Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Inside Autocracy

虽然专制政体占世界政体的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。这个项目在刚果共和国的“独裁统治内部”回答三个问题。在什么情况下，高级军事和部委精英会试图政变或从独裁者那里争夺更大的战利品？这些斗争采取什么形式？独裁者如何调整生存策略，以维持一个稳定的联盟，尽管人口福利下降？由于这些问题需要与政治精英进行不寻常的接触，该项目将重点放在一个当代独裁国家：刚果，自1979年以来，由丹尼斯·萨苏-恩格索（Denis Sassou-Nguesso）统治了五年。尽管表面上稳定，但军事和部长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，精英们一直试图向政府展示他们的政治相关性。不满的军事领导人偶尔会在农村引发暴力冲突;沮丧的平民领导人会动员持不同政见者。在1979年至1992年萨苏-恩格索的第一次统治期间，精英竞争更加激烈，当时他经常成为政变的目标。国家企图。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，诱使他们服从他的命令，然后监视他们的活动。他在婚姻网络中拉拢一些精英，强迫其他人加入秘密社团，让一些人服从一个平行的政府，并希望每个人都生活在地理上接近的地方。历史学家发现，这些生存策略在专制国家中很常见。然而，当代政治科学几乎没有阐明这些动态。政治学家普遍认为，独裁者创建立法机构或政党，使承诺与他们的精英，缓和激励政变？国家。事实上，独裁者通常在夺取权力时继承政治制度。为了理解精英的挑战和专制的持久性，该项目建立了模型，其中萨苏-恩格索继承正式和非正式的政治制度：政党和选举制度，以及一套军事和金融精英。这些制度决定了独裁者的生存策略。该项目的模型随后解释了萨苏-恩格索如何在精英阶层中改变生存策略，以维持稳定的联盟。本研究采用定量和定性相结合的方法，对这一理论进行了实证研究。实证的核心是1970年以来1,300名刚果精英的数据集。该项目也做出了更广泛的贡献。通过探索独裁者长期掌权的根源，该项目增强了对民主化前景的理解。记者、外国援助界和非政府组织将对调查结果感兴趣。

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.