Winning the Game of Thrones: Leadership Succession in Modern Autocracies

Abstract

Under what conditions can dictatorships manage peaceful leadership transitions? This article argues that constitutional succession rules are critical for modern dictatorships, contrary to the predominant scholarly focus on hereditary succession or parties. An effective succession rule needs to solve dual problems of peaceful exit and peaceful entry. First, the rule must enable incumbents to exit power peacefully by reducing coup threats. Second, the rule must empower the designated successor to ensure that they can enter power peacefully. Constitutional rules help solve both problems, and are particularly effective when they appoint the vice president as the designated successor. The vice president’s access to material resources deters other factions from challenging the succession procedure, whereas designating successors without a power base is ineffective. Using original data on constitutional rules in African autocracies, I show that regimes that formally designate the vice president as the successor are more likely to undergo peaceful transitions.

In the Shadows of Great Men: Retired Leaders and Informal Power Constraints in Autocracies

“…This focus is motivated by two reasons. First, succession is a fundamental challenge faced by all regimes that do not select leaders via competitive elections (Herz 1952;Huntington and Moore 1970;Meng 2021;Spearman 1939). Within the set of relatively institutionalized autocracies where there is often a norm against life-long tenure, the retirement of top leadership is a sufficiently common phenomenon that can be analyzed systematically.…”

“…Autocratic successions are inherently difficult to manage because they must address two simultaneous challenges: peaceful entry by the successor and peaceful exit by the predecessor (Meng 2021). These two challenges require potentially conflicting solutions.…”

“…To illustrate how this perspective can help us better understand intra-elite power dynamics, we study a particular set of informal constraints common in relatively institutionalized autocraciesthe presence of retired political leaders. Leadership turnover is an important yet highly sensitive issue in authoritarian politics (Burling 1974;Huntington and Moore 1970;Meng 2021;Treisman 2015;Tullock 1987). In regimes that have undergone one or more rounds of pre-mortem successions, new top leaders often enter office when prominent individuals from the previous generations are still alive and active.…”

Subjective and Objective Measurement of Democratic Backsliding

“…Constitutional rules that lay out a succession hierarchy create a focal point by identifying the next leader, which solves the elite coordination problem surrounding the leadership transition (Frantz and Stein, 2017;Kokkonen and Sundell, 2014). In fact, the very process of identifying the designated successor shifts the distribution of power in their favor by creating expectations that they are the heir (Meng, 2021).…”

Don’t turn around, der Kommissar’s in town: Political officers and coups d’état in authoritarian regimes

“…The use of a ruling party may reduce social frictions by co-opting sections of the civilian population into supporting the regime, offering jobs and pay-offs that reduce unemployment and poverty (Gehlbach & Keefer, 2011; Ang, 2016). Stronger institutionalization may also alleviate tensions inherent in power-sharing between dictators and elites, formalizing rules and procedures that lower the stakes of conflicts and ease transitions between leaders (Frantz & Stein, 2017; Meng, 2020). Despite the depth of literature on autocratic survival, few have examined methods developed to control the armed forces from within.…”