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Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2014. 17:313–26 Keywords

First published online as a Review in Advance on authoritarian states, democracy, elections, parties, media
December 23, 2013

The Annual Review of Political Science is online at Abstract

polisci.annualreviews.org
This article reviews the burgeoning literature on democratic authoritarian-
This article’s doi: ism, which examines two related but distinct questions: why authoritarian
10.1146/annurev-polisci-052013-115248
regimes adopt institutions conventionally associated with democracy, and
Copyright  c 2014 by Annual Reviews. how these institutions strengthen authoritarian regimes and forestall de-
All rights reserved
mocratization. The literature suggests that authoritarian regimes adopt and
utilize nominally democratic institutions to augment their strength through
five main mechanisms: signaling, information acquisition, patronage distri-
bution, monitoring, and credible commitment. After evaluating each of these
mechanisms, I discuss the empirical challenges facing this research agenda
and suggest how the field should proceed to overcome these challenges.

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INTRODUCTION
Since the end of the Cold War, the proportion of authoritarian states in the world has been on the
decline. Today, authoritarian regimes comprise only one-fifth of all states in the world (Marshall
& Cole 2011, p. 10).1 Not only is the proportion of authoritarian states on the decline, but the
proportion of authoritarian states that have institutions conventionally associated with democracy,
such as parties and elections, is on the rise. In the past decade, about 70% of authoritarian states
held legislative elections and 80% held elections for the chief executive. Furthermore, more than
three-quarters of authoritarian states in this period permitted more than one party to participate
in these elections.2
As a result, many have come to wonder if these institutions are a sign that these states are
democratizing. A burgeoning literature on authoritarian states suggests otherwise. This litera-
ture looks at both why authoritarian regimes adopt nominally democratic institutions and what
effect these institutions have on regime stability. It suggests that these institutions are not an
Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2014.17:313-326. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

indication that countries are democratizing, but that these institutions ironically help strengthen
authoritarian regimes and forestall democratization.
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In this review, I evaluate the principal mechanisms by which authoritarian states arguably use
nominally democratic institutions in order to maintain power, as well as the distinctive empirical
challenges that arise in attempting to understand the purpose and impact of these institutions in
authoritarian regimes. Finally, I offer several suggestions for how the field should proceed in order
to overcome these challenges in the future.

MECHANISMS
According to this literature, authoritarian regimes adopt nominally democratic institutions in
order to protect themselves against potential threats from both within the regime and within
society at large through five different mechanisms. These mechanisms are signaling, information
acquisition, patronage distribution, credible commitment, and monitoring.

Signaling
Scholars argue that authoritarian regimes adopt and use nominally democratic institutions to reveal
to their potential opponents the material and coercive strength of the regime, and thereby to deter
these opponents from challenging the regime. In particular, they argue that authoritarian regimes
hold elections and engineer the results of these elections in order to win large margins of victory,
which signal to potential challengers that opposition to the regime is futile. Governments can win
large margins of victory through electoral fraud (Simpser 2013) or by simply using government
resources and institutions to mobilize voters (Geddes 2006, Magaloni 2008). Elections in which
leaders win large margins of victory indicate to regime opponents that opposition to the regime
is futile, not necessarily because the regime is popular or considered legitimate, but because the
regime is able to buy off, intimidate, threaten, or force the populace to vote for it (Geddes 2006,
p. 5; Weeden 2008; Magaloni 2008; Simpser 2013).
In support of this argument, Geddes (2006, p. 6) shows that, on average, authoritarian regimes
that hold regular elections last longer than those that do not. Simpser (2013) also shows cross-
nationally that excessive electoral manipulation is significantly associated with parties and leaders
remaining in office longer and is associated with lower voter turnout. Simpser provides more direct

1
Authoritarian states are defined as those scoring –6 or below on the Polity Index.
2
Figures calculated by the author based on data from Svolik (2012).

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evidence of his argument in two qualitative case studies of Russia and Zimbabwe, which suggest that
regimes manipulate elections in order to signal to their opponents their strength. Magaloni (2008)
also offers more direct evidence of her argument regarding signaling in Mexico. She demonstrates
that in Mexico the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) developed complex networks or
organizations and activities to mobilize voters in its “golden years,” even though the opposition
posed no threat to the regime at this time.
The signaling mechanism presents a clever and nonobvious explanation for why authoritarian
regimes hold elections and cheat blatantly in them. These elections can be an important sign of the
strength of a regime. However, it is impossible to know whether the source of the regime’s strength
is the signal of a large margin of victory or the actions that the government undertakes to produce
this signal, namely the intimidation, threats, force, mobilization networks, etc. It seems likely that
the actions regimes undertake to produce these signals are more effective in cowing the opposition
than the signal itself. Magaloni (2008, p. 108) shows that historically the PRI experienced major
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splits within the party when government spending was lower and the party had fewer resources
to distribute to elites in order to maintain their loyalty. This suggests that the PRI’s actions, not
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the signal that the actions produced, were key in building the strength of the PRI.
Authoritarian regimes, moreover, that hold elections may last longer, not because electoral
outcomes serve as a signal of the regime’s strength, but because holding elections is indicative
of the regime’s strength. That is, only popular regimes or regimes with the material capacity to
win elections through strategic manipulation hold elections because the risk of their losing the
elections is small (Geddes 2006, p. 7). Even governments in Western democracies are known to
strategically hold parliamentary elections at times that are most advantageous for the government
in power (Smith 2003). Nevertheless, authoritarian regimes do not always predict the outcomes
of these elections accurately (Bunce & Wolchik 2010). In 1993, General Ibrahim Babangida held
presidential elections in Nigeria ten years after coming to power in a coup d’etat. Babangida lost
these elections to Moshood Abiola and immediately annulled them, triggering protests and riots
throughout the country that eventually led to his resignation.

Information Acquisition
Scholars also argue that authoritarian regimes construct and utilize nominally democratic institu-
tions, particularly legislatures and multiparty elections, in order to identify and manage sources of
societal discontent. Legislatures help regimes identify discontent because they allow elected politi-
cians to make demands on the government on behalf of their constituents (Gandhi 2008, Gandhi
& Przeworski 2007). Autocrats are then able to use this information to stabilize their regimes by
making policy concessions in response to these demands. In support of this argument, Gandhi
(2008) shows that institutionalized regimes (i.e., multiparty legislatures) are more responsive to
society, produce more public goods, and perform better economically than noninstitutionalized
regimes. Gandhi does not find statistically, however, that authoritarian states with legislatures last
significantly longer than those without legislatures.
To explore the use of legislatures to diffuse societal discontent, Malesky & Schuler (2010)
capitalize on a unique feature of Vietnam’s political system—biannual, televised query sessions in
which legislators question the country’s prime minister and cabinet members on pressing political
issues. Although the authors are not able to show if legislators actually represent the interests
of their constituencies in these query systems, or if the government ultimately adopts policies to
address the legislators’ concerns, the authors do find that representatives openly criticize the gov-
ernment in these query sessions, suggesting that these sessions may be a forum for the government
to identify and address societal discontent.

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Multiparty elections, scholars argue, are another institution authoritarian regimes adopt in
order to mitigate societal discontent. Multiparty elections help regimes identify discontent because
votes for opposition candidates reveal the constituencies in which regimes have weak support
(Brownlee 2007, Magaloni 2008). Magaloni (2008) claims that, to undermine the backing of
the opposition, authoritarian regimes use this information to reward supporters with access to
government funds and, conversely, to punish defectors by withholding such funds. In support of
this claim, Magaloni (2008) finds that in Mexico the PRI increased public spending to districts
with the potential to vote for the opposition. Cox (2009) argues that knowledge of where the
opposition has more electoral support also provides regimes with information about the military
strength of the opposition—with the idea that the military potential of the opposition is based
on the opposition’s ability to mobilize the populace, as indicated by the number of votes that the
opposition wins. Cox (2009), who does not explain how regimes use this information to strengthen
themselves, finds statistically that authoritarian leaders of multiparty regimes leave office peacefully
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significantly more often than leaders of nonelectoral and one-party regimes.

Although legislatures and multiparty elections may serve these purposes, they are not the
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only, or necessarily the most effective, institutions for managing societal discontent. Authoritarian
regimes can also achieve this through other formal and informal institutions, including civil society
and the media (Milgrom et al. 1990). According to Berman (1997), the Nazis used civil society in
their rise to power to gain insight into the fears and needs of particular groups within the German
bourgeoisie, to tailor new appeals to them, and to disseminate Nazi ideology. The media and the
Internet offer authoritarian regimes more modern ways to achieve these ends today. The Russian
government uses the media in this way. President Vladimir Putin, for example, hosts annual live
television call-in shows, much like the query sessions in Vietnam, in which he responds to questions
from citizens in order to appear responsive to popular concerns.
Gandhi (2008) contends, however, that legislatures are the best venue for authoritarian states to
make policy compromises to citizens. Legislatures and parties, she claims, allow groups to convey
their demands to the government without these demands appearing as acts of public resistance,
and allow dictators to consent to these demands while appearing to be magnanimous rather than
weak (p. 137). Blaydes (2011) concurs, arguing that elections are a way for opposition candidates,
like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to establish themselves as the most viable opposition group
in the country without posing a direct challenge to the regime (p. 12).
Elections are salient events, however, and a strong performance by an opposition candidate
is likely to threaten the regime. Dictators, moreover, are likely to see demands expressed by the
opposition as threatening even if they are expressed through legislatures. Outside of legislatures
this process can also be controlled. Putin, for example, during his televised call-in shows, receives
the questions in advance and chooses which ones he wants to respond to. Similarly, China allows
criticism of the government on social media sites so long as it does not represent, reinforce, or
encourage social mobilization (King et al. 2013).
Institutions, moreover, cannot effectively provide information about potential sources of op-
position to the regime and mitigate this threat if they are not fully democratic. Election results
do not provide an authoritarian regime with much information about where opposition lies be-
cause these results do not represent the will of the people, and because those sympathetic to
the opposition may abstain from voting in high numbers. Cox (2009) recognizes this but argues
that autocrats can evaluate the strength of the opposition during electoral campaigns based on
attendance at the autocrat’s rallies and illegal protests, as well as turnout at elections. However,
electoral campaigns can also be extremely circumscribed in autocratic states, and, thus, not very
informative as well. Moreover, according to Cox, decisions about whether to hold an election are
based on information that the autocrats already have about the military strength of the opposition,

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with the leader only holding elections when his rival is weak and likely to accept electoral defeat.
Therefore, it is not clear what additional information elections provide autocrats. Elections do
not, moreover, provide much information about the opposition’s ability to launch a civil war, as
Cox argues, because civil wars are often conducted by rebel groups whose existence is not based
on societal grievances (Collier & Hoeffler 2002, Fearon & Laitin 2003) and whose capabilities are
derived not from public support but from foreign patronage (Regan 2002, Salehyan & Gleditsch
2006), natural resources (Ross 2004), and other sources.
Furthermore, legislatures cannot serve as a valve to reduce societal discontent before it explodes
if legislators are not elected in open and competitive elections, if legislatures do not have real
decision-making authority, and if governments do not ultimately adopt policies to address issues
of concern raised by the legislators. Because politicians are not chosen in open and competitive
elections in authoritarian regimes, they are less likely to question and challenge the government.
Consistent with this point, Malesky & Schuler (2010) find that in Vietnam the candidates most
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likely to criticize the government are those that are full-time professionals and nominated locally
from competitive electoral districts. Malesky et al. (2012) also find that the more knowledgeable
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citizens are of the proceedings of query sessions, the less likely legislators are to participate actively
in them, and that citizens are not more likely to reward at the polls legislators who actively
participate in these sessions, suggesting that authoritarian legislatures are not responsive to citizens.
Likewise, because authoritarian legislatures exist at the discretion of the dictator, they do not
have real decision-making power and only rubber-stamp government-proposed legislation. Query
sessions, like those in Vietnam, are also limited in where they occur, how often they occur,
whether they are public, and what issues they can encompass. Moreover, query sessions, as well
as the legislatures themselves, are suspended when the legislators become too critical and too
demanding of governments.

Patronage Distribution
Scholars argue that authoritarian regimes create and use nominally democratic institutions, in-
cluding parties and elections, to buy support from political elites and citizens through patronage
(Geddes 2006, Lust-Okar 2008, Magaloni 2008, Blaydes 2011, Svolik 2012). Geddes (2006, p. 4)
argues that political parties provide members with benefits, including jobs, connections, and other
economic opportunities. These give party members a stake in the system, and, in turn, make them
more likely to oppose coups d’etat. Parties, Geddes claims, are able to effectively organize mass
opposition to attempted coups d’etat, because they are able to capitalize on the pre-existing net-
works and relationships of their members to organize protests, demonstrations, strikes, and other
actions against coups. Consistent with her argument, Geddes finds that dictators who formed
parties survived an average of 14.3 years, while those allied with pre-existing parties survived
10.8 years and those without parties lasted only 6.9 years (pp. 8–9).
Lust-Okar (2008) similarly argues that in countries, like Jordan, where states have a monopoly
on financial resources as well as force, legislative elections strengthen authoritarian regimes be-
cause regimes distribute patronage to elites and to citizens through these elections. Lust-Okar’s
survey data indicate that in Jordan people vote for candidates who they think can act effectively on
their behalf and with whom they have personal connections, and that candidates run because of ties
with the state and emphasize personalist ties in their campaigns, not unlike in many democracies.
Other scholars have built on the seminal work of Geddes and Lust-Okar, noting that patron-
age can be delivered without parties (Blaydes 2011, Svolik 2012) and that elections are the key
to explaining how patronage enhances regime stability. Blaydes (2011), for example, claims that
elections are needed because they make elites and citizens perceive the distribution of patronage

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as fair, preventing resentment from arising among elites, because patronage is based on the ability
of party members to garner votes for the party during elections. Although patronage can provide
elites with resources to challenge the regime, elites will not challenge the regime, Blaydes argues,
because the next regime will likely punish them for their participation in the previous regime
(p. 10). Similarly, Svolik (2012, p. 164) argues that elections are needed because they make receiv-
ing benefits contingent on prior costly service. According to Blaydes (2011), parties also distribute
patronage to citizens through elections by paying voters to cast their ballots for particular candi-
dates and by persuading people to vote for the regime in exchange for goods and services. Noting
that only some states use elections for this purpose, Blaydes hypothesizes that certain states do
not need to distribute rents in order to buy support from society because they have large natural
resource endowments and because they have established avenues for the distribution of rents,
including ethnicity, owing to the size and cohesion of the ruling regime (pp. 232–36).
Blaydes’ evidence is indirect. She hypothesizes that if elections are used to either reward or
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punish party members, there should be turnover in office so that members are able to move
up through the ranks of the party. Turnover is also indicative of governments demoting party
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members who are not loyal and competent. Consistent with her claim, Blaydes finds that in Egypt
under President Hosni Mubarak, there was turnover in office, and that high-quality candidates
(i.e., those that defeated Muslim Brotherhood candidates) were rewarded with appointed posts.
Svolik (2012, p. 195) argues that parties are necessary because dictatorships, whose support base is
limited to traditional elites—landed aristocracy or owners of capital—are not willing to relinquish
the resources necessary for the party to effectively co-opt citizens. Consistent with his argument,
Svolik (2012) finds that dictatorships in which parties control a supramajority of seats in the
legislature survive on average about as long as ruling coalitions with single parties.
Patronage can be a useful means of building support, as studies have shown (Wantchekon 2003,
Calvo & Murillo 2004, Stokes et al. 2013). However, the literature on democratic authoritarianism
tends to underplay the instability present in patronage-based systems and sometimes makes ad hoc
claims that the benefits of patronage must outweigh the dangers because regimes with legislatures
ultimately last longer (Blaydes 2011, p. 2; Geddes 2006, p. 6). Patronage carries certain risks.
When the money undergirding this system dries up, instability can result, as was the case during
crisis periods in post–Cold War Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, and Zambia (Levitsky & Way 2010,
p. 26). Moreover, elites can also use the patronage gained through political office to challenge
authoritarian regimes in the future. Dictators often face challengers from former party members;
Morgan Tsvangirai was a high-ranking member of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party before
he founded Zimbabwe’s largest opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and
was elected prime minister. Recognizing these dangers, some authoritarian regimes have rotated
bureaucrats in and out of office to prevent them from acquiring institutional resources and building
support networks that they may use to challenge autocrats in the future.
The extent to which elections reduce resentment over the distribution of patronage is also over-
stated because those outside the patronage system will continue to be disaffected. In Mexico, elites
who failed to win the party’s nomination for the presidency have historically presented a serious
threat to the unity of the PRI (Magaloni 2008, p. 53). In 1987, for example, when Cuauhtémoc
Cárdenas failed to earn the PRI’s nomination, he split from the party and eventually formed the
Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), today one of Mexico’s three largest parties. Term
limits and forced retirements, which some authoritarian regimes impose on politicians to enable
other elites to compete for office, may also create resentment among those who are forced to
vacate their seats (Svolik 2012, p. 174).
Finally, elections constrain the ability of regimes to reward particular elites with patronage in
order to build support because elections give citizens the authority to select representatives. This

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is consistent with Svolik’s (2012) claim that party-based co-option is more effective if political
control over appointments is selective, according to which governments co-opt those that are
ideologically most similar to the regime and repress those that are most distant, since the former
is less costly than the latter (p. 182).

Credible Commitment
Scholars argue that authoritarian regimes adopt nominally democratic institutions because these
institutions allow regimes to credibly commit not to expropriate domestic investment (Boix 2003,
Wright 2008, Gehlbach & Keefer 2012). Such regimes are more stable because they can maintain
the support of key sectors of the political and economic elite by not expropriating their assets (Boix
2003, Wright & Escriba-Folch 2012). Authoritarian regimes are also less likely to be challenged
by people demanding democracy in the streets if they preside over strong economies (Brancati
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2013).
Boix (2003) argues, for example, that authoritarian legislatures limit expropriation by dictators
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by increasing the number of veto players in the political system (pp. 210–13). Credible commit-
ment not to expropriate enables authoritarian regimes to maintain the loyalty of the elite and
business classes. Consistent with his argument, Boix shows that corruption and the risk of expro-
priation are statistically significantly higher for regimes without legislatures than for those with
legislatures.
Wright (2008), meanwhile, argues that legislatures indicate to potential investors that regimes
will not expropriate investments by tying the hands of dictators, thereby increasing economic
growth and investment. Wright further argues that military and single-party authoritarian regimes
adopt legislatures in order to increase domestic investment because they lack natural resources.
He finds that military and single-party regimes that have legislatures tend to have less oil revenue,
more productive economies, and longer time horizons, while personalist regimes and monar-
chies that have legislatures tend to have the opposite. Legislatures in military and single-party
regimes are associated with higher growth and investment, whereas legislatures in personalist
regimes and monarchies decrease growth (Wright 2008). Wright & Escriba-Folch (2012) ex-
tend this argument to address the issue of democratization. Authoritarian legislatures, they argue,
reduce the likelihood of democratization by increasing the credibility of authoritarian regimes
not to renege on promises to forgo predation, and permit policy concessions or redistribution
in future.
Finally, Gehlbach & Keefer (2012) argue that ruling-party institutionalization increases do-
mestic private investment by granting a group of individuals the right to invest and by discouraging
investment outside of that group. Ruling-party institutionalization facilitates collective action by
this group, they further argue, because it provides this group with complete information about
who has suffered expropriation and, thus, allows authoritarian regimes to credibly commit not
to expropriate investment by this group. Gehlbach & Keefer (2012) show that party institution-
alization, proxied as the age of the ruling party, as well as the regularity of leader entry and
the competitiveness of legislative elections, is associated with higher levels of domestic private
investment.
Although strong property rights increase investment (Lee & Mansfield 1996), they are unlikely
to result from authoritarian legislatures serving as a credible commitment against expropriation.
Legislatures cannot bind the hands of leaders if they are not democratic (Milgrom et al. 1990,
Root 1989, Jensen et al. 2013). That is, authoritarian legislatures cannot punish dictators if they
expropriate investment, and they cannot adopt strong property-rights legislation independent of
the regime because they do not have autonomous decision-making authority and can be disbanded

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by the head of the regime if they attempt to do this. Jensen et al. (2013) suggest an alternative
explanation for the effect of authoritarian regimes on investment. They argue that authoritar-
ian legislatures attract more domestic investment because they provide a forum for the types
of bargains that result in corporate-governance legislation, which protects citizens from expro-
priation by private actors, not the government. Statistically, Jensen et al. find that international
investors do not perceive property rights to be stronger in authoritarian regimes with legislatures
than in those without them, but that the strength of authoritarian legislatures is associated with
corporate-governance rules.

Monitoring
Scholars argue that authoritarian regimes adopt and utilize nominally democratic institutions so
that upper-level regime elites can monitor dictators (Gehlbach & Keefer 2012, Svolik 2012), and
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so that dictators can monitor lower-level regime elites (Lorentzen 2009, Blaydes 2011). Scholars
focus on two types of institutions in this regard: legislatures and the media. Svolik (2012) ar-
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gues that deliberative and decision-making institutions (e.g., committees, politburos, and ruling
councils) allow upper-level regime elites to monitor the behavior of dictators because they entail
regular interaction between dictators and upper-level regime elites over major policy changes
and periodic reviews of government revenue and spending. In turn, greater transparency, Svolik
argues, reassures elites that actual attempts by the dictator to usurp power will be caught before it
is too late. Transparency also prevents misperceptions about the dictator’s actions from escalating
into regime-destabilizing confrontations.
Some scholars contend, meanwhile, that a free media allows upper-level regime elites to identify
corrupt and incompetent lower-level elites and remove them from office (Blaydes 2011, pp. 141–45;
Lorentzen 2009). Public discontent with corrupt politicians can destabilize regimes if unaddressed.
Using the case of China as an example, Lorentzen (2009) argues that authoritarian regimes are
more likely to use the media as a check on local politicians when corruption significantly reduces
the rents collected by regimes, and when other mechanisms, such as internal party discipline and
police investigations, are not as available. Egorov et al. (2006) suggest that authoritarian regimes
are less likely to use the media to constrain bureaucrats in countries abundant in natural resources
because they can buy the support of bureaucrats with these resources instead.
Monitoring may serve an important role in stabilizing regimes, but unlike some of the other
mechanisms by which institutions are thought to strengthen regimes, monitoring does not require
these institutions to be democratic in order to be effective. Thus, it does not fall squarely within
the research agenda of democratic authoritarianism. Deliberative institutions, as Svolik (2012)
has conceived them, can monitor dictators’ behaviors without being democratic by increasing
interactions among dictators and upper-level regime elites. Svolik also points out that deliberative
and legislative institutions will not stabilize regimes unless there is a credible mechanism to punish
transgression by the dictators (Shepsle 1986). This mechanism is not democratic, but demographic,
according to Svolik. That is, it depends on the balance of power between the dictators and the
ruling coalition as well as the repressive capacity of the state (Svolik 2012, ch. 4).
Nor does the media have to be free for upper-level elites to monitor lower-level elites. In China,
the media often prepares confidential reports for the government on sensitive political matters
(Stockmann 2013, p. 11). Allowing the media to be free in order to monitor lower-level elites
is also dangerous because exposing the government’s flaws could reduce public support for the
regime. Given this risk, one has to question why authoritarian regimes would liberalize the media
when they also have alternative means at their disposal to monitor lower-level elites, including
the secret police, which do not have the same destabilizing potential.

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THE WAY FORWARD

Empirically, the literature on democratic authoritarianism faces a number of challenges in terms
of functionalism, overidentification, and generalizability, which it must address in order to provide
stronger evidence of its claims.

Distinguish Motivation from Effect

Since it is not possible to identify the intentions of dictators directly, research within this agenda
tends to infer leaders’ motivation for adopting nominally democratic institutions from the out-
comes they produce (with a few notable exceptions, i.e., Gandhi 2008, Wright 2008, Ginsberg &
Simpser 2013). One can make a strong case that the motivation for adopting these institutions does
not matter, and that only their effect does. However, the democratic authoritarianism literature
often claims to explain both. For at least three reasons, though, one cannot accurately infer the
intention of dictators from the outcomes associated with certain institutions.3
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First, an institution might have a particular outcome but the leader might not have adopted the
institution for this purpose. In multiparty elections, for example, votes for opposition candidates
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may help competitive regimes identify discontent within the electorate (Magaloni 2008, Brownlee
2007). However, it is doubtful that governments allowed other parties to compete in elections
for this purpose because this is a very costly and risky strategy. Countries may have adopted
these institutions for other reasons, such as pressure from the international community or strong
opposition pressure (Brancati & Snyder 2011), and these institutions may have taken on new
roles.4 Also, as Geddes (2006) points out, dictators in creating institutions such as political parties
may have “multiple somewhat unrealistic goals in mind” and may not “necessarily understand
their deterrence value” when they adopt them (p. 12).
Second, an institution might not have the outcome that the leader intended. Politicians may
hold elections to signal their strength to opposition candidates. However, elections might backfire
and undermine the regime because elections help mobilize the opposition or because the practices
that the dictator employs to win the elections provoke a reaction from the opposition. Fraudulent
elections are an important trigger behind democracy protests, as the cases of Serbia (2000), Ukraine
(2003), and Russia (2011/2012) demonstrate (Tucker 2007, Brancati 2013). Similarly, elections
might not be an effective means of distributing patronage among supporters because those unable
to participate in the elections are disaffected. Even Geddes, who recognizes the risks involved when
dictators use parties and elections to solidify their regimes, makes a functional argument in assess-
ing the value of these risks. “Elections always involve some risk, and the mobilization of support
that goes along with them is quite costly, so we can infer from their prevalence that they must also
provide authoritarian leaders with some benefit that can outweigh these costs” (Geddes 2006, p. 6).
Conversely, if authoritarian regimes adopt nominally democratic institutions because they are
weak and need to co-opt the opposition as some scholars suggest, and if they are effective in co-
opting the opposition, then authoritarian regimes with legislatures should not last significantly
longer than those without legislatures. Provided that authoritarian regimes can accurately predict
threats to the regime and adopt legislatures accordingly, this may help explain why Gandhi (2008,
p. 177) does not find a statistically significant relationship between institutionalized legislatures
and the tenure of dictators.
Third, the relationship between the institutions and the outcome they are purported to produce
may be spurious. Authoritarian regimes, for example, may hold nominally democratic elections

3
See Bates (1988) on the problems of functionalism and institutions.
4
For a contrary view on “institutional stickiness,” see North (1990) and Pierson (2004).

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 PL17CH16-Brancati ARI 8 April 2014 10:24

because the international community extends foreign aid to these regimes as an incentive to
democratize. Foreign aid, in turn, may stabilize authoritarian regimes because it reduces the need
for taxes (Rajan & Subramanian 2007) and leads politicians in power to engage in rent-seeking
activities (Djankov et al. 2008).
Going forward, the democratic authoritarianism literature will be well served if it differentiates
between the reason why regimes adopt nominally democratic institutions and the effect those
institutions produce, and analyzes motivation and effect separately.

Differentiate Competing Effects

Within this literature, there are many different theories of why the same institutions might
strengthen authoritarian regimes. Many authors themselves also recognize multiple ways in which
the same institution might enhance the stability of regimes, although they generally focus on one
or two of them (Geddes 2006, Magaloni 2008, Blaydes 2011). This is particularly problematic be-
Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2014.17:313-326. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

cause many of the measures scholars use to evaluate the relationship between certain institutions
and regime stability are blunt and consistent with multiple explanations.
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Gandhi (2008), for example, uses regime type to proxy for the need for cooperation. She
reasons that civilian regimes need more cooperation than monarchies and militaries do because
they cannot rely on kin networks or force to stay in power, and are more likely to adopt legislatures
as a result. Wright (2008) uses regime type to proxy for the need to constrain dictators in order
to generate the revenue necessary to sustain their rule. He argues, in contrast to Gandhi, that
military regimes, like single-party (civilian) regimes, have more incentives to establish so-called
binding legislatures than monarchies and personalist (civilian) regimes have because they tend to
rely on natural resources for wealth. Gandhi (2008) also uses natural resources to proxy for the
need for cooperation. She argues that leaders of countries with a lot of natural resources need
less cooperation than those in resource-poor countries because they use rents to assure people’s
acquiescence to their rule, and are less likely, therefore, to have legislatures.
Many of the institutions examined are collinear, so it is difficult to determine which institution,
if any, contributes to regime stability. For example, it is difficult to determine if parties alone or
parties in combination with elections strengthen regimes because most authoritarian regimes that
hold elections also have parties. Between 1945 and 2008, about 95% of legislative elections in
authoritarian regimes involved at least one political party. Similarly, it is difficult to distinguish
the effect of elections from the effect of legislatures because most authoritarian legislatures are
elected. Between 1945 and 2008, only 13% of authoritarian legislatures were not elected.5 The
collinearity problem is even more challenging in single-country studies because there is often little
or no variation among these institutions over time.
To distinguish among competing effects, scholars have to use more specific measures that test
the observable implications of their arguments compared to others. For example, to test Geddes’
argument that parties coup-proof regimes, empirical tests are needed to determine if protests
occur against coups d’etat more often in authoritarian regimes with political parties than in those
without them. Preliminary evidence suggests that parties do not play a role in mobilizing the
populace against coup attempts. Between 2005 and 2011, 18 coup d’etat attempts were made. In 6
of these cases, protests occurred against the coup. All 6 countries held multiparty elections prior to
the coup. However, so did all 12 countries where protests did not occur against the coup attempts.6

5
Figures calculated by author based on data from Svolik (2012).
6
Figures calculated by author based on information about coups d’etat from Powell & Thyne (2011) and pro-democracy
protests from Brancati (2013).

322 Brancati
 PL17CH16-Brancati ARI 8 April 2014 10:24

Some authors have differentiated their arguments from others by developing tighter measures.
Blaydes (2011), for example, reasons that if legislative elections are used to distribute patronage,
then we should observe turnover in party ranks and high-quality candidates being rewarded with
posts, which she observes in Egypt. Malesky & Schuler (2010) argue that if legislatures are used
to manage discontent, then contrary opinions should be expressed in legislatures, as they find in
Vietnam. Cox (2009) also attempts to tease out the implications of his argument in relation to
election years, although the direction of the relationship is not clear—on one hand, authoritarian
leaders may be more likely to lose power in election years because governments should only hold
elections when they are uncertain about the opposition’s strength; on the other hand, authoritarian
leaders may be less likely to lose power in election years (through a violent struggle with the
opposition) because elections themselves reveal information about the strength of the opposition
and lower the risk of violence.
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Generalizability
The trade-off between generalizability and theory development is acute in this literature. To
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understand the effect of these institutions on the longevity of regimes, scholars have employed
case studies—both qualitative and quantitative (Lust-Okar 2008, Magaloni 2008, Blaydes 2011,
Malesky & Schuler 2010, Malesky et al. 2012, Levitsky & Way 2010)—as well as cross-national
statistical analyses (Geddes 2006, Gandhi 2008, Wright 2008, Svolik 2012).
Most of the research on democratic authoritarianism that provides micro-level analysis of the
logic by which institutions strengthen authoritarian regimes are single-country studies. Countries
studied include Egypt (Blaydes 2011), Jordan (Lust-Okar 2008), Mexico (Magaloni 2008), and
Vietnam (Malesky & Schuler 2010, Malesky et al. 2012). The findings from these studies are
not clearly generalizable, nor do these scholars necessarily claim that they are. Certain aspects
of their arguments rely on particular features of countries that do not exist in other countries,
such as query sessions in Vietnam (Malesky & Schuler 2010, Malesky et al. 2012) and formal and
informal or normative guarantees of parliamentary immunity in Egypt (Blaydes 2011, p. 55). Some
features may also make certain institutions more effective in some countries than in others, such as
presidential term limits (Magaloni 2008) or a governmental monopoly over patronage (Lust-Okar
2008, p. 93). Particular features may even make these institutions more desirable in the first place,
as in the case of natural resource wealth (Gandhi 2008, Wright 2008).
Going forward, this research program needs to combine the insights from the micro-level
analyses to collect more nuanced, cross-national measures of the mechanisms by which institutions
are thought to prolong the lifespan of authoritarian regimes. To do so, research has to move to a
broader conceptual level while still retaining the detailed evidence gained from the case studies.
This literature should also seek to clarify the parameters under which particular arguments apply.
One condition that frequently arises is the presence of natural resource wealth, which is seen
as limiting the need for government to cooperate since dictators can buy the support they need
(Blaydes 2011, Gandhi 2008, Egorov et al. 2006).

CONCLUSION
The democratic authoritarian research agenda is refreshing. Unlike in some other programs,
there is an abundance of new ideas in this literature. Some of these ideas suggest that (so-called)
democratic institutions function the same way in authoritarian regimes that they do in democ-
racies. This is true of arguments related to information acquisition, patronage distribution, and
credible commitments. Ideas that also require these institutions to act as if they are democratic,
as in the case of information acquisition and credible commitment, are on weaker theoretical

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 PL17CH16-Brancati ARI 8 April 2014 10:24

ground than those that do not, since these institutions are embedded in environments that are
anything but democratic.
On the downside, there is a dearth of empirical evidence in this literature. The democratic
authoritarian literature is beset by its inability to distinguish cause from effect, by various mea-
surement issues that make it difficult to differentiate among competing effects, and by issues of
generalizability. One thing, though, this literature has accomplished already is to dispel the no-
tion that institutions commonly associated with democracy—parties, elections, legislatures—are
exclusive to democracies, and to stimulate an exciting debate on this topic.
This literature is unlikely to ever provide evidence for the effect of these institutions on par with
the kind of evidence provided about institutions in advanced democracies, and no one should expect
it to. Nevertheless, the findings from this research program can help shed light on the generally
opaque operation of authoritarian regimes and offer important insights into other related research
agendas on institutions as well.
Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2014.17:313-326. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Access provided by 37.135.84.217 on 09/14/22. For personal use only.

The author is not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might
be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author thanks Elise Giuliano, Lisa Blaydes, Elise Giuliano, Eddie Malesky, Alberto Simpser,
and Joe Wright for comments on earlier drafts of this article.

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