DWA 227 · Authoritarianism in the Age of Globalization · Week 3 · Tue Sep 8
Regime types on four dimensions; informational autocracy; post-totalitarian China
A framework for the week · Linz & Stepan, Table 1
| Democracy | Authoritarianism | Totalitarianism | Post-totalitarianism | Sultanism | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pluralism | Responsible political pluralism reinforced by extensive areas of pluralist autonomy in economy, society, and internal life of organizations. | Political system with limited, not responsible political pluralism. Often quite extensive social and economic pluralism. | No significant economic, social, or political pluralism. Official party has de jure and de facto monopoly of power. | Limited, but not responsible social, economic, and institutional pluralism. Almost no political pluralism because party still formally has monopoly of power. | Economic and social pluralism does not disappear but is subject to unpredictable and despotic intervention. No rule of law. |
| Ideology | Extensive intellectual commitment to citizenship and procedural rules of contestation. Not teleological. | Political system without elaborate and guiding ideology but with distinctive mentalities. | Elaborate and guiding ideology that articulates a reachable utopia. | Guiding ideology still officially exists and is part of the social reality. But weakened commitment to or faith in utopia. | Highly arbitrary manipulation of symbols. Extreme glorification of ruler. |
| Mobilization | Participation via autonomously generated organization of civil society and competing parties of political society guaranteed by a system of law. | Political system without extensive or intensive political mobilization except at some points in their development. | Extensive mobilization into a vast array of regime-created obligatory organizations. Effort at mobilization of enthusiasm. | Progressive loss of interest by leaders and nonleaders involved in organizing mobilization. Boredom, withdrawal, and ultimately privatization of population’s values become an accepted fact. | Low but occasional manipulative mobilization of a ceremonial type by coercive or clientelistic methods without permanent organization. |
| Leadership | Top leadership produced by free elections and must be exercised within constitutional limits and state of law. | A leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined but actually quite predictable norms. | Totalitarian leadership rules with undefined limits and great unpredictability for members and nonmembers. Often charismatic. | Growing emphasis by post-totalitarian political elite on personal security. Checks on top leadership via party structures, procedures, and “internal democracy.” | Highly personalistic and arbitrary. No rational-legal constraints. Strong dynastic tendency. |
Linz & Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (1996), Table 1, “Major Modern Regime Ideal Types and Their Defining Characteristics,” pp. 157–158 (reader pagination). Cells abridged to each entry’s opening sentences; wording verbatim.
Linz & Stepan · the case for revising the tripartite scheme
If we use these studies and the traditional tripartite regime type distinction, it turns out that more than 90 percent of modern nondemocratic regimes would have to share the same typological space—“authoritarian.” Obviously, with so many heterogenous countries sharing the same typological “starting place,” this typology of regime type cannot tell us much about the extremely significant range of variation in possible transition paths and consolidation tasks that we believe in fact exists. Linz & Stepan 1996: 155
Linz & Stepan 1996: 154–156. “These studies” = the two cross-national political-rights/civil-liberties indices the authors cite (p. 155).
Linz & Stepan · post-totalitarianism as a continuum
Linz & Stepan 1996: 156. Country-years are the authors’ own examples (Czechoslovakia 1977–1989; Hungary 1982–1988).
Linz & Stepan · Mobilization
Thus, Kadar’s famous saying, “Those who are not against us are for us,” is a saying that is conceivable only in a post-totalitarian regime, not in a totalitarian one. Linz & Stepan 1996: 161
János Kádár, First Secretary, Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, 1956–1988. Same page: “Membership is still generalized and obligatory but tends to generate more boredom than enthusiasm.”
Supplementary video
VICE, “Super Users”
YouTube video, VICE (“Super Users” series); title and publisher confirmed via YouTube oembed. youtube.com/watch?v=poHTA94-BeY
Guriev & Treisman · the argument
The model of dictatorship that dominated in the twentieth century was based on fear. … The key to such regimes, we argue, is the manipulation of information. Rather than terrorizing or indoctrinating the population, rulers survive by leading citizens to believe—rationally but incorrectly—that they are competent and public-spirited. Guriev & Treisman, “Informational Autocrats,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 33, no. 4 (2019): 100–101
Named cases (p. 102): Chávez’s Venezuela, Putin’s Russia, Fujimori’s Peru, Mahathir’s Malaysia, Orbán’s Hungary, Correa’s Ecuador; Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore “a pioneer of the model.”
Fear → spin · 1 · Violence
Guriev & Treisman 2019: 103–105 (Authoritarian Control Techniques dataset); leaders who served ≥ 5 years in a nondemocracy, Polity2 < 6. Exception the authors note: Assad, ~1,500 estimated killings/yr to 2015.
Fear → spin · 1 · Violence
I said to Li Peng, you had the world’s TV cameras there waiting for the meeting with Gorbachev, and you stage this grand show. His answer was: We are completely inexperienced in these matters. Lee Kuan Yew, on the June 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, interview quoted in Elegant & Elliott 2005; in Guriev & Treisman 2019: 106
Same page: Lee “detained more than 100 political prisoners (Amnesty International 1980), but later he pioneered low-violence methods”; Montesinos (Peru): “Remember why Pinochet had his problems. We will not be so clumsy” (McMillan & Zoido 2004, in G&T: 107).
Fear → spin · 2 · Ideology
Guriev & Treisman 2019: 109 and Figure 3. Official ideology = “a social, political, or religious doctrine, endorsed by top officials, that influenced the content of laws.”
Fear → spin · 3 · Institutions
Guriev & Treisman 2019: 110–112; election series from Hyde & Marinov 2012 as reported there. Legislatures, p. 110: 1975, “almost one-half of nondemocracies had no elected legislature at all”; 2015, “more than two-thirds had parliaments in which nongovernment parties had at least a token presence.”
Fear → spin · 4 · Rhetoric
Guriev & Treisman 2019: 116, Table 1 (means, % of words). Overt dictators incl. Castro; informational autocrats incl. Lee Kuan Yew (1980–90), Putin (post-2008), Nazarbayev; democrats incl. Eisenhower, Nehru (pp. 113–116).
Fear → spin · 5 · Elite and public
At least some dictators in power today survive not by preventing the masses from rebelling, but by removing their desire to do so. Guriev & Treisman 2019: 121
Guriev & Treisman 2019: 117–121, Figures 6–7; Gallup World Poll, Freedom House press-freedom scores, Polity IV. “Elite” = respondents with completed tertiary education.
Bridge · legitimation strategies
Linz & Stepan · post-totalitarianism
The relative de-ideologization of post-totalitarian regimes and the weakening of the belief in utopia as a foundation of legitimacy mean that, as in many authoritarian regimes, there is a growing effort in a post-totalitarian polity to legitimate the regime on the basis of performance criteria. Linz & Stepan 1996: 160
Guriev & Treisman · informational autocrats
When old-style dictators address the general public, they seek to instill anxiety, prompting citizens to rally behind the nation’s protector-in-chief. We argue that informational autocrats, like democratic leaders, aim for something different: a reputation for competence. Guriev & Treisman 2019: 112
Linz & Stepan 1996: 160 (post-totalitarian regimes, on the weakening of utopian legitimacy); Guriev & Treisman 2019: 112 (section heading “Rhetoric of Performance Rather Than Violence”).
Pei · the case
An even more worrying aspect of the China puzzle is that since Xi Jinping became paramount leader in 2012, the CCP has reverted to a neo-Stalinist path. Xi has revived one-man rule, escalated political repression to its worst level since Mao Zedong died in 1976, reintroduced ideological indoctrination, and launched an aggressive foreign policy that openly challenges the theory and practice of a liberal, rules-governed international order. Pei, “China: Totalitarianism’s Long Shadow,” Journal of Democracy 32, no. 2 (2021): 6
“The China puzzle—a relatively high level of socioeconomic development coexisting with a persistent dictatorship” (p. 5).
Pei · the puzzle · Table 2
Pei 2021: 10, Table 2 (education: UNDP; income: Penn World Table 9.1, 2011 PPP USD). Noncommunist cases incl. Brazil 1985, Spain 1975, South Korea 1987, Chile 1988; communist cases incl. Hungary 1989, Poland 1989, Russia 1991, Czech Republic 1989.
Pei · China, 1949–2018, in Linz & Stepan’s terms
As Linz and Stepan wrote, the post-Tiananmen regime was a form of “frozen post-totalitarianism in which, despite the persistent tolerance of some civil society critics of the regime, almost all the other control mechanisms of the party-state stay[ed] in place for a long period and [did] not evolve.” Pei 2021: 12, quoting Linz & Stepan 1996
Span labels and dates from Pei 2021: 6, 9 (“from 1949 to the beginning of economic reform in 1978”), 12, 16. Bracketed tense changes are Pei’s.
Pei · Pluralism
Pei 2021: 13–15; employment and Party figures from the China Statistical Yearbook 2020 and Party sources as cited there; SOE figures pp. 14–15.
Pei · Leadership
Pei 2021: 15–16. Deng chaired the Central Military Commission until November 1989 while holding neither the presidency nor the general secretaryship (p. 15–16).
Pei · Ideology
“An important reason” why Mikhail Gorbachev was able to send “a great [communist] party” to oblivion, said Xi, “was that their ideals and convictions wavered. … In the end nobody was a real man, nobody came out to resist.” Xi Jinping to a closed gathering of CCP officials, shortly after becoming general secretary (2012); in Pei 2021: 17
Pei 2021: 17. Xi on SOEs, CCP Central Committee, October 2020: “They must be stronger, better, and larger” (p. 14).
Pei · Mobilization and coercion
Due to security-forces modernization since 1989, China’s post-totalitarian regime now wields as much repressive capacity as a classic totalitarian regime, if not more. Pei 2021: 13–14
Pei 2021: 13–14; spending figure from the China Statistical Yearbook as cited there.
Pei · three propositions
Pei 2021: 12, 14, 15 (the propositions’ own wording). Same essay, p. 8: “A Leninist party, with its insistence that it must rule alone and free of competition, is the heart of the problem.”
Development and regime type · two readings
Guriev & Treisman
In highly modern countries, the informed elite is generally too large for manipulation to work, and censoring all private media is costly: democracy is the only option. In undeveloped countries, repression often remains more cost effective. But at intermediate levels of development, both democracy and informational autocracy are possible outcomes. Guriev & Treisman 2019: 117
Pei
Communist dictatorships that go for economic reform without political democratization, like those in China and Vietnam, may achieve swift socioeconomic progress. But the legacy institutions of totalitarianism will allow the democratizing effects of development to be blunted and perhaps even neutralized altogether. Pei 2021: 7–8
Both essays start from Lipset, “Some Social Requisites of Democracy” (1959); Pei 2021: 5; Guriev & Treisman 2019: 102, 117.
Discussion · development and regime type
| The framework | China | |
|---|---|---|
| Case selection | G&T’s informational-autocrat exemplars, selected on low repression (<5 killings/yr, ≤100 prisoners at peak): Putin, Chávez, Correa, Nazarbayev, Lee Kuan Yew 112 | Domestic-security spending ~8× in real terms, 2002–18; ≥1 mn Muslims in Xinjiang detention Pei 13–14 |
| Development threshold | “In highly modern countries … democracy is the only option … at intermediate levels of development, both democracy and informational autocracy are possible” 117 | Per capita income $13,056 (2017 PPP) — above the $10,717 average at which communist dictatorships historically democratized Pei 10 |
| Explanatory engine | Four dimensions — pluralism, ideology, leadership, mobilization — classify a regime’s type L&S 157 | “The Chinese experience … forces us to rethink the relationship between economic development and democracy … modernization theory remains relevant and useful because it helps us to ask the right question” Pei 6 |
Each row juxtaposes the assigned reading’s own claim against a fact from Pei 2021 — for discussion, not resolved on the slide. Guriev & Treisman 2019: 112, 117; Linz & Stepan 1996: 157; Pei 2021: 6, 10, 13–14.
This week, mapped
| Totalitarian (L&S) | Post-totalitarian (L&S) | Informational autocracy (G&T) | China under Xi (Pei) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pluralism | “No significant economic, social, or political pluralism” 157 | “Limited, but not responsible social, economic, and institutional pluralism” 157 | By 2015, > ⅔ of nondemocracies had legislatures with nongovernment parties present 110 | 54 mn state employees; GONGOs; independent unions and associations banned 13 |
| Ideology | “Elaborate and guiding ideology that articulates a reachable utopia” 157 | “Weakened commitment to or faith in utopia” 157 | Official ideology: 42% of nondemocracies (1983) → ~20% (1990s–2000s) 109 | “Reintroduced ideological indoctrination” 6 |
| Leadership | “Undefined limits and great unpredictability” 158 | “Checks on top leadership via party structures, procedures” 158 | Originally elected: 14% (1970s cohort) → 56% (2000s) 110 | Presidential term limit removed 2018; three top posts, no term limits 16 |
| Mobilization | “Extensive mobilization into … regime-created obligatory organizations” 157 | “Boredom, withdrawal, and ultimately privatization” 157 | Words of violence in speeches: 0.51% vs. 1.41% for overt dictators 116 | Domestic-security spending ~8× in real terms, 2002–18 13 |
Page numbers per cell: Linz & Stepan 1996 (reader pagination); Guriev & Treisman 2019; Pei 2021.
This week and next
Per the course syllabus of record.