Institutionalising electoral uncertainty and authoritarian regime survival
Institutionalising electoral uncertainty and authoritarian regime survival
复制标题
将选举不确定性和独裁政权的生存制度化
DOI：
10.1111/1475-6765.12355
复制
发表时间：
2019
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Staffan I. Lindberg
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Bernhard;Amanda B. EDGELL;Staffan I. Lindberg
独裁者通常使用民主模仿作为延长其权力任期的策略。然而，也有证据表明，多党竞争使选举威权主义更容易失败。从专制的选举开幕式的结果本质上是不确定的假设出发，在这篇文章中认为，选举的制度化决定了选举威权主义是否促进稳定或脆弱性。所谓“制度化”，是指独裁政权在定期举行多党选举时减少结果不确定性的能力。使用离散时间事件历史模型的竞争风险，多党制选举序列的政权生存和失败的模式在262个专制政权从1946年到2010年的影响进行了评估，条件是他们的竞争程度。研究结果表明，制度化的选举不确定性提高独裁政权的生存。然而，对于竞争性选举专制政权来说，这带来了巨大的风险。前三次选举大大增加了民主化的可能性，随后危险逐渐减少。这表明，召集多党竞争是一个风险很大的游戏，对于那些设法使选举制度化的独裁者来说，可能会有很高的回报。然而，只有少数独裁政权在最初的几次选举之后仍然具有竞争力，这表明真正具有竞争力的独裁主义很难制度化。因此，这项研究发现，选举是否是危险的或稳定的威权主义的问题是取决于竞争和霸权形式的选举威权主义，以减少选举的不确定性的能力之间的差异。
Abstract Authoritarian incumbents routinely use democratic emulation as a strategy to extend their tenure in power. Yet, there is also evidence that multiparty competition makes electoral authoritarianism more vulnerable to failure. Proceeding from the assumption that the outcomes of authoritarian electoral openings are inherently uncertain, it is argued in this article that the institutionalisation of elections determines whether electoral authoritarianism promotes stability or vulnerability. By ‘institutionalisation’, it is meant the ability of authoritarian regimes to reduce uncertainty over outcomes as they regularly hold multiparty elections. Using discrete‐time event‐history models for competing risks, the effects of sequences of multiparty elections on patterns of regime survival and failure in 262 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010 are assessed, conditioned on their degree of competitiveness. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of electoral uncertainty enhances authoritarian regime survival. However, for competitive electoral authoritarian regimes this entails substantial risk. The first three elections substantially increase the probability of democratisation, with the danger subsequently diminishing. This suggests that convoking multiparty competition is a risky game with potentially high rewards for autocrats who manage to institutionalise elections. Yet, only a small number of authoritarian regimes survive as competitive beyond the first few elections, suggesting that truly competitive authoritarianism is hard to institutionalise. The study thus finds that the question of whether elections are dangerous or stabilising for authoritarianism is dependent on differences between the ability of competitive and hegemonic forms of electoral authoritarianism to reduce electoral uncertainty.