The Institutionalisation of Authoritarian

Resilience: How the KDP-PUK Duopoly

Maintains Rule in the Kurdistan Region
of Iraq

PhD Proposal

Shwan Ali Bapir

UKH
 Table of Contents

Section Pages
1. Problem Statement and Context 3-6
2. Research Question 6-8
3. Literature Review 8-27
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Strands of Autocratic Research
3.3 Legitimation, Co-optation, and Repression
3.4 The Literature on the KRI and the KDP-PUK Two-Party Rule
3.5 Conceptualising KDP and PUK Duopoly Rule
3.6 Conclusion
4. Theory 27-36
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Theory of Authoritarian Stabilisation
4.3 The Three Pillars of Stability
4.4 Legitimation
4.5 Repression
4.6 Co-optation
4.7 Conclusion
5. Reflections on Methodology 36-42
5.1 Methods of this Study
5.2 Researching Authoritarianism: Challenges
5.3 Researching Authoritarianism: Practical Strategies and Ethical Steps
6. Planned Table of Contents 43-47
7. Working Plan 47-48
8. Bibliography 49-67
9. Appendix 68-69

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 1. Problem Statement and Context

Political survival and the ability to sustain power are central issues in political science, defining
institutional development and governance strategies. The challenges faced by political actors, their
parties, or regimes, along with their policy choices and resource allocations in response, shape the
institutions that define the evolution of political life (de Mesquita et al., 2003, p.9). Throughout history,
most polities have been under authoritarian governance. Particularly, competitive, or hybrid,
authoritarian regimes have been the most common regime type since the Cold War (Handlin, 2016,
p.6; Croissant and Hellman, 2018. p.5; Frantz, 2018, p.82). In those systems of governance, rulers face
a persistent dilemma: how to maintain control over institutions, suppress opposition, and secure elite
and population allegiance through benefit distribution and patronage. Termed as the “autocrat’s
dilemma”, scholars have maintained that this challenge needs a careful balance between repression
and co-optation to avoid elite defections and mass uprising (Debre, 2020, p.4; Levitsky and Way, 2013,
p.10; Magaloni, 2008, p.716). This dilemma is especially prominent in hybrid regimes, where formal
democratic institutions and structures are present but also systematically exploited to deepen
authoritarian dominance. This study engages with the debate on authoritarian resilience by examining
the case study of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), a contested entity where a duopoly party system
has sustained power since its formal emergence in 2005 despite periodic political, economic, and social
challenges. The resilience of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) duopoly rule poses crucial questions about the mechanisms and processes that maintain
governance in non-nation states and whether existing theorisations of regime resilience explain the
dynamics at play in such contexts.

As elaborated in the literature review section, studies on authoritarianism have made an “institutional
turn” (Pepinsky, 2013, p.2). This has shifted focus from the totalitarian and personalistic regimes
mostly based on ideology, to the strategic institutional arrangement and configurations that allow
authoritarian rulers to tighten their grip on power (Heydemann and Leenders, 2013). Instead of only
relying on coercion, authoritarian regimes have learned to control the elite and society through
integrating them into their ruling coalition and networks of patronage. This has been conceptualised
as authoritarian “upgrading” (Heydemann, 2007, p.VII), “resilience” (Kailitz, 2013, p.40), and
“maintenance” (Schlumberger, 2007, p.28): a process in which rulers adapt and reconfigure their
mechanisms of control to ensure their dominance. This theoretical reconsideration in the literature is
also driven by critiques of the democratisation paradigm, which have argued that the Middle Eastern
regimes would transition toward democracy but lacked explanations for their capability to defy

3
liberalisation (Valbjørn and Bank, 2010, p.184). Here, the subject of enquiry shifted from questions
concerning the lack of prerequisites for the emergence of democratisation to the presence of factors
bolstering authoritarian governance (Albrecht and Schlumberger, 2004; Bellin, 2012). There is a vast,
and far from unified, literature on factors claimed to be part of this upgrading process of authoritarian
rules (see Appendix) and theories explaining different mechanisms of regime upgrading. But
legitimation, repression and co-optation appear to be the most critical factors that influence the
resilience process. This study engages with the broader scholarly works on authoritarianism,
democratisation and regime type discussions. It specifically interacts with the authoritarian resilience
literature through the application of the authoritarian stabilisation theoretical framework to critically
examine the KDP-PUK duopoly rule, analysing how these processes and strategies have been
interrelated to provide them a long-standing political dominance in the fragmented and non-nation-
state Kurdistan Region.

The KDP-PUK duopoly has faced persistent internal and external pressures which have often
threatened its rule and stability. Internally, their rule has been challenged by the presence of influential
opposition parties. The emergence of the Change Movement (Gorran) in 2009 sent a shockwave
throughout the political system; a decade later the party’s most prominent ministers and figures have
been co-opted into what one might call the “ruling coalition” of the two-party rule. The two parties
have also constantly been challenged by the people and civil society. Particularly in the PUK-
controlled regions, protests are held monthly. Even though the public space has been quite restricted,
particularly in the Yellow Zone, Social Media platforms have become influential spaces for political
discussions and societal critiques, allowing citizen to voice their grievances. Externally, the duopoly
party rule has faced challenges from the federal government in Baghdad, with whom the KRG is still
largely dependent for the salary payment of its bloated public sector employees. Similarly, despite the
fairly stable relationship between the two parties and the regional countries of Turkey and Iran, at
times the countries have posed serious threats to the KRI. This could clearly be observed after the 2017
independence referendum initiated by the KDP and part of the PUK, both the federal government and
regional states imposed serious sanctions on the KRI with the intent of crippling its economy, political
processes and even social cohesion. All in all, the nature of the governance of the ruling parties and
their undemocratic hold on to power is clearly displayed in a statement of Mala Bakhtiar, the head of
the Executive Committee of the Political Bureau of the PUK, following a significant electoral defeat
to the opposition party of Gorran in 2018: “Whether we get one seat or a hundred seats, we are still
the PUK. Neither in Iraq nor in Kurdistan, no one can pass a decision without the PUK”. This statement
is reflective of the reality that the politics of the KRI is heavily influenced by the entrenched power

4
and dominance of the KDP and PUK, where electoral and democratic processes have limited impact
on the actual distribution and exercise of power (see section 3.5. for a more detailed reading of the
duopoly’s political system and governance). This PhD project is dedicated to finding answers for this
implied dilemma: the resilience of the KDP and PUK duopoly rule despite the challenges of facing
such existential internal and external threats.

While the KRI has a multi-party system, several factors point to the possibility that it may not only be
a flawed democracy, but rather political system with a duopoly ruling their distinct territories and often
displaying evident authoritarian tendencies. The powers of the executive branch of governance have,
for the most part, overwhelmed that of the legislation and judiciary. And all three are indeed responsive
to the political parties and influential figures from the two families. Despite the presence of the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and its numerous ministries; the centre of power has been
outside the government’s reach and the two administrations exercise their power through a robust set
of institutions with their separate partisan armies and militia groups, intelligence establishments,
rentier economies mostly powered by oil and custom funds organised along companies and
corporations owned by certain individuals, extensive clientelist and patronage networks powered by
mass-based political party systems, and numerous media and television channels upholding party
agenda (Hama and Ali, 2020; Hama and Abdullah, 2021; El Kurd, 2020; Mamshai, 2021; Abdullah
and Hama, 2019).

The political experience of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) presents a compelling case for studying
authoritarian resilience. Through a critical engagement with the scholarship on the KRI and
authoritarian governance, this study offers potential empirical, methodological, and theoretical
contributions. Empirically, this research provides a comprehensive examination of the KRI’s political
system, focusing on the duopoly’s governance strategies as well as the interactions between the two
dominant parties. In this way, it adds a case study of a special category to the list of political contexts
examined through an authoritarianism lens. Despite constant political, social, and economic
challenges, the duopoly has sustained its power through a combination of governance strategies and
mechanisms that include both cooperation and competition. By analysing how these parties
institutionalise their rule and solidify their dominance across two distinct territorial zones, this research
provides an in depth understanding of the mechanism rulers employ to sustain their dominance in
political entities where two centers of power exist. Methodologically, this study develops a framework
suited for analysing hybrid regimes within non-nation states, where political authority is divided
between rival factions rather than concentrated in a single ruling party or autocrat. Through a

5
comparative approach, it systematically examines the varying resilience mechanisms employed by the
KDP and PUK in their respective strongholds, identifying patterns of divergence and convergence.
Additionally, process tracing of critical junctures will reveal how the duopoly has adapted to existential
threats over time. Theoretically, this research engages with broader debates on authoritarianism and
authoritarian resilience by integrating the three key pillars of regime stability—legitimation,
repression, and co-optation—with the central functions of dominant political parties, such as
maintaining elite cohesion and distributing patronage. While existing studies on authoritarian
upgrading often focus on single-party rule, this study examines the unique dynamics of a duopoly,
where politics and governance may alternate between cooperation and conflict. The presence of two
dominant parties with their own power bases may challenge conventional theorisations of authoritarian
resilience. Additionally, correlating political party functions with factors and mechanisms attributed
to regime maintenance and durability is a novel approach in the authoritarian resilience literature. All
in all, this research aims to advance the scholarly debate on power maintenance and authoritarian
resilience through linking institutionalist understandings with party-based perspectives, providing a
detailed explanation of how political entities with a fragmented power maintain their stability in
contrast to the general frameworks that assume a centralised dominance. In doing so, this study shifts
the focus from state-centered analyses of power maintenance to examining political parties as the
agents of resilience and control.

2. Research Question

Proposed Research Question:

How have legitimation, repression, and co-optation sustained the resilience of the KDP-PUK
duopoly rule in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq since 2005, despite political and economic challenges?

Proposed Sub-questions:

• How have the KDP and PUK used nationalist narratives, historical legitimacy, and patronage
networks to maintain public and elite support despite governance failures?
• How have the KDP and PUK deployed low-intensity and high-intensity repression to suppress
political opposition, civil society, and independent media?
• How has patronage distribution and elite co-optation prevented fragmentation within the ruling
coalition and minimized opposition threats?

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 • How do the KDP and PUK differ in their approaches to legitimation, repression, and co-
optation, and how does this impact their governance strategies in the Yellow and Green Zones?
• What internal and external challenges have most significantly threatened the resilience of the
KDP-PUK rule?
• How has the institutionalisation of legitimation, repression, and co-optation taken place in the
duopoly rule of the KRI?

Table 1. Research Question Components: Explaining the Resilience of the KDP-PUK Duopoly

Research Explanation Theoretical Empirical Methodological

Component Relevance Indicators Tools

The three pillars of Gerschewski’s Party narratives, Comparative

Causal authoritarian (2013) three-pillar control over analysis of KDP
Mechanisms stability— framework; security forces, and PUK
legitimation, dominant-party patronage governance
repression, and co- institutionalisation networks, structures in the
optation—interacting (Levitsky & Way, manipulation of Yellow and Green
to sustain power. 2013). democratic Zones.
institutions.
Legitimation Strategies to justify Easton’s diffuse vs. Public discourse, Discourse analysis
and reinforce the specific support state-controlled of party
duopoly’s rule, (1965); media narratives, manifestos, leader
securing public and authoritarian electoral speeches, media
elite compliance. legitimation tactics participation, reports.
(von Soest & nationalist
Grauvogel, 2017). rhetoric.
Repression The use of coercion, Levitsky & Way’s Patterns of arrests, Archival research
intimidation, and legal low vs. high- protest on security
persecution to intensity repression suppression, policies, protest
neutralize opposition (2002); state censorship, legal event datasets,
and dissent. coercion models actions against opposition party
(Davenport, 2007). dissidents. crackdowns.
Co-optation Patronage-based Magaloni’s elite co- Distribution of Elite interviews
strategies to integrate optation theory government with political
elites and neutralize (2008); hybrid contracts, actors, party
threats to party regimes & informal positions, and officials, and
dominance. institutions. financial opposition figures.
incentives among
party loyalists.
Dominant Ensuring ruling elites Elite power-sharing Elite defections, Elite interviews
Political Party remain loyal and (Boix & Svolik, intra-party with political
Function 1: Elite minimizing internal 2013); intra-party conflicts, stability actors, party
Cohesion fragmentation. stability in hybrid of leadership officials, and
regimes. transitions. defectors.

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Dominant Distributing state Patronage and Public sector Archival research
Political Party resources, economic rentier-state employment on government
Function 2: opportunities, and dynamics (Blaydes, distribution, hiring patterns,
Patronage government positions 2010); clientelist allocation of analysis of state-
Distribution to maintain mass and networks in business contracts, funded projects.
elite loyalty. authoritarian party-based
parties. welfare benefits.
Political Internal and external Crisis-response Opposition Event analysis of
Challenges pressures threatening theory in hybrid growth, public economic crises,
the duopoly’s regimes discontent, security conflicts,
dominance. (Heydemann & Baghdad-KRG and shifting
Leenders, 2013). relations, electoral
economic dynamics.
instability.
Temporal Scope Since 2005, capturing Institutional Political Longitudinal
key political durability vs. transitions, major analysis tracking
transitions and political adaptation policy changes, governance
governance shifts. in hybrid regimes. intra-party patterns over two
conflicts. decades.
Spatial The dual power Competitive- Variations in Comparative case
Dimension structure of KDP in authoritarian party governance, study between the
Erbil/Duhok (Yellow dynamics (Greene, patronage, two ruling zones.
Zone) and PUK in 2009). repression
Sulaymaniyah/Halabja between the two
(Green Zone). regions.

3. Literature Review
3.1 . Introduction

The literature on authoritarian resilience is far from unified. A plethora of causal factors and
mechanisms have been attributed to the maintenance process of authoritarian regimes (see Appendix).
This chapter will give an overview of the authoritarian resilience literature. First, it will begin with an
account of the research on authoritarianism and highlight the main trends of autocracy research leading
up to the “institutional turn”. It is important to retrace the origins of concepts and theories that go back
to earlier paradigms of autocracy research. Second, as the bulk of this literature review, three
reoccurring themes in the scholarship will be categorised for a closer investigation. Those concern
three concepts: legitimation, co-optation, and repression. Along with laying out research focused on
each of these causal factors of regime maintenance, a set of theories will be examined. Third, in light
of the research question and literature on authoritarianism, the existing research on the Kurdistan
Region of Iraq (KRI) will be discussed. This section provides the shortcomings of the KRI literature

8
regarding the topic at hand. Fourth, a conceptualisation of the KDP-PUK duopoly rule will be
provided. Lastly, it will conclude with some thoughts and implications for the proposed research
question(s), and specifically, indications for a potential research project on authoritarianism in non-
nation-state political entities.

3.2. The Scholarship on Authoritarianism

Towards the end of the last century, analyses of regimes in the Middle East and Arab world had become
hot topics in the Democratisation debates. In this body of research, numerous scholars mainly
subscribing to Modernisation and Democratisation paradigms examined case studies of authoritarian
politics in the region. In an optimistic attempt at situating the observed regime transformations within
the liberal democracy debate, the question—why have political regimes in the Middle East not
followed the Democratisation bandwagon?—became their centre of attention. Furthermore, the
dilemma of those regime’s resistance to democratisation had been made more appealing to resolve due
to the works of scholars like Samuel Huntington (1991) and his “Third Wave of Democratisation”
debate and Francis Fukuyama’s (1989) claim that the “end of history” has been marked following the
Cold War as mankind’s ideological evolution has come to an end with the global acceptance of liberal
democracy.

By the early 2000s, this “demo-crazy” trend came to a halt as scholars began to problematise the very
essence of the question itself, on the basis that such questions had led to a logical fallacy of “Searching
Where the Light Shines” (Anderson, 2006) and that expecting the adoption of democracy in the region
was indeed “Waiting for Godot” (Albrecht and Schlumberger, 2004). In Albrecht and Schlumberger’s
words:
“The question itself is highly problematic: triggering innumerable contributions and based on
normatively biased and teleological premises, it led authors to examine what did not exist,
instead of what was actually going on in the Arab world” (2004, p371).
Anderson (2006, p.191) reiterates this argument and adds that the disciplinary bias towards the
democratisation bandwagon influenced by the US foreign policy distorted the research agenda on
Middle Eastern politics. Nevertheless, this emergent reasoning in the scholarship resulted in
sidestepping the notion of the Middle Eastern regimes’ “exceptionalism” (Valbjørn and Bank, 2010,
p.185), as researchers started to observe the political transformations considering the unique social and
political dynamics rather than analysing their experiences with Western-centric models of
modernisation and democratisation. Some went as far as arguing that democracy and democratisation

9
have completely been absent in the Middle East (Albrecht and Schlumberger, 2004; Schlumberger,
2000). Indeed, the literature is evidence that this shift enabled more nuanced explanations of the
political systems and their complexities in the region. What should be the subject of enquiry, these
scholars rightly argue, is not the question of why those regimes are so resistant to democracy, but
rather why are their authoritarian political systems so uniquely resilient (Bellin, 2004, pp.144-6). From
here onwards, the research focus shifted towards explaining the particular mechanisms and strategies
that authoritarian regimes employ to sustain their rule. In this sense, this shift indicates the
normalisation of authoritarian modes of governance in the Middle East and Arab world.

A central issue studied in the new literature on authoritarianism is the way rulers strategically use
political and social institutions to reinforce their grip on power. This institutional turn now emphasises
how authoritarian regimes maintain their control over the state and society using, not only informal
means but also formal political institutions such as dominant political parties and national legislating
bodies. This approach by scholars like Magaloni (2006, 2008), Brownlee (2007), and Gandhi and
Przeworski (2007) examines the authoritarian regimes’ intentional creation and exploitation of such
institutions to make co-optation and repression more functional in the face of potential challenges and
despite external and internal pressure for democratisation. Moreover, as Hinnebusch (2006, p.380)
elaborates, this new conceptual and methodological approach to authoritarian politics also attempts to
explain how such institutions influence political outcomes by including or excluding different social
groups—showing that authoritarian regimes are not monolithic but vary in their institutionalisation.
This renaissance in autocracy studies marks a shift from earlier research strands, namely, the
totalitarian paradigm of the 1940s-1970s which focused on the role of ideology and terror, and the
bureaucratic authoritarianism paradigm emphasising socio-economic conditions and informal
institutions of the 1970s-1980s.

Table 2. Waves of Autocratic Research

Totalitarian Rise of Renaissance of
Paradigm (1940s- authoritarianism autocracy studies
1970s) (1970s–1980s) (end 1990s–today)

Research strands Political-structural “Bureaucratic Institutionalist

authoritarianism” approaches

Military politics
Socio-philosophical
Informal politics Actor-centred
approaches

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 Main research Ideographic case Case studies, small- Methodical
focus studies (Nazi- N comparisons pluralism
Germany, (worldwide)
(Latin America, sub-
Fascist Italy, SU, Saharan Africa)
Maoist China)
Main explanatory Ideology and terror Socio-economic Co-optation and
factors conditions and strategic repression
informal politics
(Adapted from Gerschewski, 2013, p.17)

This emerging scholarship on authoritarian politics has close conceptual relevance to Fareed Zakaria’s
(1997) notion of “illiberal democracy”, in which authoritarian regimes adopt and exploit certain
democratic institutions and principles, such as the rule of law, human rights, freedom, etc. Similarly,
Barbara Geddes’ influential publication in 1999, brought about a renaissance of autocracy research
that centred mostly on strategic repression and co-optation. Nevertheless, this current “post-
democratisation” debate on authoritarian politics has been greatly inspired by Heydemann’s concept
of “authoritarian upgrading” (2007), which he describes as authoritarian regimes’ adaptive capability
to reconfigure their governance to accommodate the socio-politico-economic changes while being
more flexible in responding to the demands of globalisation and liberal world order. This process of
adjusting authoritarian governance has been conceptualised differently under terms, including
authoritarian renewal, sustenance, survival, durability, maintenance, robustness, and persistence. The
common denominator of these similar concepts seems to be “authoritarian learning”, a mechanism that
underpins most explanations of the regime upgrading process. As Heydemann (2007, p.2) notes:
“Lessons and strategies that originate within, and outside the Middle East, are diffused across
the region, travelling from regime to regime and being modified in the process. Regimes learn
from one another, often through explicit sharing of experiences.”
This ingredient seems to be consequential to the regime resilience blueprint, as an important feature
of robust authoritarian regimes is their ability to exploit rather than repel popular external and internal
socio-political trends.

In line with this emerging generation of “post-transitology” research (Valbjørn and Bank, 2010) on
authoritarianism, Heydemann and Leenders (2013) begin their analysis on the basis that their
authoritarian regime case studies, Iran and Syria, are not stalled in transition to democracy. Rather,
through several analytical chapters, they emphasise the long-standing patterns of regime adaptations
as well as the ways the ruled societies have adapted to the changing political contexts. In this way,
they make a distinction between the persistence and resilience of authoritarian regimes. While

11
persistence concerns episodes of regime tactics to respond to threats on their survival; authoritarian
resilience indicates “the attributes, relational qualities, and institutional arrangements that have long
given regimes in the Middle East, conceptualized as institutionalised systems of rule” (Heydemann
and Leenders, 2013, p.5). Furthermore, they do not assume that regime institutions and social actors
inhabit different political spaces, rather they focus on how the divide between them leads social actors
to exploit this gap which also generates social adaptations to shifting regime strategies (ibid., p.6). In
this way, this theory brings into the discussions a necessary dimension, which is the societal responses
to an adapting authoritarian regime. For instance, emphasising the recombinant aspect of
authoritarianism, Osanloo (2013) finds that state institutions in Iran have simultaneously generated
systematic repression but also powerful protest movements. Based on these understandings of
authoritarian politics in the Middle East, they present the concept of recombinant authoritarianism,
defined as:
Systems of rule that possess the capacity to reorder and reconfigure instruments and strategies
of governance, to reshape and recombine existing institutional, discursive, and regulatory
arrangements to create recognizable but distinctive solutions to shifting configurations of
challenges. (Heydemann and Leenders, 2013, p.7)
This adaptive capacity allows the regime elite to use various formal and informal means to maintain
their power. Heydemann and Leenders admit that their aim has not been to attain symmetry (2013,
p.13) and to formulate a unifying theoretical framework. Instead, they focus on four main areas of
recombinant authoritarianism, which they also use to categorise the chapters in their edited book:
economic governance, management of religious affairs, social and literary responses to authoritarian
resilience, and legitimation strategies. These themes are constructed to merely display the nature of
the plasticity and adaptability of those regimes. Particularly, showing that the features of recombinant
authoritarian regimes are not only reactionary tactics to threats on the regime but also characterise
what can be constituted as normal politics. Accordingly, Heydemann and Leenders, and their edited
chapters, point to an important element of those resilient regimes; that is, an institutionalised flexibility
demonstrated in the form of everyday authoritarian governance (2013, pp.7–8).

Numerous studies have explored a multitude of factors that may impact this process, involving many
authoritarian regimes case studies including Iran, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Morroco, the Gulf
countries in the Middle East; and Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, China among others in Asia,
as well as case studies of Eastern European countries. The table in the Appendix presents a
comprehensive overview of the factors claimed to contribute to the process of authoritarian upgrading
in the scholarship. While the long list of factors and independent variables in those research studies

12
indicates the varying explanations of the subject matter, it also implies the diverse nature of strategies
and tools these regimes use to maintain their rule. As Geddes (1999, p.6) emphasises, this displays that
“different kinds of authoritarianism differ from each other as much as they differ from democracy”.
Nevertheless, legitimation, repression, and co-optation are the most frequently explored instruments;
and so, studies focusing on these concepts will be examined to get a closer look into the inner working
mechanism of this authoritarian upgrading process.

3.3. Legitimation, Repression and Co-optation

Legitimation
Legitimation is a multidimensional concept with varying types and mechanisms in the authoritarian
resilience debate. For instance, von Soest and Grauvogel’s (2017) differentiate between six
legitimation strategies, namely, foundational myth, ideology, personalism, procedures, performance
and international dimension (von Soest and Grauvogel, 2017, p.590). Their systematic assessment of
different regime types and their varying legitimation strategies is based on a global dataset of 98 non-
democratic countries from 1991 to 2010. Moreover, Bayulgen, Arbatli, and Canbolat (2018, pp.6-7)
study Turkey’s authoritarian regime under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and define the
legitimation strategies of the regime as a process of “active consent, compliance with the rules, passive
obedience, or mere toleration within the population”. They categorise legitimacy into two types,
Ideological legitimacy—an inherent acceptance of the rulers based on a claim derived from ideology,
charismatic leadership, religion or nationalism—and transactional legitimacy—a more conditional
acceptance of the rule due to performance and observed improvements by the regime institutions
(Bayulgen, Arbatli, and Canbolat, 2018, p7). Dukalsis and Gerschewski (2017) highlight an important
issue concerning legitimation and make a distinction between claims by the authoritarian elite and the
beliefs of the population they rule. By reversing the optics, they emphasise the need for including in
our studies not only an examination of the different mechanisms through which regimes legitimate
their rule but also what the people choose to believe. To this end, they focus on four ways authoritarian
regimes legitimise their governance, including indoctrination, passivity, performance and democratic-
procedural mechanisms (Dukalsis and Gerschewski. 2017, pp.259-260). The literature attributes many
relational qualities to the legitimacy of authoritarian regimes and has varying explanations for
legitimation processes. The presence of these different classifications indicates the complexity and
adaptability of authoritarian regimes in their objective of acquiring legitimacy. Nevertheless, some
dimensions of legitimation strategies have been prioritised in the scholarship which demands a closer
examination.

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Authoritarian regimes are known for their mimicking of democracies and exploiting the same set of
institutions. One such recurrent mechanism in the literature is the adoption of multiparty elections,
although conducted on unlevelled grounds, which enable the regime to bolster its legitimation. This
process of adopting seemingly democratic institutions serves to legitimise their rule. For instance,
Albrecht (2005) argues that the emergence of opposition groups in Egypt served the authoritarian
regime’s resilience and further legitimised its rule. It was not due to weak authoritarian governance
that the opposition parties had the space to operate in a multiparty system, but the regime’s deliberate
strategy to reinforce its capacities through making use of co-optation and divide-and-rule strategies.
Bernhard, Edgell and Lindberg (2019) reiterate this argument while adding that multiparty elections
not only add to the regime's legitimacy with the public and international parties but also within the
regime coalition. However, they claim that this is the case only in contexts where the regime has
institutionalised electoral uncertainty. In other words, the regime must be able to reduce the uncertainty
of election outcomes to minimal levels for this causal factor to reinforce authoritarian governance
(Bernhard, Edgell and Lindberg, 2019, p.6). Hanson (2017, pp.5-6) and Croissant and Hellman (2017)
also follow the same argument, adding that the regime must be able to win comfortably without
engaging in obvious election rigging for pluralism to have such a regime-reinforcing effect. The
literature is somewhat unanimous that elections in authoritarian regimes do not serve the purpose of
bringing about a new political majority, as they do in democracies. Rather, their ultimate function is
to substantiate the status quo and indicate that it is indeed a product of natural consensus.

Another such research focus on legitimation is the external or international dimension, which is mostly
concerned with the impact of sanctions and international linkages. Hoffmann (2015) studies
authoritarian regime strategies in an empirical case study of Cuba, focusing on how these regimes
pursue “legitimation from abroad” to substantiate consent and support through activities beyond their
sovereign borders. For more clarification, he differentiates between “defensive” and “expansive”
international legitimation tactics; in the former, the regime attempts to garner national support against
an external force, and the latter involves building domestic legitimacy through international
engagements (Hoffmann, 2015, p558). Based on a global dataset from 1991 to 2010, Grauvogel and
von Soest (2014) find that external sanctions can strengthen authoritarian regimes if the rulers can
integrate their imposition into their legitimation strategies. This “defensive” mechanism works through
a “rally-around-the-flag” when the regime already has well-grounded claims to legitimacy and is not
socio-economically linked to the imposer of the sanctions (Grauvogel and von Soest, 2014, p.12).
Furthermore, Hellmeier’s (2020) study which has based his analysis on a monthly dataset of rally

14
events between 2003 and 2015, finds that foreign interventions have a stabilising effect for
authoritarian regimes as they facilitate mobilisation. Such interventions give the sanctioned rulers
compelling collective action frames, particularly in contexts where the regime has effective and
restricted media platforms to disseminate legitimating messages. Regarding the “expansive”
international legitimation strategies, Bellin (2012, pp.128-129) argues that the maintenance of
international support networks by authoritarian Arab regimes, enabled by the fact of their servitude to
Western interests, has been a crucial pillar in their resilience. Furthermore, membership in international
(Cottiero and Haggard, 2023) and regional (Debre, 2020) organisations have been linked to
authoritarian legitimation efforts and consequential for their resilience strategies. In this way,
authoritarian regimes can leverage not only domestic but also international dynamics to reinforce their
legitimacy.

Furthermore, authoritarian regimes may use other alternative sources for their legitimacy. Whereas
ideology is commonly utilised for that purpose, others may consciously link a variety of sources to
construct a “mission” as a basis of their legitimation strategy (Kneuer, 2017, p.4). This mechanism of
regime upgrading is evident in the Turkish regime’s responses to the 2013 nationwide protests. Bilgiç
(2018, p.2) argues that the authoritarian regime in Turkey reinforced its rule by utilising the “national
will” narrative to portray itself as the protector of democratic values against protestors depicted as
agents of external interference. Similarly, Dukalskis and Lee’s (2020) article on North Korea also finds
that the regime has utilised “everyday nationalism” as a source of legitimation to infuse authoritarian
control into the very daily life of the people. Authoritarian regimes may also legitimise their rule by
adopting and disseminating a hegemonic discourse that leaves no room for alternative political
imaginaries by the opposition groups to mobilise the populations (Lewis, 2016). Autocrats also
construct and use such missions to make other survival mechanisms more functional. Gerschewski and
Dukalskis (2018, p.14) focus on a more recently emerged dimension of legitimation, which is the
utilization of the internet and online platforms for spreading the regime’s legitimation messages. They
claim that robust authoritarian regimes would work towards shaping the online sentiments of the
population rather than blocking social platforms and content so that online discourse supportive of the
regime appears as natural and organic.

Despite the presence of various explanations of legitimation strategies, the aim of these efforts seems
to be the same. That is, the normalisation of the authoritarian rule and rendering it a natural mode of
governance through generating consent from the ruled. This aim is certainly better achieved when the
regime performs better economically and has maintained political and social cohesion (Hanson, 2017,

15
p.5). In fact, in certain cases such as the rentier Gulf states, legitimation strategies are useful for
authoritarian upgrading to the extent that the state can generate rents and resources or has significant
access to natural resources, implying that those strategies are associated with the governing capacity
of the regime.

Repression
Repression is a recurring theme in all three strands of autocracy research (see table 2). It seems to be
a significant dimension of all types of authoritarian rule. The current debate on repression revolves
around its utility and cost for authoritarian regimes. For instance, Eva Bellin’s 2004 and 2012 papers
on the robustness of authoritarian governance in the Middle East conceptualise regime resilience based
on repression of a coercive apparatus. Bellin theorises that what sets the Middle East apart is not the
lack of democratic preconditions, rather it is the presence of a coercive apparatus that has both the
capacity and the will to repress democratic initiatives (Bellin, 2012, p.128). Four factors are claimed
to be the pillars of this robust coercive apparatus: financial stability often reinforced by extraction of
rents, chief among them oil; the presence of international support networks; low level of
institutionalisation of the coercive apparatus; and low levels of popular mobilisation (ibid., p.129).
These four factors contribute to the theoretical framework which emphasises the coercive institutions’
“capacity” and “will” to repress as the qualities that determine the durability of authoritarian regimes.
Analysing the case study of the Arab Spring, Bellin (2012, pp.133-139) argues that the institutional
character of the military and level of social mobilisation have been determinants in deciding the fate
of the Arab regimes. Highly institutionalised military apparatuses, in which recruitment and promotion
are based on merit rather than politics, will be less inclined to obey orders to violently response to
protests. Similarly, high levels of non-violent mobilisation would make it very costly for the military
to use high levels of repression. Against this background, Levitsky and Way (2013, p.12) claim that
authoritarian regimes' unwillingness and inability to repress systematically leads to regime downfalls,
such as Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, Serbia in 2000, and Georgia in 2003.

In this way, the capacity and will of the regime, often embodied in robust coercive institutions tightly
linked to the incumbent, determines how efficient repression is in maintaining authoritarian rule. While
these theories and their respective studies which examine repression in its own category do provide
essential explanations about the inner mechanics of authoritarian regimes’ coercive elements. To get
a better understanding of authoritarian regime maintenance, the effect of repression must be studied in
combination with other defining elements of autocratic rule, as the recent literature has done. This is
also necessary since it is established that repression on its own proves to be costly, especially in

16
competitive authoritarian settings. Like earlier studies on totalitarianism and the rise of
authoritarianism, research dedicated to understanding authoritarian regime resilience points out the
costliness of the repression mechanism and proposes ways in which regimes try to lessen the cost. For
instance, in a comparative case study of Egypt and Uzbekistan, Edel and Josua (2017) study and
conceptualise the links between legitimation strategies and repression. They find that legitimation
tactics are employed not only to generate legitimacy but also to lessen the costs of repression. In both
contexts, the opposition and protestor groups were framed as extremists, terrorists and criminals who
posed threats to the stability of the state and society (Edel and Josua, 2017, p.20). Additionally,
Trantidis (2021) finds out that authoritarian rulers in Slovakia and Belarus have used repression in
combination with legitimation and co-optation strategies, albeit often as a last resort. Their repressive
methods have included efforts to centralise power and restrain the judicial institutions and checks and
balances. Schneider and Maerz (2017) emphasise the same combination of authoritarian tools but
differentiate their effectiveness based on a distinction they make between “rigid” and “flexible”
regimes, with flexible regimes being more competent in their use of the survival tools.

Moreover, Leenders’ (2013) study on Syria provides a different perspective on the issue of repression
in authoritarian regimes, and the ways regimes minimise its cost. They maintain that a process of
“judicialization” of repression has been carried out in which courts and judicial mechanisms have been
integrated into their broader regime upgrading processes to persecute opposition views and actions in
a more systematic and efficient manner (Leenders, 2013, p.171). Likewise, Tsourapas (2021)
contributes to the debates on repression by including an extraterritorial dimension of the concept. He
argues that increased global migration has led to “transnational authoritarianism”, in which
authoritarian regimes attempt to exploit their citizens’ migration and lessen the political risks through
surveillance, threats, coerced returns, and enforced disappearances among other repressive strategies
(Tsourapas, 2021). Evidently, the debate on repression as a mechanism for authoritarian resilience
establishes the intricate balance regimes must maintain between repression and other survival
mechanisms. While studies examining repression in isolation, such as Bellin (2012) and Greitens
(2016), highlight that the effectiveness of repression relies on institutional character and strategic
manoeuvres of authoritarian regimes. The literature on authoritarian upgrading emphasises the
necessity of a multi-dimensional approach to repression by examining it as one of the numerous
strategies regimes use to stay in power.

Co-optation

17
The third process established in the authoritarian regime upgrading literature is co-optation. Co-
optation is an important tool for autocrats due to the impact that the level of fragmentation of the ruling
coalition has on the stability of the authoritarian regimes. While co-optation is mostly observed in
populist, corporatist or clientelist types of authoritarian regimes, every autocrat may use co-optation
to divert threats to his survival. Per the literature, the most common targets of regime elite co-opting
efforts are the strategically relevant actors, such as the political, economic, and military elite. And the
most common way the ruling elite co-opt actors is through political parties. A prominent theorisation
of co-optation is by Magaloni (2008), in which she presents a theory to understand the varying levels
of authoritarian resilience based on regime types, particularly emphasising the ability of the ruling
coalition to establish power-sharing deals. In line with the broader literature, she asserts the importance
of institutions in the authoritarian regime survival process, particularly political parties and elections.
Multiparty elections in this context act as a contractual agreement between the ruler and his party; they
increase the bargaining power of particular factions within the ruling party since the powerful elite can
potentially form or join competing parties and groups to oppose the ruler (Magaloni, 2008, pp.727–
730). Magaloni finds out that authoritarian regimes with a dominant ruling party are more resilient
than other regime types, such as military dictatorships. Gerschewski (2013, p.16) also confirms that
parties have a stabilising effect on authoritarian regimes, mainly for their ability to settle intra-elite
conflicts and offer crucial information about the degree of loyalty of the local and regional elite. It is
worth noting that this scheme cannot take place in other types of regimes, such as single-party or purely
personalist dictatorships in which potential challengers only have the option of violent and costly
opposition such as a rebellion or a coup (Magaloni, 2008, p.728). In this way, and contrasting to some
of the democratisation literature, multiparty elections in this context are not mere window dressing in
an attempt to imitate democracies; rather, they provide essential structures in which credible power-
sharing deals can be organised and implemented.

A more recent theorisation of the co-optation process has been proposed by Nadporozhskii (2023), in
which the emphasis is on understanding the incentives of authoritarian rulers to co-opt actors into their
coalition. Instead of the term co-option, Nadporozhskii (2023, p.798) uses “elite rotation”, which is
defined as the process by which a member of the ruling coalition is replaced by another strategically
important actor, resulting in a zero-sum shift in power within the ruling coalition. This rotation process
does not only include the elimination of the elite but rather decreases the status of an elite and increases
the status of the replacing actor in the ruling coalition (ibid.). The decision to rotate actors revolves
around two types of incentives of the elite: positive incentives which involve incorporating new
significant actors, mostly by decreasing the power of existing actors in the ruling coalition; negative

18
incentives are the measures taken by the elite to control the ruling coalition through monitoring elites,
limiting their access to state resources, making their status and positions uncertain, and restraining
their capabilities to form independent power bases (ibid., pp.798–801). Briefly, Nadporozhskii’s
analysis based on a global dataset of all authoritarian regimes and rulers between 1968 and 2010,
shows that low degrees of elite rotation contribute to the resilience of authoritarian regimes (2023,
p.809–810). This is mainly due to the causal effect that frequent changes in the regime coalition are
associated with coups and major changes in the rules of the game. The concept of elite rotation and its
indicators can be used to find out the frequency of the regime elite’s use of institutions to make changes
in its coalition, hence providing important information on the inner dynamics of co-optation.
Furthermore, while existing frameworks emphasise the inclusion of those significant actors into regime
coalitions, rotation may provide insight into their exclusion as well.

Authoritarian regimes’ co-optation strategies may also be mass focused. For instance, Donati’s (2013)
case study of Syria under the Baath regime explores the impact of economic liberalisation in adjusting
the regime coalition and addressing external threats. Economic liberalisation did not have a
democratisation effect, rather, it aided the regime in reinforcing its power by accessing external
resources as well as co-option capacity. By incorporating a new bourgeoise class of “crony capitalists”,
who were dependent on the regime for business opportunities, the regime was able to minimise the
threat of the opposition and potential democratisation initiatives (Donati, 2013, p.233). A significant
group in this co-opted class were the Western-educated technocrats who, while changing the regime
ruling coalition towards an international direction, became supportive of the regime and lost interest
in broadening democratic inclusion (ibid., p.241). On the same note, Buehler’s quantitative study of
Morocco and Mauritania finds that the regimes’ co-optation strategies targeted at rural populations and
leaders reinforced regime durability by creating and empowering loyalist parties. This rural co-optation
was a strategic manoeuvre by the rulers to counterbalance the opposing influence of the urban-based
youth and Islamist groups (Buehler, 2015, pp.366-370).

Authoritarian regime's co-optation efforts do not only concern the military or economic elite, but they
may also target civil society and non-governmental organisations. For instance, Dalmasso (2012) finds
that civil society activism in Morocco had shifted from being a significant democratic tool seeking
reform into a co-opted ally of the regime. She argues that human rights and women’s movements in
the country attained their objectives due to their pact with the monarch, which in turn strengthened the
regime (Dalmasso, 2012, pp. 219–220). This, however, was only possible following the civil society’s
rational adaptation to the changing circumstances and their subscription to an apolitical stance

19
concerning the regime and embodying a new type of depoliticised human rights. Similarly, Albrecht
(2005) claims the authoritarian regime in Egypt allowed the opposition parties and NGOs to operate
as a strategic move to co-opt them and exploit their existence to reinforce its control. What made the
process easier for the regime, he states, was the personalist structures of these organisations, often tied
to charismatic leaders. Institutions such as the consultative Shura Council, National Council for Human
Rights, and the “reform factions” in the leading party were important instruments in co-opting the
opposition and civil society (Albrecht, 2005, pp.391–392). Ultimately, a co-opted civil society and
opposition were tools used to restrain the Egyptian society and any potential dissent.

Additionally, Gandhi and Przeworski (2007, pp.1281–84) discuss an important consequence of co-
optation efforts by authoritarian regimes beyond their mere effect of consolidating the regime. Since
these are strategic moves by the elite to ensure their survival, they also have an impact on policy
outcomes and broader rules of the game. Since co-opting opposition forces demand a complex
institutional setting in which the demands of the co-opted can be met and agreements be given a legal
form, partisan legislative bodies serve these purposes well (Gandhi and Przeworski, 2007, p.1280).
For instance, the Jordanian regime co-opted the Muslim Brotherhood by granting them control,
although limited, over policies related to education and social issues in return for their cooperation
with the regime (ibid., p.1282). Ultimately, Gandhi and Przeworski and the majority of scholars agree
that it is this institutional nature of the co-optation processes which acts as a regime-enhancing element.
This shows that, in contexts where the opposition is strong and society is polarised, institutions such
as the legislature become significant tools of exploitation and divide-and-rule.

These studies establish the importance of a strategic use of co-optation, as well as a delicate balance
between levels of repression and co-optation. Borrowing from Bueno de Mesquita’s (2003)
vocabulary, the “selectorate” needs to be tied to the “winning coalition”. Meaning that co-optation
should be practised for the authoritarian elite to ensure that strategically important actors have access
to and use available resources in compliance with the ruling coalition rather than pose a threat to it. It
should be noted that a learning effect can be observed in the overall perception and use of co-opting
measures by authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. In this regard, Albrecht and Schlumberger
(2004, p.382) maintain that a shift in the underlying logic of co-optation and its mechanisms can be
observed during and after the rentier era in the region. While it was previously mostly based on the
distribution of wealth, co-optation mechanisms changed to involve institutions and structures after the
states’ allocative powers decreased. Similarly, Gerschewski (2013, p.27) also highlight that co-
optation mechanisms have undergone a process of calibration and re-adjustment which indicates

20
organisational learning and path-dependency phenomena. In short, the literature largely confirms that
authoritarian regimes become most durable when they have managed to not only institutionalise the
co-optation process of the elite, let it be political, economic or military, and opposition parties and civil
society, but also are flexible enough to learn and adapt to changing circumstances.

3.4. The Literature on the KRI and its Two-Party Governance

There exist very few studies on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) that engage with the
authoritarianism resilience debate. Most recent academic studies on the region focus on the “de facto”
statehood and the nature of the political system (Palani, 2023; Rafaat, 2018; Jüde, 2017; Leezenberg,
2015; Gurbey, Hofmann and Seyder, 2017; Mohammed and Alrebh, 2020; Rubin, 2016; Anaid and
Tugdar, 2019; Natali, 2010; Abdullah and Hama, 2020), party politics and rivalry (Abdullah, 2018;
Hama, 2020b; Hama and Abdullah, 2021; Taha, 2018), Democratisation (MacQueen, 2015; Romano
and Gurses, 2014), nationalism (Rafaat, 2016), diplomacy and international dynamics (Romano, 2010,
2015; Baser, 2018; Mohammed and Owtram, 2014), Kurdish Peshmerga forces and their unification
debate (Hama and Ali, 2020; Stansfield, 2014), and Corruption (Mamshai, 2022; Paasche, 2016).
Furthermore, the 2017 independence referendum emphasised the KRI on the Middle Eastern scholarly
scene. In this regard, multiple studies discussed the reasons and consequences of the referendum and
analysed the KRI within the broader federal, regional and international frameworks (Gurbuz, 2017;
Hama, 2020a; Kaya, 2018; Mustafa, 2021; O’Driscoll and Basel, 2020; Park et al., 2017).

Hence, with only a few exceptions, the literature on the KRI largely overlooks the debate on
authoritarian politics, particularly regarding its resilience. Meaning that few studies have been
conducted to systematically situate the KRI’s political experience and structure, and broader state-
building efforts, within the debate of authoritarian regime types and practices. However, there are a
couple of exceptions. For instance, El Kurd (2020) analyses the international involvement in the
Kurdistan Region and Palestine in a comparative case study and concludes that they have resulted in
authoritarian conditions. This is the case because external interference leads to polarisation among the
elite and further divides the policy preferences between them and the public. Despite the important
contributions of this paper, more could have been said regarding the legitimation effect of international
involvement as well as its other consequences. Similarly, Hassan (2015) briefly discusses KRI’s
political system as a “Sultanistic” system, which he says is based on clientelism, cronyism, personalism
and nepotism. Again, the author does little to establish the KRI as a form of authoritarian governance

21
in the sense of empirically studying the region based on certain indicators of what makes a Sultanistic
regime.

Nevertheless, the only comprehensive study on the issue of authoritarianism in the KRI, and its PDK
and PUK duopoly rule, is a doctoral thesis by Arian Abbas (2023). In his dissertation titled The
Governing System in Iraqi Kurdistan: Prospects and Challenges of Democratic Transition, Abbas
(2023) contributes an important analysis of the nature of the political system in the KRI and its complex
political dynamics. His work is the first to systematically establish the governance in the KRI as
authoritarian, particularly the electoral authoritarianism type. Using a minimalist definition of
democracy, Abbas (2023, p.26) employs a combination of democratisation and constitutionalism
theories, combined with a methodological approach of institutional and comparative analysis to study
KRI’s complex political system. The study’s main emphasis is the way elections have worked to
reinforce the authoritarian rule of the political parties (Abbas, 2023, pp.82–93); however, a limited
aspect of authoritarian resilience has been included. This is evident by the minimal or total lack of
engagement with theories and research on the concepts and processes of authoritarian upgrading,
learning, and resilience, including the works of Geddes, Gerschewski, Heydemann, Gandhi, Albrecht,
Leenders, Davenport and Bellin. Hence, while the research provides important insights into the
obstacles to democratic transition in the KRI, it rather falls into the demo-crazy category of research
mentioned by scholars in the field. As stated earlier in the literature review, scholars have criticised
this approach to understanding authoritarian rules in the Middle East. Because the theoretical and
methodological choices as well as the very nature of the research questions themselves have been
operationalised to understand democracy, or the lack of it, something that was never there to begin
with. In other words, asking questions about the failure of democracy in the KRI rather than the success
of an authoritarian rule.

The broader literature on the KRI engages with the elements of authoritarian politics but is often
singled out and examined without reference to authoritarianism frameworks. For instance, the research
that examines the political system and party structure of the KRI underscores its undemocratic nature,
particularly that political parties have primacy over the government. Abdullah and Hama (2019) make
a case for the correlation between the structure of the five major political parties in the region and the
governance structure. They find that the PDK, unlike the other parties, has been a proponent of the
presidential system, which they claim is reflective of the centralised composition of the party ruled by
influential family members (Abdullah and Hama, 2019, p.302). Numerous studies highlight that
government policies are essentially a product of the two ruling parties’ decision-making processes and

22
that the entirety of the political, economic, military and intelligence apparatuses in the KRI are partisan
and loyal to the parties (Abdullah, 2018; Hama and Abdullah, 2021; Mohammed and Alrebh, 2020;
Mamshai, 2021). Leezenberg (2015) also maintains that the political system has a Leninist type of
organisation in which a single party controls not only the political and economic spheres but also the
civil society. Likewise, multiple scholars attribute partisan and personal reasons to the 2017
independence referendum, arguing that it was primarily motivated by KDP and its leader Barzani’s
intention to divert public opinion from the failures of the ruling elite and to address the opposition’s
demand for democratisation (Hama 2020a, p.122; O’Driscoll and Baser, 2020, p.566; Park et al.,
2017). Regarding the issue of minorities in the region, Abdullah and Hama (2020, p.397) argue that
the minority representation and participation have been impacted by the ruling parties, and their
reserved quota seats in the parliament serve the KDP and PUK at the expense of the democratic
process. Thus, while the scholarship engages with numerous aspects of the KRI political system, there
is a gap in a comprehensive analysis that links these findings to the theories and mechanisms of
authoritarian upgrading.

3.5. Conceptualising KDP and PUK Duopoly Rule

Since its emergence following the Kurdish uprisings against the Iraqi government in 1991, the KRI
has been ruled by two political parties, the Barzani Family-led Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and
Talabani Family-led Kurdistan Patriotic Union (PUK). The politics of the KRI is mostly characterised
by the political, social and economic domination of the two parties, mainly reflected in the conflict
and rivalry between them. These two parties have been governing their distinct regions through two
separate administrations, the cities of Erbil and Duhok (Yellow Zone) of the KDP, and Sulaymaniyah
and Halabja (Green Zone) by the PUK. Following a civil war and its formal inception with the federal
structure of Iraq in 2005, there was an attempt to unify the two administrations under the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG). However, this process proved to be futile as it failed to institutionalise
key establishments, including the Peshmerga, interior, and finance ministries, as well as the
intelligence agencies (Palani, 2023; Abdullah, 2018). The powers of the executive branch of
governance have, for the most part, overwhelmed that of the legislation and judiciary. And all three
are indeed responsive to the political parties and influential figures from the two families. Many
political junctures demonstrate the undemocratic nature of the governance in the KRI. For instance,
the 2011 “Kurdish Spring” (Gunter, 2013) saw months of continuous protests, particularly in the Green
Zone, against corruption, nepotism, and the lack of services, to which the parties responded with
intense crackdowns with hundreds of causalities. Multiple episodes of repression of opposition parties

23
and groups have further undermined political pluralism. Similarly, civil society has faced oppression;
one such instance was the arrest of 60 journalists, activists and teachers in Erbil and Duhok and their
accusations of planning protests. These and many more episodes of repression demonstrate the
intolerance of the parties towards opposition voices, but perhaps the most prominent event that
exemplifies the non-democratic nature of the KRI was the closing down of the Parliament by the KDP
and the prevention of its speaker from entering Erbil from 2015 to 2017, as a crisis erupted concerning
the KRI and KDP President’s tenure and the region’s presidential system. One may say that this
political juncture single-handedly necessitates a re-evaluation of the nature of the political experience
in the KRI, and more specifically its potential political system.

A conceptualisation of the two-party or duopoly rule of the KDP and PUK is imperative to
meaningfully engage with the KRI. Scholars have introduced numerous classifications for
authoritarian regime types, dependent on varying theoretical underpinnings and criteria. An early
classification of authoritarian regimes is provided by Barbara Geddes (1999, p.125), who asserts that
answering the question “who rules” gives us three main types of regimes: party-based, personalist, and
military authoritarian regimes. Despite the over-simplified criteria, her classification also included the
degree to which institutions may limit the powers of the ruler. Building on Geddes’, Hadenius and
Teorell (2007, pp.146-148) add a differentiation between one-party and multi-party authoritarian
regimes, while categorising personalist regimes as a separate type. Their regime classification
approach is based on the modes of power sustenance, including hereditary succession, elections, and
military force. Kailitz (2013, p.40) also builds on this literature, and follows Max Weber’s emphasis
on legitimacy, and argues that regime types are best understood in their legitimation patterns and who
justifies access to power and how this power is exercised. Here, electoral autocracies are considered
as a distinct category, where opposition parties are allowed to operate, albeit in a restricted and uneven
playing field. Indeed, the various classifications of authoritarian regime types shows how scholars have
provided different explanations based on structural and functional variations. The case of the KRI
presents another challenge to this political system classification debate. Here, we have two parties that
dominate their own distinct zones, the Yellow Zone and Green Zone, and have ensured that politics of
their controlled regions is ultimately decided by their party’s politburo, councils and other relevant
offices. Scholars have termed the major political party in autocratic contexts as different concept,
including dominant political party, dominant authoritarian party, and single-party dominance
(Golosov, 2013, p.634; Greene, 2009, p.811). This concept of a dominant authoritarian party defined
as the central power holder over long periods of time (Greene, 2009, p.809). Indeed, both KDP and
PUK are dominant parties in the KRI. While this adds and demands further theorisation of a different

24
category of political system types, it also is an apparent indication of the presence of two centres of
power and hence two modes of governance.

The review of the scholarship above showed that studies on the Kurdistan Region, and its political
system, have approached the issue of the region’s definition as a quasi-independent region with
significant autonomy from the Iraqi central government (Abdullah, 2018). Other studies engaging with
the recognition status of the region label it as a de facto state (Mamshai, 2021). Concerning its political
system, most scholars confirm the presence of the two-party dominated system, here labelled as a
duopoly. Electorally speaking, the KRI has formally adopted a multi-party system since its inception,
despite the duopoly maintaining control over all institutions, resources and power. Hama and Abdullah
(2021, p. 769) rightly state that the system in the KRI “is what the parties make of it”; and indeed, this
study is in line with this understanding of the nature of politics in the region. To be more specific, this
proposal contends that acknowledging the duopoly’s dominance over political, social, and economic
life is a prerequisite for any sound scholarly engagement with the KRI’s politics and economics.
Regarding the nature of governance, the duopoly rule is considered as personalised and centralised
authoritarianism (Hassan, 2015, p. 6), quasi-democratic (Hama and Ali, 2020, p. 113), hybrid
governance (El Kurd, 2020, p. 276), and a competitive authoritarian system (Abbas, 2023). All in all,
scholars are unanimous in that the nature of governance of the duopoly rule has strong authoritarian
tendencies despite adoption of seemingly democratic institutions. Hence, for the purpose of this
proposal and building on the literature on the KRI politics, I define the KDP-PUK duopoly rule in the
KRI as a dual dominant-party system characterised by the control of political, economic, and security
structures by the two parties within their respective territories. This duopoly rule has implied both
cooperation and rivalry in the politics of the KRI since its formal inception.

The role of institutions, particularly political parties, has been pivotal to debates on authoritarianism
and regime durability. It is a common understanding that political parties contribute to authoritarian
resilience through promoting elite cohesion and managing mass mobilisation, leadings to effective
governance (Greene, 2009; Boix and Svolik, 2013; Brownlee, 2007; Geddes, 1999; Kavasoglu, 2021;
Koss, 2018; Levitsky and Way, 2013; Reuter, 2021; Pepinsky, 2013; Escriba-Folch, 2012; Yanai,
1999). On the one hand, political parties are claimed to facilitate power-sharing arrangements among
the elite and ruling coalition by providing mechanisms to mitigating commitment and monitoring
issues. This institutionalisation of elite-level power arrangements reduces factional conflicts and
succession problems by providing the ruling coalition a robust set of institutional mechanisms
(Magaloni, 2008, pp.722-727; Boix and Svolik, 2013, p.302). On the other hand, ruling parties

25
facilitate regime durability by allocating patronage to elite and different social groups, enforcing
compliance and mobilising mass support. In this note, Koss (2018, p.36) and Blaydes (2010, p.4) claim
that parties in authoritarian regimes enable the rulers to penetrate society and impose compliance to
their authority on a nationwide scale, which enhances their governance and management. However, it
is not only the presence of political parties or their primary functions—elite conflict management and
patronage distribution—that promotes authoritarian resilience, but also the degree of their
institutionalisation. As argued by Meng (2016, pp.2-3) and Reuter (2021, p.2), authoritarian regimes
ruling through institutionalised political parties survive longer than those without, highlighting that
institutionalisation reduces uncertainty and prolongs political time horizons. In short,
institutionalisation of the dominant political party contributes to authoritarian regime resilience due to
the creation of a predictable system of management and operation. This conceptualisation will be
especially useful in further understanding and utilising the theoretical framework proposed later.

3.5. Conclusion

Following the realisation of the limits of democratisation and modernisation research paradigms, a
“post-transitology” research emerged (Valbjørn and Bank, 2010) which led to an institutional turn in
autocracy research. This emerging scholarship led to a shift in focus from the debate on the failure of
democratisation to questions concerning the resilience of authoritarian rules, and hence have
significantly contributed to our understanding of regimes in the Middle East. A closer examination of
the three trends in authoritarian resilience literature—legitimation, repression and co-optation—
revealed that a primary prerequisite for the durability of regimes is not only their strategic use of these
tools but also their institutionalisation. The next chapter will discuss a theory on the inner mechanics
of this institutionalisation process and the way these three pillars interact to produce a stabilising effect
for authoritarian regimes.

Concerning the case study of this proposed research, the scholarship on authoritarianism and its
resilience has given little attention to authoritarian governance in non-nation state entities and
particularly de facto states. It is therefore a necessity to examine the KRI from the perspective of
authoritarian durability. Discussing its political structure, Palani (2023) rightly argues that the KRI has
been operating as a “fluid” de facto state, with its relational powers constantly in flux. Further
magnifying the scope and unit of analysis, one may make a similar argument concerning the nature of
the KDP and PUK governance. In other words, it may not only be the de facto statehood of the KRI,
in an institutional and structural sense, that is in constant shift; but also, the very nature of the duopoly

26
party governance that is continuously being upgraded. This mode of reasoning seems to be absent from
the literature on the KRI. What these studies do not include in their discussions is the way each of
these matters, such as political system and party politics, diplomacy, nationalism, corruption, and
independence referendums, may have produced stabilising effects for the duopoly rule of the KDP and
PUK. For example, the recent studies on the independence referendum do imply that conducting it was
a strategic move by the KDP leadership; however, little has been said concerning the legitimating
effect of the referendum and the mechanism’s nuances. A preliminary analysis of the 2017 referendum
in light of the authoritarian resilience debate may confirm that this was indeed a constructed “mission”
by the KDP to legitimate the Barzani rule for another term. Similarly, it may be necessary to include
a discussion of the presence of strong and mass-based political parties and how they might have
impacted authoritarian tendencies and durability in our examination of the KRI political system and
party politics.

Several factors may have affected the lack of attention to this research paradigm concerning the KRI
and non-nation-state political entities. First, shortage of, or presence of obstacles in accessing, credible
and reliable data on the region, its economy, politics, and particularly the decision-making processes
within the political parties. Second, the difficulty in adapting and adjusting present theories on
authoritarian resilience, which are designed to analyse case studies of nation-states, rather than de facto
entities within federal structures, such as the KRI. Third, the general tendency in the scholarship to
hail the political experience of the KRI as a democratic exception in the widely nondemocratic Middle
East. While there may be some truth in that approach, the explanatory power of these studies has been
limited by analysing the KRI in a comparative setting, employing tools borrowed from the
democratisation and modernisation debate, rather than examining it within its own category. Indeed,
analysing the KRI’s political experience since 2005 while considering its unique context and
characteristics, and situating it within the broader authoritarian resilience debate, may reveal important
findings about the strategies and mechanisms that might have contributed to the durability of its
duopoly party rule. The role of institutional arrangements, the somewhat rentier economy, the federal
structure of Iraq, the tribal and patrimonial linkages, Kurdish nationalism, clientelist and patronage
networks, and international and regional linkages could be important dimensions of this regime
upgrading process.

4.Theory

4.1. Introduction

27
This section explains the theoretical foundation of the proposed research project. The conceptual and
theoretical framework presented here aims at elucidating the factors contributing to the resilience of
the duopoly party rule in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In this note, the theory of authoritarian
stabilization by Johannes Gerschewski (2013) is well suited to explain how authoritarian regimes
maintain stability and adapt to external and internal changes, for the following reasons. One, as the
literature review section showed, scholars have proposed numerous theorisations of regime durability
by highlighting and fixating on one of the pillars, such as legitimation (von Soest and Grauvogel, 2017,
p.590; Bernhard, Edgell and Lindberg, 2019. P.6), repression (Bellin, 2012, p.171; Leenders, 2013,
p.171), and co-optation (Magaloni, 2008, pp.727-730; Nadporozhskii, 2023, p.798). Unlike those
theories, Gerschewski’s framework integrates the three key dimensions of authoritarian maintenance
and hence provides a holistic approach to the case matter. Second, the authoritarian stabilisation
theory’s emphasis on institutionalisation is in line with the literature on the dominant political parties
in authoritarian contexts, thereby providing a dynamic perspective that enables a concrete analysis of
the KDP-PUK duopoly. Lastly, and most importantly, Gerschewski’s framework gives us a set of
systematic measurement tools and operationalised indicators necessary for a concise methodological
approach for the stabilisation process of an authoritarian regime, emphasising the inner mechanics
concerning the three pillars. This contrasts attempts, such as recombinant authoritarianism by
Heydemann and Leenders (2013), who provide rough conceptual outlines of authoritarian adaptation
but lack a structured set of indicators. Nevertheless, numerous studies have built on the authoritarian
stabilisation theory, both in single and comparative qualitative case studies and large-n quantitative
studies. Examples include the comparative study by Trantidis (2021) which examines “autocratisation”
in Belarus and Slovakia in a comparative study, single case studies by Ngoun (2020) concerning the
Cambodian regime, Gerschewski and Dukalskis(2018) who focus on North Korea, and Bayulgen et
al.’s (2018) examination of Turkey, as well as large-n studies by Schneider and Maerz (2017) and
Tsourapas (2021).

Following this, the theory of authoritarian stabilisation will be elaborated. Then, the three concepts—
legitimation, repression and co-optation—will be discussed concerning the duopoly rule as
conceptualised in the literature review section. In explaining the inner workings of the theories and
concepts, a set of hypotheses will be laid out for empirical testing as discussed in the next methodology
section. This will provide a structured approach to examine the factors contributing to the resilience
of the KDP and PUK duopoly in the Kurdistan region.

4.2. Authoritarian Stabilisation Theory

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Johannes Gerschewski’s (2013) theory of authoritarian stabilisation rests on what he calls “the three
pillars of stability”: legitimation, repression and co-optation. Her work has been inspired by both
research paradigms of totalitarianism and the rise of authoritarianism. To begin with, Gerschewski
makes it clear that these pillars are not inherent to authoritarian systems but should be developed over
time. Furthermore, the stabilisation process concerns three reinforcement mechanisms that operate
within and between these three pillars. The reinforcement mechanism within the pillars happens
through two processes. On the one hand, an exogenously reinforced institutionalisation process that
mainly depends on the regime’s external resources (Gerschewski, 2013, pp. 23–25). The degree of
institutionalisation of the three pillars is bound to the availability of funds and power resources. As
such, the institutionalisation process within the pillars fails if the elite loses access to resources to
strengthen legitimation vis-à-vis the society, to maintain a strong repression apparatus, or to allocate
benefits for their co-optation of strategically relevant actors (ibid., p. 25). On the other hand, there is a
self-reinforcing institutionalisation process that leads to path dependency; once an institution is
established, it becomes challenging to change its course and hence reinforces itself. This is explained
through a mechanism of increasing returns; as the number of reinforcement steps increases, the
marginal cost associated with reinforcing the pillar decreases (ibid., p. 26). For instance, establishing
a coercive apparatus on a patrimonial structure and designed to respond to a particular type of threat
is associated with high initial costs, but that also renders alternative structures or mechanisms of
repression costlier.

Equally essential is the reciprocal reinforcement process between the pillars. Borrowing from the
economy and sociology fields, Gerschewski (2013, p. 28) proposes that there is a complementarity
element between the three pillars. Complementarity here refers to the simultaneous operation and
cooperation of institutions that together make a whole. In addition, the reciprocal reinforcement
attribute concerns a mutual strengthening in which the emergence of a pillar leads to the creation of
another, which in turn reinforces the first pillar again (ibid.). For example, a vigorous legitimation
strategy would make co-optation easier, as it decreases the costs associated with persuading
strategically relevant actors. Likewise, functional co-optation efforts include elite actors in the ruling
coalition which would further legitimise the rule and strengthen legitimation strategies. Nevertheless,
this reciprocal relationship varies between the pillars and may be weaker and more ambivalent among
certain two pillars, as is the case between repression and legitimation. Repression may result in
unintended outcomes that would weaken the legitimation pillar; hence leading to destabilisation
(Gerschewski, 2013, pp. 29–30). For this reason, since certain pillars function better in combination,

29
there must be a systematic pattern of the degree of pillars in place for authoritarian regimes to generate
the stabilisation effect. All these processes lead to a desired outcome for authoritarian regimes, which
is the institutionalisation of the three pillars. In other words, institutionalised legitimation indicates
that the population have accepted the norms and discourse that justify the regime’s rule;
institutionalised repression guarantees that the opposition actors are systematically hindered from
challenging the regime; and institutionalised co-optation means that a symbiotic interaction is formed
between the ruling elite and strategically relevant actors in which cooperation advantages both sides.

4.3. The Three Pillars of Stability

Legitimation
Since its emergence in political science scholarship, the concept of legitimacy has been associated with
governance that is just and right. In everyday language, it still represents a good and fair type of rule,
which is often used to describe democratic norms and principles (Dukalskis and Gerschewski, 2017,
p. 252). As the literature review showed, the earlier research paradigms on totalitarian regimes had
avoided thorough examinations of legitimacy within autocracies, but more recent scholarship has
brought it back into the discussions mostly in the form of legitimation. While legitimacy is a condition
and category, on the other hand, as March (2003, p. 210) simply puts it: legitimation implies a process
in which a political entity attempts to “transform the fact of obedience into the duty to obey”. Social
scientists have long recognised the significance of legitimation in politics (Weber, 1965). Earlier
research was mostly focused on the role of ideology in the legitimation processes, as evident in the
classic literature on totalitarian governance (Linz 1975, p. 31). Andrew March’s seminal article on the
intersection of legitimation and ideology provides a crucial theoretical underpinning of the concepts,
in his words:
“Legitimation is often not only about the normative claim of the right to rule, but the hegemonic
claim that the system of rule defended is the product of a natural and self-evident consensus
that itself shapes and gives a boundary to the political, that pre-determines the contours of
politics—which decisions have been made (if they were ever ‘decisions’ at all) and which
remain open to determination through political procedure” (March, 2003, p.210)
Indeed, the literature review demonstrated that authoritarian regimes employ various methods to
establish their rule as a product of a “natural and self-evident consensus”. Those include the
exploitation of external sanctions and threats, internal securitisation of opposition groups, and most
importantly, the use of the same set of institutions and processes found in democracies for authoritarian
purposes. Nevertheless, it is argued that the concept of a legitimate authoritarian regime is inherently

30
contradictory, and that legitimation is irrelevant to the stability of authoritarian regimes (Gerschewski,
2013, p. 18). However, modern authoritarian rulers cannot entirely depend on repression to sustain
their rule, as it has become quite costly to govern through the same type of tyrannical political orders
of the past.

In this vein, Gerschewski (2013) suggests employing David Easton’s (1965) distinction between
diffuse and specific support to better capture the notion of legitimation. On the one hand, diffuse
support is defined as general and long-term acceptance of what the regime essentially is or represents
(Easton, 1965, p. 268). Authoritarian regimes often get diffuse support for their governance through
elements that are fundamental to their rule, such as ideological, traditional, religious or nationalistic
claims, as well as from a charismatic leadership or ideologue (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 20). On the other
hand, specific support entails a reciprocal relationship where support is granted in exchange for the
regime’s deliverance of demands, meaning that it revolves around performance and immediate benefits
(Easton, 1965, p. 444). Preserving societal cohesion, internal order, and national security, and
economic development may grant autocrats specific support from the populace (Gerschewski, 2013,
p. 20). This categorization of legitimation is helpful for a concise and clear measurement, which is
further discussed in the methodology section. Despite the varying nature of legitimation processes,
such as cultivating a nationalist narrative, using economic performance, or constructing a mission; the
key element is their institutionalisation, as the stabilization theory demonstrated. Here, institutionalised
legitimation indicates that the ruled population have accepted and deeply internalised the norms and
discourses that justify the regime’s rule.

In the case of the KDP-PUK duopoly in the KRI, legitimation plays a pivotal role in maintaining party
dominance and contributing to authoritarian resilience. Both parties have justified their rule through a
combination of nationalist, historical and performance related legitimation mechanisms. On the one
hand, the KDP’s legitimation strategy often revolves around traditional nationalist and tribal
narratives, asserting their leadership of the Kurdish nationalist movement. On the other hand, the PUK
has attempted to legitimise its rule through a reformist and modernist discourse, as a breakaway faction
of the KDP. Regardless of the ideological rivalry and physical clashes between them, both parties have
established legitimacy frameworks particularly tailored for their respective governed zones. The two
main dominant party functions—elite cohesion and patronage distribution—have interacted with the
legitimation pillar. The parties’ institutionalised leadership structures, which revolve around a familial
and hereditary legitimacy, strengthen the ruling families’ dominance over decision-making processes.
Likewise, the parties’ patronage distribution plays a key role in facilitating legitimation through a party

31
royalty-based allocation of public sector employment, government contracts, land and financial
benefits to ensure mass compliance and power solidification. This process aligns with the stabilisation
theory; while societal, economic, and political pressures often challenge the legitimacy of the duopoly
rule, the parties deep-rooted dominance and their institutionalisation of legitimation patterns ensures
their resilience.

Hypothesis:
The institutionalisation of nationalist narratives, familial leadership structures, and
patronage-based economic distribution strengthens the legitimacy of the KDP and PUK,
reducing opposition mobilization despite declining democratic credibility.

Repression
“You can do anything with bayonets, except sit on them” – Talleyrand

The above quote correctly displays the dilemmatic usage of repression; it helps autocrats stay in power
in the short term but may become too costly after a while. Nevertheless, repression is one of the
defining characteristics of authoritarian states; every autocrat has depended on repression sometime
during their rule, albeit in different degrees and forms. In line with many studies on repression
(Gerschewski, 2013; Albertus and Menaldo, 2012; Bayulgen, Arbatli and Canbolat, 2018), this
framework uses Davenport’s definition of repression as the “actual or threatened use of physical
sanctions against an individual or organisation, within the state’s territorial jurisdiction, to impose a
cost on the target and deter specific activities” (2007, p. 2). Inarguably, in the context of authoritarian
regimes, these “specific activities” are what the rulers deem as a threat to their survival. Similarly, it
employs Levitsky and Way’s categorization of repression, in which they make a distinction based on
the type of violence and the subject of repressive acts. They differentiate between “high intensity” and
“low intensity” types of repression (Levitsky and Way, 2002, pp. 51-55). The literature also proposes
some alternative terms, although with similar conceptualizations, such as soft and hard repression
(Debre, 2020, p. 4) and widespread and selective repression (Bayulgen, Arbatli and Canbolat, 2018,
p. 18). On the one hand, high-intensity repression is defined as apparent repressive acts which target a
large population as well as popular individuals and institutions. This could be through violent
repression against mass protests and parties or assassinating and imprisoning opposition figures
(Gerschewski, 2013, p. 21). On the other hand, low-intensity repression is described as the less
apparent targeting of less important groups and activists. Examples may be regular surveillance,
harassment and jailing of opposition groups and leaders, as well as their (claimed) legal persecution

32
(Levitsky and Way, 2013, p. 11). In an ideal situation, regimes would not have to make use of
repression at all and instead deter threats to their rule through other means such as co-optation and
legitimation. However, low-intensity of repression is favoured, since unlike high-intensity repression
it may not result in a backlash of the population and the international actors.

Repression has functioned as a mechanism of control for the duopoly rule in the KRI and contributed
to its resilience. Both the KDP and PUK have their own robust security apparatuses, comprising
paramilitary forces, intelligence services, and internal security units or which all are responsive to the
parties and enable the parties to ensure mass compliance in their territories. The dual dominant party
structure implies that repression has normally been done in varying levels across the two territories
and different time periods. This zone-specific manner of repression has been of high intensity at times
of large crisis, for instance during nationwide protests, and low intensity repression used as a standard
instrument to control opposition forces, activists and independent groups and media. In addition,
repression has shaped, and been impacted by, both elite cohesion and patronage distribution in the
duopoly. Since security and armed forces are intertwined with party structures and function as partisan
entities, they have ensured the loyalty of elites to the ruling cliques within the parties and hence played
a crucial role in elite cohesion. Likewise, the parties’ patronage networks have strengthened their
repressive capacities as mass public employment and personalised incentives have formed a population
less inclined to challenge their rule, ultimately demanding less intensive repressive measures. The
institutionalisation of repression has enabled the duopoly to manage and maintain their dominance of
the politics, economy and security without inciting mass dissent. Low-intensity repressive strategies
have allowed them to contain society and restrain opposition through intensive surveillance, legal
persecution, and restrictions on activism and the media. This strategic adjustment emphasises the
importance of institutionalisation repression as a key element in the authoritarian upgrading process.

Hypothesis 2:
The institutionalisation of party-controlled security forces in the KRI allows for targeted low-
intensity repression, which suppresses opposition activity while maintaining a facade of
political pluralism.

Co-optation
Co-optation is defined as “the capacity to tie strategically relevant actors (or a group of actors) to the
regime elite” (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 22). These relevant actors may be the political elite, such as
opposition figures and parties, the economic elite as well as the military elite. Per the literature, this
process of linking the fate of certain actors of interest to the regime happens mostly through formal

33
channels and institutions. As Gandhi and Przeworski (2007, pp. 1279-1301) state, institutions such as
parliaments, political parties and electoral bodies serve an important role in regime co-option efforts.
Authoritarian regimes may also co-opt such actors through informal channels, such as through
patronage and clientelist networks. This is evident by the neo-patrimonial structure of many
autocracies in the earlier decades (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 28). However, institutions help the regime to
tie actors to itself in a more systematic way by setting stable expectations and providing essential
information to the regime elite (Gerschewski and Dukalskis, 2018, p.13). Ultimately, both
conceptualisations of co-optation as formal and informal mechanisms imply a process of
institutionalisation which provides cohesion to the elite coalition and prevents defections. While co-
optation often implies a unidirectional process of the regime elite gaining control over potentially
opposing politicians, in the real world this process is multi-dimensional (Buehler, 2015, p. 368). The
regime benefits from co-opting actors as it helps them broaden the social coalition, but the co-opted
parties also benefit materially and politically by gaining access to state resources, clientelist networks,
and power structures within the regime.

Co-optation, both as formal and informal mechanisms, has allowed the duopoly of the KDP and PUK
to ensure elite cohesion and regime resilience. Both parties have strategically incorporated important
political, business, tribal, and religious elite into their ruling coalitions. Formally, the duopoly’s
dominance of the parliament and its related institutions, government offices, electoral, and legal
entities has rendered a sociopolitical scene in which competition and opposition of the party rule have
been inconsequential. Similarly, the dominant parties have employed informal co-optation strategies,
sustained by their control over the access to public resources, government employment, financial
benefits and contracts and dependent on loyalty and obedience to the ruling coalition in the parties.
The duopoly has institutionalised co-optation, albeit in varying levels, to reinforce their dominance
and check elite fragmentation and tie the fate of elite and society to their own will. This has led to a
deeply entrenched dual-patronage system where both the KDP and PUK sustain autonomous, and yet
interrelated, mechanisms of integrating strategically relevant actors to secure a resilient rule capable
of responding to internal and external pressures. Here, institutionalised co-optation means that a
symbiotic interaction is formed between the ruling elite and strategically relevant actors in which
cooperation advantages both sides.

Hypothesis 3:
The KDP-PUK duopoly maintains elite cohesion by monopolizing access to state resources,
ensuring patronage networks sustain elite loyalty and prevent defections.

34
 Figure 1. The three pillars of stability (Gerschewski, 2013)

General Hypothesis:

The institutionalisation of legitimation, repression, and co-optation by the KDP-PUK duopoly

has reinforced its political resilience in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq by maintaining elite
cohesion, controlling opposition, and sustaining patronage networks, despite persistent
political and economic challenges.

4.4. Conclusion

This proposed theoretical framework integrates Gerschewski’s theory of authoritarian stabilisation

with focused analysis of institutionalised dominant-party rule to explain the resilience of the KDP and
PUK duopoly rule in the Kurdistan Region. By analysing the institutionalisation of the three pillars of
stability—legitimation, repression and co-optation—this theoretical composition provides a structured
approach to answer the research questions. The duopoly’s two territorially distinct dominant parties
have reinforced their control by capitalising on elite cohesion and patronage networks, leading to a

35
structure of governance in which each pillar reinforces the others. The correlation and interdependence
between the pillars show the resilience of the duopoly, the institutionalisation of these mechanisms has
led to a path-dependent system that is resistant to external and internal forces of change. The holistic
framework provided here will directly inform the research’s methodological choices in which the
institutionalisation of the three pillars will be operationalised and measurable indicators will be
proposed to examine authoritarian resilience of the KDP and PUK rule. This integrated approach will
be applied throughout the analysis and discussion sections to answer the research questions in a
coherent and multifaceted manner.

5. Reflections on Methodology

5.1. Methods of this Study

This proposed research project uses a mixed-methods research design, incorporating qualitative and
quantitative approaches to comprehensively examine the KDP-PUK duopoly in the KRI. Given the
nature of the research question(s), and the discussions on the evolution and adjustment of the duopoly’s
resilience and dominance despite internal and external pressures, this study will make use of a
combination of methods. Those include process tracing, comparative analysis, and discourse analysis.
Generally, the methodology will be organised around three elements: a longitudinal analysis of the
duopoly’s governance strategies (2005-present), a regional and comparative analysis of the Yellow
(KDP-controlled) and Green (PUK-controlled) zones, and the empirical measurement of
institutionalisation across the three pillars of stabilisation. Recently scholars have called for the
necessity of moving beyond static conceptualisations of authoritarian durability and instead focus on
the adaptative and upgrading nature of their rule (Heydemann and Leenders, 2013, p.245). And this is
the rationale for this methodological approach, as it intends to capture a dynamic understanding of the
duopoly’s dominance and power maintenance in a politically fragmented context. This framework
integrates multiple data sources, including semi-structured elite interviews, discourse analysis of party
and leadership narratives, archival research, and quantitative electoral and economic data on the KRI
as a whole and the two zones. As shown by Table 3., a structured framework will direct the
operationalisation of the research hypotheses, guiding both data collection and analysis processes by
setting specific empirical indicators for each theoretical claim to systematically examine the resilience
of the KRI duopoly rule.

36
Table 3. Proposed Hypotheses and Measurable Indicators

Hypotheses Empirical Indicators

• Survey data on public trust in KDP-PUK

The institutionalisation of
governance
nationalist narratives, familial
leadership structures, and • Election turnout trends and opposition
Legitimation patronage-based economic success rates
distribution strengthens the
• Patterns of public sector hiring linked to
legitimacy of the KDP and PUK,
party loyalty
reducing opposition mobilization
despite declining democratic
credibility.

• Patterns of protest crackdowns by security

The institutionalisation of party-
zones (Green vs. Yellow)
controlled security forces in the
KRI allows for targeted low- • Cases of political imprisonment and media
Repression intensity repression, which restrictions
suppresses opposition activity
• Shifts in opposition activism post-repression
while maintaining a facade of
events
political pluralism.

• Distribution of state contracts and

The KDP-PUK duopoly maintains
employment based on party affiliation
elite cohesion by monopolizing
Co-optation access to state resources, ensuring • Trends in intra-party defections over time
patronage networks sustain elite
• Parliamentary votes aligning with party
loyalty and prevent defections.
loyalty vs. ideological positions

37
A key methodological tool I will use is process tracing. This allows for a thorough analysis of how the
duopoly’s three pillars have evolved over time and institutionalised to respond to critical economic,
political and security challenges on their dominance. Critical junctures, such as the 2005 constitutional
agreement, 2011 anti-corruption and nation-wide protests, 2017 independence referendum and its
outcomes, and the 2021 federal government budget cuts, will be examined with this method. Indeed,
systematically tracing these events, with a particular focus on legitimation, repression, and co-optation
as conceptualised in the theory section, will shed light on important findings concerning the duopoly’
resilience and power maintenance. Moreover, a comparative analysis between the KDP and PUK-
controlled territories will give valuable insight into the similarities and dissimilarities and broader
variations across the two zones. More importantly, by a juxtaposition of the varying resilience
mechanisms used by the two parties, a comparative lens will allow for a closer examination of the
intra-duopoly cooperation and competition. For instance, I could do comprehensive discourse analysis
of the parties’ manifestos, statements, decrees, and speeches to understand how they have managed
different crises by constructing a narrative of legitimacy. To complement the empirical rigor of
methodology approach, I intend to do semi-structured interviews with officials and leaders from the
two ruling parties as well as the opposition parties, civil society and experts on the subject matter. This
will help me get an insider view on the decision-forming and passing processes within the parties. The
questions in those interviews will revolve around concepts and processes I have associated to the pillars
in the theory section. For instance, how varying discourses and narratives of legitimacy are established
to sustain popular and specific support (legitimation), how threatening mobilisations may be controlled
by formal and informal strategies (repression), and how the elite might bargain their positions within
party structures (co-optation). Additionally, archival and survey data (where available), and social
media content analysis will complement my data sources pool by including the perceptions of
populations in the two zones. This will help me have a bottom-up perspective on the institutionalisation
processes and outcomes.

To complement the qualitative analysis, I will incorporate quantitative data to guide a more systematic
measurement of the institutionalisation of legitimation, repression and co-optation. To this end, I will
compile and construct several datasets and indexes. These include election trends (such as turnout,
party votes, opposition success), patronage distribution (state employment by party affiliation and
loyalty, government contract assignment), and repression indicators (patterns of politically motivated
arrests, restrictions on the media, and protest suppressions). A number of sources will be used to make
those datasets, such as independent monitoring organisations, civil society publications, opposition
parties’ and KRG’s reports. Lastly, in this study, I will use triangulation, or the process of cross-

38
validating outcomes and findings from the multiple sources I intend to make use of (such as data from
process tracing, interviews and discourse analysis). I do this to highlight patterns, inconsistencies and
trends from my data pool. Hence, through incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data, this
methodological approach allows for a multi-dimensional and empirical examination of how the KDP-
PUK duopoly has been resilient despite constant political, social and economic challenges to its rule.

5.2. Researching Authoritarianism: Challenges

Contexts in which lack of transparency, restrictions on access to information, and repressive regime
attitudes pose concerns to researchers and participants, also may put methodological challenges to
studies on authoritarianism. Most research on methodological approaches that involve field work
discuss issues found in democratic contexts. Some scholars have taken up the task of examining
empirical research in authoritarian contexts, highlighting the obstacles and their potential solutions as
well as suggesting recommendations concerning research design and data collection measures (Ahram
and Goode, 2016; Art, 2016; Barros, 2016; Hopman, 2021; Janenova, 2019; Menga, 2019;
Morgenbesser and Weiss 2018; Yusupova, 2019; Barros, 2016; Malekzadeh, 2016). This body of
scholarship reaffirms that research on authoritarianism should not be subject to the same evidential
standards as research on democracies, but they also propose many mechanisms through which
researchers can ensure the reliability and credibility of their produced works.

In general, three challenges to doing research data collection can be emphasised in restricted contexts,
relevant to the case study in hand. These challenges are underpinned by an established fact concerning
the reproduction of knowledge in authoritarian contexts, that is authoritarian secrecy. Barros (2016,
p.954) states that secrecy poses serious challenges for researchers studying the highest levels of
authoritarian power and that indirect analysis of publicly available data may prove to be deceptive.
This necessitates holistic and flexible research designs and methodological techniques to understand
how authoritarian regimes operate. Concerning the flexibility of research techniques in his study of
Iran, Malekzadeh (2016) rightly argues that rigid research designs would surely fail in the face of
authoritarian secrecy and opacity, even if the research topics at hand appear to examine obvious
phenomena. The first challenge associated with conducting research in non-democratic contexts is the
issue of access. Authoritarian regimes may restrict researchers’ access to data, individuals and spaces
by using gatekeepers. Regime agents may innately be against allowing researchers to conduct
comprehensive data collection and observation, just as they would prevent journalists from exposing
the gaps between the rulers’ statements and actions (Ahram and Goode, 2016, p.840). This challenge

39
is particularly relevant for non-resident or foreign researchers who must travel for fieldwork. This may
also be exacerbated if the researcher does not speak the language of the people where fieldwork takes
place.

The second challenge is related to the quality and validity of data. In addition to the presence of secrecy
and mechanisms of concealing information in autocracies, regime elites and agents also make the task
of researchers more difficult by disseminating what Barros (2016, p.954) calls “public artefacts” of
authoritarian power. These often constitute the words and self-portrayals of the regime through
speeches, decrees, interviews or policy outcomes. Public artefacts also contribute to the “poor
information environment” (Magaloni, 2006, p.236) characteristic of autocracies. Hence, this is not
only due to the opaqueness of the state apparatus and its internal mechanisms but also the intentional
reproduction of ignorance and uncertainty by the regime (Ahram and Goode, 2016, p.838). Without
careful consideration of suiting methodological techniques, scholars may end up reproducing the same
claims regimes depend on to legitimate their rule, as Ahram (2016) argues was the research case
conducted on Saddam Hussein’s rule. It is important to be cautious about depending on data coming
out of the regime, as well as the regime’s interpretations of them (Ahram and Goode, 2016, p.842).
Due to this secrecy and intentional reproduction of ignorance by regimes, Art (2016, pp.976-978)
argues that most research conducted on authoritarian politics, including their resilience, is only partly
supported by reliable evidence. This includes both qualitative works, such as analyses of regime
endurance using interviews and observations (Magaloni, 2008), and quantitative research employing
cross-national statistical data (Gandhi, 2008). Here, the main issue is that scholars lack the data
required to test their hypotheses which are naturally dependent on the availability of abundant and
reliable data on elite behaviour, systemic interactions and broader authoritarian politics. The third
challenge of conducting research in authoritarian contexts is the ethical dimension of fieldwork. This
challenge emerges as scholars must strike a balance between the need for covert knowledge with the
safety and security of participants (Ahram and Goode, 2016, p.843). Scholars of authoritarianism often
have to choose between attaining informed consent and guaranteeing the confidentiality of their
informants, which leads to more complications in the research process.

5.3. Researching Authoritarianism: Practical Strategies and Ethical Steps

Numerous strategies and methodological techniques have been proposed to address these challenges.
What generally underlines these propositions is the need for creativity, flexibility, local knowledge,
innovative research designs, and recognition of the dangers associated with conducting research in

40
these restricted environments (Loyle, 2016, p.925). In addition, the challenging circumstances in these
contexts demand researchers to “think more like detectives than philosophers” (Art, 2016, p.975) and
through a historical approach learn from conducted studies on authoritarian politics. The first strategy
concerns the portrayal of one’s research and its purpose during interactions with regime agents,
gatekeepers and research participants. As Malekzadeh (2016, p.865) states regarding the display of his
research on Iran, it would be wise to “make it boring”. This is done through, for instance, designing
interview and survey questions in a way that does not push participants to have second thoughts about
providing information. Asking overt political questions and instead seeking answers for seemingly less
interesting questions regarding intra-party rules and dynamics may produce more revealing knowledge
(Art, 2016, p.980). Regarding my case study, asking questions about the KDP and PUK two-party rule
in a way that emphasises administrative practices, institutional structures, and inner-party dynamics,
rather than direct political questions, would gather more informative responses. For instance,
concerning the legitimation aspect, questions could be about the ways each political party
communicates their policies to the public as well as the impact of historical and cultural narratives on
party discourse. In this way, the fieldwork could gather more representative insights into the
mechanisms of legitimation without leading to doubt or resistance from research participants.

A second strategy recommended by numerous scholars is seeking openings for spontaneity and
informality. Researchers have found that techniques such as “guerilla interviewing” and “snowball
sampling”, which often are random opportunities coming about following the interview and survey of
initial participants, proved to be quite useful (Ahram and Goode, 2016). As Markowitz (2016, p.905)
mentions concerning his fieldwork in Uzbekistan, his unexpected and spontaneous focus groups with
a group of lawyers provided valuable data for his research. However, it is worth noting that spontaneity
is often complicated to systematically carry out as part of one’s research and may even result in the
questioning of scholarly objectivity. Although this research project about the KRI would begin with a
systematic research design in mind, it will be open to leveraging opportunities for data collection. As
an example, it might just be the case that interviewing an official from the KDP could lead to a
spontaneous conversation with other important individuals from the party, as well as figures in the
PUK, providing more nuanced insights about the internal party dynamics and decision-making
processes.

Third, an important strategy to respond to methodological challenges in authoritarian contexts is to

frame the research topic in a way that minimises sensitivity. A useful mechanism in this regard is to
display one’s research endeavour in broad, general terms, even if the actual focus is a specific subset

41
within a larger category (Art, 2016, p.981). While it may not entirely be relevant for the context of the
KRI, scholars like Hopman (2021) go to the extent of arguing that even covert techniques may be
ethical in authoritarian contexts, since such research may reveal crucial information about the presence
of widespread oppression and human rights violations. However, Hopman (2021, pp.559-561) does
state that certain conditions should be met for covert mechanisms to be justified, such as the research
objective of human rights protection, preserving anonymity of participants, and lack of alternative
techniques. Concerning this PhD project, framing the topic of authoritarian resilience as a discussion
of elite politics, party dynamics, and the political system of the KRI would help reduce potential risks
and sensitivity. This approach allows me to focus on broader categories while engaging in discussion
about specific elements of authoritarian resilience of the duopoly party rule, thereby making it more
pleasant to gatekeepers and potential informants while warranting the gathering of valuable and
insightful social and political “facts”. Indeed, as Art (2016) and Ahram and Goode (2016) confirm,
there do not seem to be any unethical steps in this process, as framing the topic in this general sense is
not technically false.

To conclude this discussion on challenges and solutions of researching authoritarian regimes, it is

important to be aware that while methodological challenges are significant, they can be handled by
flexible, creative, and ethically valid research design and techniques. Particularly in a way that they
emphasise the security and cooperation of participants and informants. While still providing helpful
observations about the ways those regimes and political parties’ function. Certainly, the presence of
these methodological hurdles should not discourage scholars from examining restrictive contexts. As
the impediments to scientific enquiry, and particularly fieldwork research, indeed have long-term
implications, chief among them is the prevention of producing useful and timely policy-relevant data
and information (Ahram and Goode, 2016, p.839). This can be observed in the case of the Kurdistan
Region; as the literature review demonstrated that significant empirical and theoretical gaps are yet to
be addressed. It should also be noted that the research conditions may not be as dire in Kurdistan as
they are in most authoritarian contexts examined in these studies. Despite restrictions on civil liberty,
journalistic and media freedom, and political dissent, the KRI presents a relatively more accessible
environment for scholars. More importantly, leveraging the suggested strategies and ensuring a
flexible and adaptive research design can contribute important and meaningful insights concerning the
political dynamics of the KDP and PUK duopoly rule. What surely will minimise the research and
fieldwork challenges is the fact that I possess local knowledge of the research location, speak the
language of the population, maintain crucial connections and contacts, and understand the
sociopolitical nuances that are critical for conducting effective research in the region.

42
6. Table of Contents for Planned Dissertation

Chapter 1: Introduction (15-20 pages)

1.1. Research Background

1.2. Theoretical Significance
1.3. Research Objectives
1.4. Research Questions
1.5. Methodological Approach
1.6. Structure of the Dissertation

Chapter 2: Problem Statement and Context (20-25 pages)

2.1. Theoretical Relevance of Authoritarian Resilience

2.2. The KDP-PUK Duopoly: A Political Landscape of the KRI
2.3. Internal and External Pressures on the KDP-PUK Rule
2.4. Key Political, Economic, and Social Challenges
2.5. The Research Gap

Chapter 3: Literature Review (40-50 pages)

3.1. Strands of Autocratic Research

• The Evolution of Authoritarianism Studies

• The Institutional Turn in Authoritarian Research

3.2. Legitimation, Co-optation, and Repression

• Mechanisms of Authoritarian Resilience

• Authoritarian Upgrading and Regime Adaptation

3.3. The Literature on the KRI and the KDP-PUK Two-Party Rule

• Studies on Kurdish Politics and Party Domination

43
 • The KRI’s Status

• Limitations of Existing Research

3.4. Conceptualizing the KDP and PUK Duopoly Rule

• Dominant-Party Systems and Political Stability

• The Dual Governance Model: Yellow vs. Green Zones

3.5. Conclusion

Chapter 4: Theoretical Framework (40-45 pages)

4.1. Introduction

• The role of theory in political science research

• Justification for the selection of theoretical approaches

4.2. The Theory of Authoritarian Stabilization

• The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Co-optation

• The evolution of authoritarian resilience theories

• Case applications of the theory

4.3. Applying the Theory to the KDP-PUK Duopoly

• How authoritarian resilience manifests in the Kurdistan Region

• Theoretical assumptions about elite dominance in the KRI

• The role of external actors in reinforcing or challenging authoritarian stability

4.4. Complementary Theoretical Perspectives

4.5. Criticism and Limitations of the Framework

• The adaptability of authoritarian resilience theories to sub-state entities

44
 • Methodological and empirical challenges in applying these frameworks

4.6. Hypotheses and Expected Findings

• Formulation of testable propositions based on theoretical insights

• Expected outcomes and their implications for understanding the KRI’s political dynamics

Chapter 5: Methodology (35-40 pages)

5.1. Research Design and Case Study Approach

• Justification for using a case study methodology

• Advantages of in-depth qualitative analysis in authoritarianism studies

• Limitations of single-case studies and how they are addressed

5.2. Data Collection Strategies

• Archival Research

• Elite Interviews

• Discourse and Media Analysis

5.3. Triangulation and Data Validity

5.4. Challenges in Researching Authoritarianism in the KRI

5.5. Analytical Framework

• Process Tracing: Establishing causal relationships in political developments

• Content Analysis: Identifying patterns in official discourse and policy justifications

• Comparative Analysis: Contrasting the KDP-PUK duopoly with other hybrid regimes

45
5.6. Ethical Considerations

5.7. Validity and Reliability of Findings

Chapter 6: The Legitimation Strategies of the KDP-PUK Duopoly (35-40 pages)

6.1. The Role of Nationalist Narratives and Historical Legitimacy

6.2. Patronage Networks and the Distribution of Benefits
6.3. Electoral Strategies and the Manipulation of Democratic Institutions
6.4. The Impact of External Alliances on Domestic Legitimacy
6.5. Institutionalisation of Legitimation: Long-Term Trends

Chapter 7: Repression as a Mechanism of Authoritarian Stability (35-40 pages)

7.1. Forms of Repression in the KRI

7.2. Media Censorship and Information Control
7.3. Security Forces and Surveillance Mechanisms
7.4. Judicialization of Repression: Courts and Legal Mechanisms
7.5. Repression and Its Effects on Political Opposition

Chapter 8: Co-optation and the Structure of Elite Loyalty (30-35 pages)

8.1. The Role of Political Parties in Patronage Distribution

8.2. Business Elites and the Economic Power Networks
8.3. The Role of Religious and Tribal Leaders in Co-optation
8.4. The Impact of the 2017 Independence Referendum on Party Coalitions
8.5. Managing Elite Defections: Strategies of Inclusion and Exclusion

Chapter 9: Comparative Analysis of the KDP-PUK Governance Model (25-30 pages)

9.1. Contrasting Governance in the Yellow and Green Zones

46
 9.2. Variation in Patronage and Repression Strategies
9.3. The Role of Factionalism and Internal Party Conflicts
9.4. Comparative Lessons for Hybrid Regimes in Non-Nation States

Chapter 10: Discussion and Conclusion (15-20 pages)

10.1. Summary of Findings

10.2. Contributions to the Study of Authoritarian Resilience
10.3. Implications for the Future of the KRI’s Political System
10.4. Limitations and Directions for Future Research

References (15-20 pages)

Appendices (10-15 pages)

A. Interview Guide and Methodological Notes

B. Detailed Case Study on the 2017 Referendum
C. Supplementary Tables and Figures

7. Working Plan

This table displays the working plan for my PhD project. This is a preliminary plan and is subject to
revisions.

Year Quarter Action

2 Q1 Finalising the literature

review and the theoretical
framework sections
Q2 Finalise the methodology
section and data collection

47
 methods (e.g. identify
interviewees)
Q3 Begin the primary data
collection
Q4 Continuing data collection,
consider a preliminary data
analysis
3 Q1 Finish primary data
collection, transcription and
coding of qualitative data
Q2 Begin quantitative data
analysis, and potential index
constructions
Q3 Integrate findings from both
quantitative and qualitative
data
Q4 Construct the initial
chapters, such as
introduction, literature
review, and methodology
sections
4 Q1 Finalise the initial chapters
and begin drafting the
theoretical framework
Q2 Submit the initial chapters
for feedback
Q3 Revision of chapters based
on feedback
Q4 Begin writing the remaining
chapters (analysis,
discussion etc)
5 Q1 Complete first draft of
dissertation
Q2 Submit full draft for review
by supervisor
Q3 Revise based on feedback
Q4 Prepare for the final review
6 Q1 Finalise the thesis, begin for
defence
Q2 Dissertation defence
Q3 Make revisions after defence
Q4 Submission of thesis

48
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 Appendix

Factors that Impact Authoritarian Resilience in the Literature

*Dependent variable: Authoritarian Resilience/Survival/Upgrading/Durability

Independent Variable Research Study
Legitimation Gerschewski, 2013; Dukalsis and
Gerschewski, 2017; Edel and Josua, 2017;
Grauvogel and Von Soest, 2014; Hoffmann,
2015; Kailitz and Stockemer 2015; Kneuer
2017; March, 2003; Ngoun, 2020; Polese,
Beachain and Horak 2017; Pruzan-
Jorgensen 2010; von Soest and Grauvogel
2017; Sottimano, 2016; Bayulgen, Arbatli
and Canbolat 2018; Albrecht, 2005;
Bernhard et al., 2019; Hanson, 2017;
Croissant and Hellman, 2017; Bellin, 2012;
Cotiero and Haggard, 2023; Hellmeiers,
2020; Bilgiç, 2018
Repression Davenport, 2007; Bellin, 2012; Escribà-
Folch, 2013; Smithey and Kurtz, 2021;
Olar, 2019; Shen-bayh 2018
Co-optation Buehler, 2015; Geddes, 1999; Magaloni and
Wallace, 2008; Omelicheva, 2016;
Schmotz, 2015
Strong and mass-based political parties Handlin, 2016; Hanson, 2017; Meng, 2019;
Pepinsky, 2019
The role of constitutions Albertus and Menaldo, 2012; Desrues, 2018
Opposition’s support Albrecht, 2005
The centralisation of power Bayulgen, Arbatli and Canbolat, 2018
The role of minorities and the difference Belge and Karakoc, 2015
of levels of support between ethnic and
religious minorities
Presence of a participatory governance Benton, 2016
The impact of international sanctions Borszik, 2014; Hellmeier, 2020

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Neo-patrimonial attributes of ruling elite Buben and Kouba, 2020
Availability of ideational forms of power Büchs, 2009
Information manipulation Chen and Xu, 2015, 2017
The employment of the internet tools Gerschewski and Dukalsis, 2018; Han,
2018, 2022
The role of international and regional Cottiero and Haggard, 2023; Darwich,
organisations 2017; Debre, 2020
Elections and electoral processes Golosov, 2013, 2016; Croissant and
Hellman, 2018; Lust-Okar, 2006
The strategic utilisation of the civil society Dalmasso, 2012; Lorch and Bunk, 2016
Elite management and rotation Magaloni, 2008; De Smet, 2020;
Nadporozhskii, 2023; Wright and Escriba-
Folch, 2011; Zeng, 2019
The role of informal and shadow Moudud, 2013; Dukalskis, 2016; Pleines,
economies 2019; Weiss, 2016
Nationalism Dukalsis and Lee, 2020
State dependency Nahmadova, 2021
The role of religion and (particularly) Ghalioun and Costopoulos, 2004; Murphy,
Islam 2008
Traditional and online media Haugbølle and Cavatorta, 2012; Huang,
Boranbay-akan and Huang 2016; Sinpeng
2019
Revolutionary regime attributes Levitsky and Way, 2013
Presence of a hegemonic discourse Lewis, 2016
Authoritarian collaboration and linkages Odinius and Kuntz, 2015; Schmotz and
Tansey 2017; von Soest, 2015; Tansey,
Koehler and Schmotz 2017
Securitisation Yilmaz, Demir and Shipoli, 2022
Rentierism Yom, 2011; Peters and Moore, 2009

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