Jason Brownlee

...And Yet They Persist: Explaining Survival and Transition in Neopatrimonial Regimes*

Although the literature on transitions from neopatrimonial regimes provides many accounts of chaotic breakdown, it seldom explains why some personalistic regimes survive the kinds of intense domestic crises that topple similar systems. This article introduces cases of regime restabilization to a previous analysis of change, showing that while patrimonial authority often isolates leaders and provokes unrest, extensive patrimonial ties can help the regime endure these same challenges and defeat its domestic foes. Specifically, when their repressive capacity is not inhibited by foreign powers during crises, neopatrimonial leaders can withstand insurgencies and prevent regime change. Building upon Richard Snyders study of neopatrimonial transitions, I explore this argument through a variable of “hard-liner” strength derived from the regimes domestic patrimonial networks and its relationship to a foreign patron. Adding four original case studies of enduring neopatrimonialism (Syria, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia) to Snyder’s prior work, I find the revised voluntarist framework explains both transition and restabilization in a composite set of fifteen cases.

Hereditary Succession in Modern Autocracies

Hereditary succession, the conventional method for preserving monarchies, has also been used to perpetuate republic-style dictatorships. With an original data set of 258 post–World War II nonmonarchical autocrats, the author tests Gordon Tullocks hypothesis that hereditary succession appeals to the ruler and to nonfamilial elites wary of a leadership struggle. The full data and close comparisons of succession outcomes are consistent with Tullocks account. In the absence of prior experience selecting a ruler through a party, regime elites accepted filial heirs apparent; when the incumbent had arisen from a party, his successor predominantly emerged from that organization. Among twenty-two cases of potential hereditary succession, variations in institutional history account for 77 percent of succession outcomes. Where the ruler preceded the party, five rulers in seven cases groomed sons and all five sons took office. In contrast, where the party predated the ruler, incumbents successfully installed sons in only three of fifteen cases.

Why the Modest Harvest

Abstract:The Arab Spring startled all Arab autocrats but toppled few of them. We find there were no structural preconditions for popular uprisings, but two variables conditioned whether domestic opposition would succeed. First, oil wealth gave rulers the resources to preempt or repress dissent. Second, a precedent of hereditary succession signaled the loyalty of the coercive apparatus to the ruler. Consequently, mass revolts deposed incumbents in only the three non-oil rich, non-hereditary regimes of Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen. Where oil rents or hereditary rule prevailed, regimes violently suppressed peaceful protests (Bahrain, Syria) and only lost power through foreign-imposed regime change (Libya).

Executive Elections in the Arab World: When and How Do They Matter?:

Although elections loom large in the study of nondemocracies, scholars continue debating what function those elections play. This article sets evidence from the Arab world in a global context to evaluate three theorized roles for elections: safety valve, patronage network, and performance ritual. Executive elections in the Middle East and North Africa remain less common and less competitive than polls in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. This profile is largely consistent with the observable implications of leading theories. The data, though, also show theoretically rich differences. Although levels of competition and participation in Yemen, Tunisia, and Algeria fit expectations about elections being safety valves or political spectacles, Egypt’s presidential election stands apart, with exceptionally meager public involvement. In such circumstances, where competition and turnout are both unusually low, other social and political phenomena may matter more than elections for regime survival, resource distribution, and the manifestation of state power.

Can America Nation-Build?

Post-9/11 security concerns and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq have renewed scholarly interest in nation-building as a form of externally fostered democratization. The selected works assess Iraq and its precursors, seeking general lessons for establishing new democracies. They principally conclude that successful nation-building depends on sustained commitments of time, matériel, and manpower. Although this thesis improves upon earlier studies of democracy promotion, which often treated intentions as determinative, it does not fully reckon with the effect of antecedent conditions on external intervention. As this review addresses, American efforts at nation-building have historically been enabled or constrained by local political institutions. Rather than autonomously reengineering the target society, nation-builders have buttressed bureaucracies and parliaments where they were already available (Germany, Japan) and foundered in countries that lacked such institutions (Somalia, Haiti). In sum, nation-building has been most effective when pursued least ambitiously, amid functioning states with prior experience in constitutional government.

The limited reach of authoritarian powers

ABSTRACT Authoritarian states often command tremendous resources, but their ability to fundamentally change regimes abroad remains in question. Proponents of an “authoritarian resurgence” have speculated that China and Russia are rolling back democracy around the world, much like fascist powers in the interwar period. By contrast, the introductory article of this special issue theorizes that current authoritarian powers are not catalyzing autocracy far afield. Rather, they are prudentially defending the surrounding political order. The present article applies this framework to make sense of cross-national trends in democracy and authoritarianism. The bulk of evidence supports the notion that authoritarian powers have regionally shored up existing regimes, rather than globally subverting democracy. Evidence from around the world indicates the number of electoral democracies has been growing, democracy has remained tenuous in lower-income countries, and democratic breakdowns have owed more to unfavourable local conditions than predacious external actors.

Authoritarianism in an Age of Democratization by Jason Brownlee

Far from sweeping the globe uniformly, the “third wave of democratization” left burgeoning republics and resilient dictatorships in its wake. Applying more than a year of original fieldwork in Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Jason Brownlee shows that the mixed record of recent democratization is best deciphered through a historical and institutional approach to authoritarian rule. Exposing the internal organizations that structure elite conflict, Brownlee demonstrates why the critical soft-liners needed for democratic transitions have been dormant in Egypt and Malaysia but outspoken in Iran and the Philippines. When regimes maintain coalitions through ruling parties, democratization becomes an uphill battle against fortified incumbents. Systematic cross-regional comparison shows how the Egyptian and Malaysian regimes have become nearly impregnable through party-based coalitions. Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic has seen open elite factionalism and the rise of a viable, although unsuccessful, reform movement. More hopefully, the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines demonstrates why an institutionally weak regime is vulnerable to opponents pushing for change forcefully rather than hesitantly, as Iran’s reform movement did. Party institutions long predate the third wave and promise to far outlast its passing. By establishing how ruling parties originated and why they impede change, Brownlee illuminates the problem of contemporary authoritarianism and informs the promotion of durable democracy.