The politics of autocratic survival in Equatorial Guinea: Co-optation, restrictive institutional rules, repression, and international projection

Abstract

Equatorial Guinea is not only one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes but also a striking case of regime and leader survival. This small, oil-rich state and personalist regime defies conventional wisdom because it is both far more resilient and faces far fewer threats from within the regime and from opposition political parties than other resource-rich states. But how does the regime manage to survive? This study argues that four key mechanisms interact to explain Equatorial Guinea’s record of authoritarian survival. Firstly, co-optation (via patronage, party, and cabinet appointments) which President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and the regime party—Partido democrático de guinea ecuatorial—have used to build internal cohesion and fragment opposition. Secondly, the crafting of restrictive institutional rules (party and electoral laws) that, combined with informal rules, aim to protect the regime’s interests and make participation in political opposition more costly. Thirdly, the use of (selective and diffuse) repression to shield the regime and shrink the living space of challengers. Finally, the regime’s international linkages and projection to gain credibility and offset pressure for change. We argue that autocrats’ survival depends on their ability to play a strategic two-level game: domestic and international.

Popular Protest, Political Opportunities, and Change in Africa

“…Repression tends to reduce threats and is used along with other strategies of social and political control, such as co-optation, to allow the regime to negotiate with protesters by accommodating some of their demands or distributing economic and political benefits (Geha, 2019). Repression and co-optation are key mechanisms of autocratic control and stability (Gerschewski, 2013;Sá and Sanches, 2021), lessening the chances of popular protest. Therefore, the reduction of state repression is a variable of political opportunity for protest in authoritarian regimes, making contentious politics less risky for protesters.…”

To Purge or Not to Purge? An Individual-Level Quantitative Analysis of Elite Purges in Dictatorships

“…The fate of Francisco Macías Nguema of Equatorial Guinea illustrates these dangers. Macías ruled for a decade with brutal repression, which he increasingly turned against his own elites (Sá and Sanches 2021, 86). An International Commission of Jurists report estimated that ten of twelve ministers in Macías' first cabinet were murdered at his direction (Artucio 1979).…”

State Repression and Democratic Dispensation in Uganda 1996–2016

“…Arguably, the incumbent government survives on a tactical threat to the masses to keep them submissive and showing them how dangerous it is to vote the opposition into power. The government in power controls the election process to ensure it wins elections to remain in power (Sa & Sanches, 2021). The central argument of this article proposes that the NRM government's behavior to retain power does whatever it can to ensure that there is an electoral body in place that serves its interests while maintaining weak oppositions through harassing and intimidating them and elections institution, which is vulnerable to its manipulation.…”