Julia Grauvogel

Claims to Legitimacy Matter: Why Sanctions Fail to Instigate Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes

International sanctions have been one of the most commonly used tools of Western foreign policy in the post-Cold War era to instigate democratization globally. However, despite long-term external pressure through sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and/or the United Nations, nondemocratic rule in cases such as Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea and Syria has proven to be extremely persistent. In this paper, we analyze a new global dataset on sanctions from 1990 to 2011 and assess which international and domestic factors account for the persistence of nondemocratic rule in targeted regimes. The results of a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) of 120 episodes of sanctions provide new insights for the research on both sanctions and authoritarian regimes. Most significantly, sanctions strengthen nondemocratic rule if the regime manages to incorporate their existence into its legitimation strategy. Such a “rally-round-the-flag” effect occurs most often in cases where comprehensive sanctions targeting the entire population are imposed on regimes that enjoy strong claims to legitimacy and have only limited linkages to the sanction sender.

Comparing Legitimation Strategies in Post-Soviet Countries

In contrast to hopes that the post-Soviet countries would liberalize politically as part of ‘democracy’s third wave’ (Huntington, 1991), various regimes in the region have regressed into authoritarianism, while others have remained in a hybrid state between democracy and authoritarian rule or have never undergone any form of democratization. Over the course of changes in rulers, socioeconomic crises and even so-called color revolutions, non-democratic arrangements of political rule have emerged and persisted — a phenomenon by no means limited to the post-Soviet space (Schedler, 2006; Levitsky and Way, 2010; Bunce and Wolchik, 2011). Recent research on authoritarian regimes seeking to account for these developments has provided new insights into the inner workings of non-democratic polities (for recent overviews, see Kollner and Kailitz, 2013; Pepinsky, 2014). However, despite widely held views that a regime s claim to legitimacy is an important factor in explaining its means of rule, and ultimately its persistence (Easton, 1965; Weber, 1980; Wintrobe, 1998), current studies have largely overlooked the effect of different legitimation strategies on authoritarian power relations (Burnell, 2006; Gerschewski, 2013; Kailitz, 2013).

Identity, procedures and performance: how authoritarian regimes legitimize their rule

ABSTRACT Constructing convincing legitimacy claims is important for securing the stability of authoritarian regimes. However, extant research has struggled to systematically analyse how authoritarians substantiate their right to rule. We analyse a novel data set on authoritarian regimes’ claims to legitimacy that is based on leading country experts’ assessments of 98 states for the period 1991–2010. This analysis provides key new insights into the inner workings and legitimation strategies of current non-democratic regimes. Closed authoritarian regimes predominately rely on identity-based legitimacy claims (foundational myth, ideology and personalism). In contrast, elections fundamentally change how authoritarian rulers relate to society. In their legitimacy claims, electoral authoritarian regimes focus on their ‘adequate’ procedures, thereby mimicking democracies. All regimes also stress their purported success in proving material welfare and security to their citizens.

Regional Sanctions Against Burundi: A Powerful Campaign and Its Unintended Consequences

This paper examines the impact of regionally imposed sanctions on the trajectory of the Burundian regime and its involvement in the peace process following the 1996 coup in the country. Despite the country’s socioeconomic and geopolitical vulnerability, the Buyoya government withstood the pressure from the sanctions. Through a vocal campaign against these sanctions, the new government mitigated the embargo’s economic consequences and partially reestablished its international reputation. Paradoxically, this campaign planted the seed for comprehensive political concessions in the long term. While previous literature has attributed the sanctions’ success in pressuring the government into negotiations to their economic impact, the government actually responded to the sanction senders’ key demand to engage in unconditional, inclusive peace talks under the auspices of the regional mediator once the economy had already started to recover. The regime’s anti-sanc¬tions campaign, with its emphasis on the government’s willingness to engage in peace talks, backfired, with Buyoya forced to negotiate after having become entrapped in his own rhetoric.