Turnover, Accountability Politics, and Electoral Authoritarian Survival: Evidence from Museveni's Uganda

Most non-democratic regimes engineer elections such that regime change is effectively impossible via the ballot. However, many of these elections see high turnover of politicians at the subnational level, often through competitive processes that occur within ruling parties. This is the case for President Yoweri Museveni's dominant National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Uganda, the ranks of which have been decimated by intra-party competition at each election throughout its three decades in power. This competition includes high levels of voter participation in mass primaries and general elections and is particularly acute in the rural southern areas where Museveni's simultaneous presidential candidacy draws most support. Based on qualitative data from the 2016 elections, this article investigates the relationship between this local, intra-party competition and Museveni's survival, building a theory that local competition in electoral authoritarian regimes can provide an outlet for accountability politics by redirecting widespread voter frustrations away from a regime and towards expendable local politicians.

The Legitimation of Repression in Autocracies

In research on authoritarianism, both legitimation and repression have received growing attention since the late 2000s. However, these two strategies of political rule do not form separate pillars of power; they are interlinked and affect each other. Autocrats not only rule with an iron fist, but they also seek to legitimize their use of repression vis-à-vis at least some of their citizens and the outside world. These legitimizing discourses are part of political communication in autocracies and can be studied using the approach of framing. So far, few researchers of the protest–repression nexus have studied how protesters are being framed by officials in autocracies. The communication of repression varies widely across autocracies. Authoritarian incumbents differ in their degree of openness vs. opacity, impacting also on how they publicize, admit to, or conceal certain forms of repression. When choosing to justify acts of repression, multiple factors influence which types of justification are used. One decisive factor is against which targets repression is employed. In framing the targets of repression in a certain way, autocratic elites pursue a twin strategy in that they seek to attain the approval of certain audiences and to deter potential or actual dissidents. Furthermore, justifications diverge regarding which actors use them and towards which audiences. Past experiences and regime characteristics also impact on how repression is justified. This research program offers great potential for studying state–society relations in autocracies. It cuts across research on political violence, authoritarian legitimation, and political communication. For understanding the persistence of autocracies in times of contention, it is an important piece in the puzzle of authoritarian survival strategies illuminating the “dark side” of legitimation.

Clubs of autocrats: Regional organizations and authoritarian survival

While scholars have argued that membership in Regional Organizations (ROs) can increase the likelihood of democratization, we see many autocratic regimes surviving in power albeit being members of several ROs. This article argues that this is the case because these regimes are often members in “Clubs of Autocrats” that supply material and ideational resources to strengthen domestic survival politics and shield members from external interference during moments of political turmoil. The argument is supported by survival analysis testing the effect of membership in autocratic ROs on regime survival between 1946 to 2010. It finds that membership in ROs composed of more autocratic member states does in fact raise the likelihood of regime survival by protecting incumbents against democratic challenges such as civil unrest or political dissent. However, autocratic RO membership does not help to prevent regime breakdown due to autocratic challenges like military coups, potentially because these types of threats are less likely to diffuse to other member states. The article thereby adds to our understanding of the limits of democratization and potential reverse effects of international cooperation, and contributes to the literature addressing interdependences of international and domestic politics in autocratic regimes.

Repression of Islamists and Authoritarian Survival in the Arab World: A Case Study of Egypt

This chapter explores the causes of state repression against Islamist organizations in the Arab world. Advancing a rich literature on state repression, authoritarianism, and Islamist politics, it proposes a new approach that centers on the role of non-Islamist audiences for explaining the repression of Islamists. Specifically, the chapter argues that when society is divided between non-Islamists and Islamists, an autocrat can repress Islamists to signal a commitment to non-Islamists to protect them from perceived threats by Islamists. It provides supporting evidence from Egypt, which shows how large-scale repression directed at the Muslim Brotherhood after the coup of 2013 served to cultivate the support of non-Islamists.

Authoritarian survival strategies and elite churn: The case of North Korea

How do autocrats interact with authoritarian elites? This is a question that has gained increasing scholarly attention over the past decade. In this article, using the case of North Korea we develop a set of theoretical expectations for “elite churn” or changes in the composition of the elite (either in terms of promotions, demotions, or new entrants) resulting from moving around elites from office to office (or “elite shuffle”) and bringing in new elites. We test a number of theoretical expectations derived from the existing literature on elite management in autocracies and then examine these expectations using a panel data set of 351 members of the North Korean elite from 1948–2017. Taking into account leadership characteristics, threats to the regime (both internal and external), external opportunities, and structural factors, we find that the explanation for elite churn in North Korea is very leader specific, and is much more pronounced under Kim Jong Un than his predecessors. This suggests that Kim Jong Un’s position was much more tenuous than his father’s and grandfather’s and likely continues to be so.

Subnational Turnover, Accountability Politics, and Electoral Authoritarian Survival: Evidence from Museveni’s Uganda

Most non-democratic regimes engineer elections such that regime change is effectively impossible via the ballot. However, many of these elections see high turnover of politicians at the subnational level, often through competitive processes that occur within ruling parties. This is the case for President Yoweri Museveni’s dominant National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Uganda, the ranks of which have been decimated by intra-party competition at each election throughout its three decades in power. This competition includes high levels of voter participation in mass primaries and general elections and is particularly acute in the rural southern areas where Museveni’s simultaneous presidential candidacy draws most support. Based on qualitative data from the 2016 elections, this article investigates the relationship between this local, intra-party competition and Museveni’s survival, building a theory that local competition in electoral authoritarian regimes can provide an outlet for accountability politics by redirecting widespread voter frustrations away from a regime and towards expendable local politicians.