The Malaysian Election Commission: Navigating Electoral Authoritarianism and Political Change

The urgency of electoral reforms has long been identified as a key to improving democracy in Malaysia. For decades, electoral manipulation through gerrymandering, malapportionment, and issues with the electoral roll and conduct of elections have undermined democratic quality and competition. The Malaysian Election Commission (EC) has – understandably – come under scrutiny for its role in facilitating and sustaining these problems. However, what requires a greater level of attention is the question of how the EC – despite its position as a constitutional institution that exists independently from the other branches of government – has operated in ways that undermined Malaysia's democracy and maintained a dominant party regime for over six decades. This Article brings this to light by examining the structural, institutional, and political conditions that shape the EC's operation, particularly with regard to re-delineation of constituencies and the conduct of elections. It argues that flaws in constitutional design, along with subsequent constitutional amendments, have rendered the EC vulnerable to partisan capture and thus affected its ability to function as an independent constitutional institution. In addition, this Article demonstrates how changes in political imperatives and judicial restraint in reviewing the EC's decision-making have also contributed to the deficiencies in Malaysia's electoral democracy.

Popular Dictatorships

Electoral autocracies – regimes that adopt democratic institutions but subvert them to rule as dictatorships – have become the most widespread, resilient and malignant non-democracies today. They have consistently ruled over a third of the countries in the world, including geopolitically significant states like Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan. Challenging conventional wisdom, Popular Dictators shows that the success of electoral authoritarianism is not due to these regimes' superior capacity to repress, bribe, brainwash and manipulate their societies into submission, but is actually a product of their genuine popular appeal in countries experiencing deep political, economic and security crises. Promising efficient, strong-armed rule tempered by popular accountability, elected strongmen attract mass support in societies traumatized by turmoil, dysfunction and injustice, allowing them to rule through the ballot box. Popular Dictators argues that this crisis legitimation strategy makes electoral authoritarianism the most significant threat to global peace and democracy.

Effectiveness of Incumbent’s Strategic Communication during Economic Crisis under Electoral Authoritarianism: Evidence from Turkey

To minimize damage to their popularity during economic downturns, rulers in electoral autocracies can draw on their propaganda advantage to keep the economy off the political agenda or shift the blame to other actors. How successful are these strategies in swaying citizens’ views? While electoral autocrats frequently resort to these strategies, there is surprisingly little evidence about their effectiveness. To address this gap, I took advantage of the recent economic crisis in Turkey and deployed a population-based survey experiment that mimicked incumbent’s use of these strategies. I find that incumbent’s efforts of shifting the blame fail to elicit intended effects among large parts of the electorate. In contrast, changing the political agenda away from the economy to an issue area that is more favorable for the incumbent is more effective for shoring up popular support. These findings contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms that help sustain electoral authoritarianism.

Constitution, Authoritarianism, and Bad Governance: The Case of Russia

Among many arguments for constitutional changes presented in the wake of the 2020 campaign for the popular vote in Russia, there was the idea that “cementing” Russia’s political landscape for the sake of the regime’s durability would serve as a tool for improvement of quality of governance. This argument, in a way, followed the essential point of Mancur Olson describing many autocrats across the globe as “roving bandits” with their short-term time horizons and incentives for predatory behavior. To what extent may the constitutional extension of the time horizon of Russia’s authoritarian regime contribute to conversion of Russia’s state officials and top managers from the “roving” to the “stationary” model, in Olson’s terms? On the basis of previous research, I argue that the nature of Russia’s political regime—electoral authoritarianism under personalist rule—prevents such a trajectory of further evolution. Indeed, the set of constitutional changes adopted in Russia in July 2020 is likely to preserve bad governance as a mechanism of maintenance of politico-economic order, as intentionally built and developed during the post-Soviet period. While certain technocratic solutions for Russia’s governance, aimed at “fool-proofing”, may avert the risks of major disasters, under conditions of durable authoritarianism the use of these devices will not result in major advancements in the quality of governance. Rather, they may contribute to further decay and aggravation of the numerous vices of bad governance.