Formal Models of Authoritarian Regimes: A Critique

Abstract

The very idea that authoritarian regimes (“autocracies”) may enjoy popular support is hard to fathom for democrats. Models of authoritarian regimes often entail tacit ideological assumptions, and many are driven by methodological fashions. They ignore the efforts of rulers to provide what people value. The psychology they assume is inadequate to predict actions. They are often too abstract to generate testable predictions. “Support” for any regime is difficult to assess.

Partisanship and Political Socialization in Electoral Autocracies

“…Understanding the more banal reasons why citizens participate is critical to de-exotifying politics in non-Western contexts, particularly autocratic ones. As Adam Przeworski (2022) has recently argued, the exotification of autocratic politics based on ideological assumptions about authoritarianism has led political scientists to make erroneous conclusions about politics in these types of regimes. Indeed, Thomas Pepinsky (2017) has noted that despite headlines about repression and revolution, in fact, "Life in authoritarian states is mostly boring and tolerable."…”

Distinctions With a Difference: Illiberalism and Authoritarianism in Scholarly Study

“…One problem, beyond deep confusion across social science fields about the level of analysis or even phenomenon of study, remains terminological bias. This was recently brought forward by eminent comparative political scientist Adam Przeworski-whose definition of electoral democracy forms the core of the above discussion-in a recent article at Perspectives on Politics, which castigated models of authoritarianism as mired in ideological bias and motivated reasoning masquerading as inherent "logics" of autocracy (Przeworski, 2022). It is difficult to accept at face-value unitary assumptions about what authoritarian rule is or is like given the proliferating subtypes, structural differences, and even differences in legitimation strategies that modern scholarship continues to uncover and emphasize (Gerschewski, 2013(Gerschewski, , 2018.…”

Foreign Direct Investment and Political Preferences in Non-Democratic Regimes

“…After all, other types of regimes might not continue to offer the highest revenues for the current beneficiaries of FDI. 5 Lastly, citizens have to take into account that any attempt to overthrow the incumbent regime might result in yet another form of autocratic rule (Geddes et al, 2014;Przeworski, 2022). I thus argue that individuals-when making a decision whether or not to support the non-democratic regime they live in-take into account both the current economic performance of the incumbent government and the probability that a potential other regime will deliver at least the same level of economic performance in the future (Mainwaring & Pérez-Liñán, 2014).…”

“…Second, in comparative politics scholars ascribe mass attitudes a crucial role in regime trajectories (Mainwaring & Pérez-Liñán, 2014;Neundorf et al, 2022;Przeworski, 2022), despite the institutional turn in comparative research on authoritarianism (Pepinsky, 2014). Yet, there is considerable disagreement as to how economic developments shape individuals' attitudes toward political regimes.…”