Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Inside Autocracy

尽管独裁政体占世界政体的40%，但社会科学家缺乏对这些政体内部政治竞争的复杂描述。这个项目是关于刚果共和国的“独裁内部”，来回答三个问题。在什么情况下，军方和部委的高级精英会试图发动政变，或者从独裁者那里争取更大的战利品？这些斗争采取了哪些形式？在民众福利下降的情况下，独裁者如何调整生存策略，以维持稳定的联合政府？由于这些问题需要非同寻常地接触政治精英，该项目聚焦于当代的一个独裁国家：刚果，自1979年以来，除了五年外，刚果一直由丹尼斯·萨苏-恩格索统治。尽管表面上看起来稳定，但军方和部长级精英之间的政治竞争是激烈和多样的。自从萨苏-恩格索在1997年内战后重新掌权以来，精英们一直在寻求展示他们与政府的政治相关性。心怀不满的军方领导人偶尔会在农村引发暴力冲突；沮丧的文职领导人则会动员持不同政见者。在萨苏-恩格索1979年至1992年的第一次执政期间，精英竞争甚至更加激烈，当时他经常成为政变企图的目标。在这场竞争中生存似乎需要政治天才。为了防止精英阴谋，萨苏-恩格索采用了一系列生存策略，旨在招募精英加入联盟，促使他们服从他的命令，然后监控他们的活动。他在婚姻网络中牵制着一些精英，强迫其他人加入秘密社团，让一些人服从一个平行政府，并希望每个人都生活在地理上很接近的地方。历史学家发现，这些生存策略在独裁国家很常见。然而，当代政治学几乎没有解释这些动态。政治学家通常认为，独裁者创建立法机构或政党，以实现与精英阶层的承诺，从而缓和政变的动机。事实上，独裁者通常在获得权力后继承政治制度。为了理解精英的挑战和独裁的持久性，这个项目建立了萨苏-恩格索继承正式和非正式政治制度的模式：政党和选举制度，以及一系列军事和金融精英。这些机构决定了独裁者可以采取的生存战略。然后，该项目的模型解释了萨苏-恩格索如何在精英阶层之间改变生存策略，以维持稳定的联盟。本研究用定量和定性相结合的方法证实了这一理论。经验性的核心是1970年以来1300名刚果精英的数据集。该项目也做出了更广泛的贡献。通过探索独裁者长寿的根源，该项目加强了对民主化前景的了解。调查结果将引起记者、外国援助界和非政府组织的兴趣。

Although autocracies constitute forty percent of the world's regimes, social scientists lack a sophisticated account of political competition within those regimes. This project goes "inside autocracy" in the Republic of Congo to answer three questions. Under what conditions do senior military and ministry elites attempt coups d'état or struggle for greater spoils from the autocrat? What forms do these struggles take? And how do autocrats adjust survival strategies in order to maintain a stable coalition despite declining population welfare? Since these questions require unusual access to political elites, the project focuses on one contemporary autocracy: Congo, ruled by Denis Sassou-Nguesso for all but five years since 1979. Despite the appearance of stability, political competition among the military and ministerial elite is intense and varied. Since Sassou-Nguesso's return to power after the 1997 civil war, elites have sought to demonstrate their political relevance to the government. Disgruntled military leaders occasionally foster violent conflict in the countryside; frustrated civilian leaders mobilize dissidents. Elite competition was even more violent during Sassou-Nguesso's first reign, between 1979 and 1992, when he was the frequent target of coup d?état attempts. Survival in the midst of this competition seems to require political genius. To prevent elite conspiracies, Sassou-Nguesso employs a range of survival strategies designed to recruit elites into the coalition, induce their compliance with his orders, and then monitor their activities. He encumbers some elites in marriage networks, forces others to join secret societies, subjects some to a parallel government, and prefers everyone to live in close geographic proximity. These survival strategies, historians find, are common in autocracies. Yet contemporary political science does little to illuminate these dynamics. Political scientists generally believe autocrats create legislatures or political parties to enable commitments with their elite, moderating incentives for coups d?état. In fact, autocrats typically inherit political institutions upon claiming power. To understand elite challenge and autocratic durability, this project builds models in which Sassou-Nguesso inherits formal and informal political institutions: the party and electoral system, and a set of military and financial elites. These institutions determine the survival strategies available to the autocrat. The project's models then explain how Sassou-Nguesso varies survival strategies across elites to maintain a stable coalition. The research substantiates this theoretical account with quantitative and qualitative methods. The empirical centerpiece is a dataset on 1,300 Congolese elites since 1970. The project makes broader contributions as well. By probing the sources of autocrats' longevity in power, the project enhances understanding of the prospects for democratization. Findings will be of interest to journalists, the foreign aid community, and non-governmental organizations.