Authoritarianism in Democratization Era

Djayadi Hanan

As suggested by Huntington (1991), the last quarter of the twentieth century can be regarded as the third wave of democratization. It is featured by the fall of dictatorship/authoritarian rulers in many parts of the world from Portuguese to Mexico, from Eastern Europe to Latin America to Asia and Africa (Brownlee, 2007). Democracy starts flourishing in these many areas following the demise of the authoritarianism. Some of them are moving toward consolidation, some are still struggling to finish the transition period. Despite this big wave of democratization, many of the authoritarian rulers/regimes are still persistent. Several of the democratizing countries even reverted back to authoritarianism.

This paper reviews a number of current literatures that deal with the question of why and how the authoritarian regime/ruler can still be persistent in the current democratization era. It will bring the answer to this question offered by the literature on democratization and social movement. Schock (2005) has pointed out that democratization theory usually focuses its explanation about the process of democratization based on either the structural requisites of democracy or transaction among elites. On the other hand, social movement perspectives focus on the process of mass political contention which, almost always precedes democratization. This paper looks at these explanations by examining how they deal with the persistent of authoritarianism in facing the wave of democratization.

Why the Question is Important?

The question of why authoritarianism is still persistent despite the global third wave of democratization is important both for empirical and theoretical reasons. Many authoritarian regimes in the area expected to be swept away by democratization wave still last until today. Several countries, such as Cuba in Latin America, do not experience any change, although the structural condition seems to be favorable to democratization (Hawkins, 2001). In Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia, two big island countries, have become electoral democracy for more than a decade while others in this region still show their authoritarian characteristics (Slater, 2006). The view that most countries are being swept by democratization wave is becoming debatable. Many democratizing countries/transition countries have problems in consolidating their democracies. Several of them such as Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Uruguay experience reversal process to authoritarianism (Tilly, 2003).

From theoretical point of view, understanding why many contemporary authoritarian regimes last will enable the scholars not to be trapped by the “narrowly defined frame of modern political institutions: parties, legislatures, and most prominently elections” (Brownlee, 2002: 478). Many regimes have and practice those kinds of political institutions, but it does not necessarily mean that they are democratic. Moreover, the study on democratization has been focusing mainly on countries experiencing democratization or transition to authoritarianism, and not so much on the absence of transition. By examining the persistence of authoritarianism, the scholars will be able to “examine all outcomes on the dependent variable: regime stability as well as regime change” (Hawkins, ibid: 441).

In reviewing the accounts on the persistence of authoritarianism in this era of democratization I categorize the countries into countries that do not experience transition or only experience liberalization and countries that experience transition. In general, the explanations about the persistence of authoritarianism in the last half of the twentieth century (third wave of democratization) introduce the concept of authoritarian resilience (Nathan, 2002) and competitive authoritarianism (Levitsky and Way, 2003). Authoritarian resilience is the adaptability, complexity, autonomy and coherence of state organization under the regime. Competitive authoritarianism is a type of hybrid regime in which it does not meet the standard of democracy but still allows democratic institutions such as opposition to play out and the regime is playing around between cracking it down and losing power. Besides that, in the countries where democratization is in the struggle of completing the transition or trying to move to consolidation, the possibility of de-democratization is high because of authoritarian nostalgia and the disillusionment of democracy.

Elites and Structural Perspectives

In the countries where the transition is absent, the explanation about authoritarian resilience can be considered based on elites and structural perspectives. The most salient region in which authoritarianism has consistently shown its resilience is the Middle East. Some countries in other areas such as in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe have also showed their durability in maintaining authoritarianism. Elite and structural explanations on these literatures sometimes emphasize only one of them and sometimes make the link between the two. This makes sense because authoritarian regime is usually featured by certain dominant elite and supported by certain authoritarian structures.

Many examples of structural based account can be mentioned here. Brownlee (2004 and 2007), by examining Egypt and Malaysia and comparing them to Iran and the Philippines, shows that party institutionalization is the explanatory variable of the durable authoritarianism. Ruling/dominant parties in Egypt and Malaysia have been able from time to time to resolve intra-elite conflict and prevent further schism because of defection of influential leaders. In Iran and the Philippines, the decline of the ruling party has encouraged open and unresolved elite conflicts and provides further structural condition for opposition mobilization. Electoral politics, instead of destabilizing the regime, has been used as method of coalition maintenance among elites and preserving the authoritarianism. This notion of institutional manipulation is also used by Schedler (2002) by introducing the electoral authoritarianism in which the regime uses electoral manipulation to control electoral outcomes.

In Syiria, Wedeen (1999) uses the concept of “disciplinary symbolic power” which has structured the compliance of the citizens based on the centralization of authority and the creation of cult of Hafez al-Asad (the President). Through this mechanism of disciplinary symbolic power, the citizens were compelled to believe that they accept the cult’s claims. This mechanism has enabled the authoritarian ruler to maintain the power. Bellin (2004) also uses structural/institutional explanation when she points out to the will and coercive capacity of the state in suppressing the democratic initiatives, if any. Authoritarian regimes like in the Middle East, according to Bellin, have all elements of the robustness of coercive apparatus namely the fiscal health, the successful maintenance of international support, the low level of institutionalization of security establishment, and the degree of popular mobilization that it faces (the lower the more robust). Meanwhile, Vandewalle (1998), through his examination of Libya under Qadafhi, looks at the structure of state revenue (oil) which does not rely on people (taxation) as the factor that gives the ability to the personalistic regime to “buy” the people by sharing some of the state income to the citizens and strengthen the power.

Several other works have focused mainly on elite approach when explaining the persistence of authoritarianism in the countries where transition is absent. Monarchiism/family rule approach is used by Herb (1999) to examine many Persian Gulf current monarchies such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Herb shows that by keeping the power and its distribution among the royal families, the state has been able to prevent the dangerous political disputes among elites which can lead to the breakdown of the regime. All members of elites get their share in all top levels of government positions and make them secured in the system and resistant to the possible changes. Like Herb in the Persian Gulf, Hawkins (ibid) uses a more elite approach in examining why the authoritarianism is persistent in Cuba. Hawkins shows that “the absence of key democratizing agent inside Cuba—independent social group and softline regime factions” as the key factor in the durability of Cuban authoritarianism (ibid: 441). Cuba, according to Hawkins experiences all structural pressures favorable to regime breakdown such as socioeconomic development, economic crisis, and international pressure, but the state leadership (Castro) and its charismatic legitimacy have prevented the emergence of democratizing actors.

Meanwhile, Jones (1998) finds that illiberal character of middle class as important factor. The rise of middle class in East and Southeast Asia does not support the notion that the middle class will facilitate the authoritarian regime change toward democracy. Ruling elite and middle class in East and Southeast Asia according to Jones are “ideologically, economically, and ethnically homogeneous” (ibid: 156). This kind of middle class is state dependent and quiescent. Therefore, instead of demanding more liberalization and democratization, this middle class plays active roles in strengthening the state, especially in supporting its development strategy. This illiberal character of middle class has been one factor that maintains the durability of authoritarianism.

This structural and elite approach has been able to identify that the narrow definition of electoral democracy is not enough to understand whether the transition has been underway or not. Authoritarian regimes in fact use this electoral mechanism as one way to legitimize their existence. Differentiating liberalization from democratization, therefore, is important to understand the durability of authoritarianism. Liberalization has been used by the regime to respond to the increasing demands of democracy. This is possible because liberalization is characterized by “the more modest goal of merely loosening restrictions and expanding individual and group rights within an authoritarian regime” (Shin, 1994: 142) and the regime keeps an eye on its process and makes necessary adjustment based on assessment whether its power is in jeopardy or not. Introducing election, for example, can be merely part of this kind of liberalization.

One main critique to this structural and elites explanation is on its tendency to neglect the masses or the development of civil society. Kurzman (1996) for example shows that the state strengths cannot account for the durability of the authoritarian regime. The masses and civil society organizations, through the accumulation of shifting perception about the ability of the masses to overcome the strength and the threat of the state could finally bring down the regime. Another issue is international ties. Most of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East for instance have strong support from the West. Regimes like in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have been enjoying the strong supports from the United States for decades. This has enabled the regimes to not rely so much on the legitimacy of the people and have room for using repression indiscriminately which in turn only provide very limited space for the opposition to grow. Related to these international ties, also important to note that in especially Middle Eastern countries where the durability of authoritarianism is the most salient one, the role of cultural explanation (Islam) cannot be neglected. The demand for more open system in this area have been mostly voiced by the so called Islamist movement such as Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (Hafez and Wiktorowicz, 2004) and Salafi Movement in Saudi Arabia (Okruhlik, 2004). It is possible that the fear that a more open/democratic system will be captured by Islamists as the venue for advancing their agendas has made the international supports from the West take side to the authoritarian regimes rather than democratization.

Social Movement Perspective

Especially in the countries where the transition to democracy involved political contentions and or mass political protest, scholars have been using the social movement perspective to understand why authoritarian regime does not experience its breakdown. In contrast to structural/elite approach, the focus therefore has been on the development of civil society.

Examining democratic transition in Asia, Lee (2002), for example, by using social movement perspectives, maintains that the primary cause of the transition is political protest. In other words, the absence of political protest and the availability of the regime to crush the movement can explain why the authoritarianism persists. The common characteristics of this political protest are: 1) mainly conducted by college students started from the capital city and spread out to many major cities in the country; 2) supported by the middle class; 3) using broad umbrella organization; and 4) it resulted in snowball effect from domestic level all the way up to international level.

Another example is the work from Kurt Schock (1999, 2005) who uses the social movement framework to look at the ability of authoritarian regimes to be resilience. According to him, the inability of the protest movement to be resilient and the absence of the structure of political opportunities such as in Burma and China determine the durability of the authoritarian regimes. There are three keys to Schock’s argument. First, the paradox of repression. All regimes responded with series of repression to the movements, but the effect was different. In South Africa, the Philippines, Nepal, and Thailand it resulted in the strengthening of the challengers while in Burma and China resulted in the collapse of the movements. Schock explains that “… repression may increase or decrease mobilization depending on the presence or absence of other dimensions in the opportunity structure” (2005: 33) such as the influential allies. Second, the movement’s resilience. This resilience is determined by whether or not the challengers’ organization is decentralized or centralized. The more decentralized the movement, the more resilient it will be. Third, leveraging capacity or the ability to activate the third parties to support the movement. In part this is related to the first and second factors, and in another part it depends on the appeal of the movement.

Several critical assessments can be designated to this approach. First, it cannot explain why in certain authoritarian countries civil society is ready to protest and not in other authoritarian countries. Political opportunity approach for example cannot explain why there was no strong/massive political protest in Cuba despite the availability of such windows of opportunities. Second, it can only explain the breakdown or the persistence of regime, not the trajectory of the movement. Social movement approach cannot answer why for example in Iran, the breakdown of the authoritarian regime was then followed by the establishment of another authoritarian system. Finally, this approach can only explain the liberalization process. In the case of authoritarian resilience, the elites and states are more important. Liberalization can be introduced and the social movement can grow but as long as the elites and state remain intact the social movement can only play limited role.

Incomplete Democratization Perspective

In the countries where democratization is underway, scholars use the democratization process to understand why some countries are experiencing the slowing down of transition or reverted democratic process. Shin (1994) has identified that at least there are four stages of democratization: decay of authoritarian rule; transition; consolidation; and the maturing of democratic political order. Countries that cannot move forward through these stages (incomplete process of democratization) are in danger of going back to authoritarianism.

According to Kubicek (1998), the resistance to change of the former Soviet republics in Central Asia for instance is caused by many structural factors which cannot facilitate the breakdown of the authoritarian regimes. Those structural factors are low level of economic development, traditional culture, weak civil society, the communist legacy, and ethnic cleavages. The absence of factors favorable to democratization, in other words, provides room for authoritarian regime to remain the same. Thus, Kubicek basically argues that these Central Asian countries has been in the process of the decay of authoritarianism but cannot move to the transition process.

Another account is about backward democratization. From their study on Russia, Czech and the Republic of Korea, Rose and Shin (2001) introduce the notion of backward democratization that leads to incomplete democratization which in turn can bring the process back to authoritarianism. According to them, democracies in the first wave countries have been supported by the availability of modern state institutions before electoral democracy was introduced and make it stable democracy. In contrast, democracy in the third wave countries is featured by the lack of modern state institutions which provides the possibilities for authoritarian elites to capture the process and revert it back to authoritarianism. Incomplete process is also featured by institutional democratization that is not followed by cultural democratization. Embracing democracy as “the only game in town” is the first step, not the last step of democratization (Shin and Tusalem, 2007). Democracy is the government by demos, therefore, without the people who have political attitudes, beliefs and values of democracy such as efficacy, tolerance, and trust, democratization cannot sustain and in danger of being reverted.

Perhaps, the most common account on the slowing down of democratization or the reverted process is the problem democratic disillusionment and authoritarian nostalgia (Bratton, 2004; Chang et.al., 2007). In Africa, according to Bratton, the people soon realize that, after the regime change but not followed by the change in their quality of life and the incumbents who are supported by popular mandate indulge themselves in corrupt and manipulative behavior, there is no real change or improvement. In this situation, Bratton continues, “it does not take long until the general public becomes disillusioned with democracy” (ibid: 148). Facing this problem, one of the people’s main choices according to Chang et.al. (ibid) is the “authoritarian nostalgia.” Especially in East and Southeast Asia, this nostalgia is important because the performance of former authoritarian regime especially in economic growth is used by the people as the bar to see the progress under new democracy. When they do not get their dream in the process of democracy they start remembering the good side of authoritarian regime (especially economic growth) and want it back. The example of the transition process in Benin (Bratton and Walle, 1994) in which the people went back to choose the former authoritarian leader is a very good example of this phenomenon.

Although it is good in explaining why some countries go back to authoritarianism, this democratization process approach can be criticized as focusing very much on structural factors. The agency and civil society at the most are only part of the process. Again, it cannot answer why in country like Cuba, where all structural favorable factors available, yet there is still no transition (elite choice is not considered). Besides that, this approach does not explain how the contentious politics contributes to the strategy of regime in maintaining its power. As has been shown by Lee (2002), political protest matters in democratic transition and the resilience of authoritarianism in Asia. In addition, this approach focuses only on countries where democratization occurs, thus cannot be used to examine why there is no transition in certain countries.

Conclusion

This short review has tried to show that the ability of authoritarian regimes to survive despite being swept away by the wave of democratization is related to complex factors. On one side, the authoritarian regime’s institutionalization and cohesiveness can manage to meet the challenges and to some extent manipulate part of democratization process to support the maintenance of the regime. On the other side, attempts to bring down the regime in several countries are weak and the process of democratization is protracted and tiring resulted in disillusionment of democracy in many countries. The combination of these many factors can keep authoritarian regimes remain durable or revert the democratization process back to authoritarianism.

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