Strategic Uncertainty and Elite Defections in Electoral Autocracies: A Cross-National Analysis

Río, Adrián del

doi:10.1177/00104140221074273

Cited by 8 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Elite defection or coups become more likely as the deteriorating economic performance disrupts the political bargain between the autocrat and his support coalition (Haggard and Kaufman 1997, 267;Reuter and Gandhi 2010;N. K. Kim 2016;Reuter and Szakonyi 2019;Djuve and Knutsen 2022;Del Río 2022;Vall-Prat 2023). In response, the autocrat may downsize the winning coalition and financially coerce former allies to reap short-term financial rent and deter others from defection.…”

Section: Micro-level Determinants Of Repressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taming a Paper Tiger? A Political Economy of Support for the Repression of the Business Elite

Sinanoglu

2023

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Why do autocrats financially repress some allies but not others during an economic crisis? When too many foxes are in the henhouse, an autocrat may purge his allies in bad times and shrink the winning coalition. However, it is a risky enterprise. If he targets the wrong elite, it may backfire and trigger coups and dissent. Despite the high risk, we still do not know much about precisely who autocrats are likely to sideline from the ruling coalition. I suggest that the autocrat’s business allies are a politically expedient target during economic crises because the people perceive the co-opted business elite as corrupt. Given their low public popularity, the autocrat may justifiably blame the greedy business elite for the country’s economic woes. To develop a framework for public support for repression, I focus on Turkey as a case – a highly polarized country that has experienced a protracted financial crisis. One novel contribution of this study is the use of visual conjoints. I created fake LinkedIn profiles of hypothetical businesspeople with AI-generated profile pictures and business logos. I measured people’s support for their financial repression, depending on their firm’s characteristics, sectoral affiliations, and partisan attitudes toward the government’s economic policies. The results suggest that public support for financial coercion depends on the regime’s political economy. People are more likely to condone the extra-taxation of the business elite, who owe their success to the regime and are perceived as responsible for the economic crisis. This paper contributes to a growing scholarship on micro-level determinants of autocratic purges, and its findings have broad implications for our understanding of elite defection and autocratic power-sharing arrangements.

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