Gravity Centers of Authoritarian Rule: a Comparative Perspective

世界各地区独裁政体的韧性，以及中国或俄罗斯等非自由主义资本主义独裁政体的新兴模式，促使学术界越来越关注这些政权的持久性。然而，主流文学关注的是国内层面，而忽视了国际领域，尽管独裁似乎不仅抵制民主在全球的传播，而且还展示了它们自己的独裁宣传活动，特别是在它们的区域范围内。与此同时，外交政策作为威权权力巩固的另一种工具已经获得了相关性，但需要更彻底的学术思考，以捕捉独裁制度元素、政策、规则、价值观和态度的传播。该项目认为，独裁的促进(有意的、行动者驱动的)以及传播(无意的、中立的传播)可以归因于威权的重心，我们将其定义为对邻近国家构成吸引力和传染性的政权。问题是：什么要素被强加、扩散和转移，以什么方式，以什么强度和有效性？威权重心与周边国家之间产生了什么样的机制？该项目遵循三个目标：(1)解决缺乏关于专制统治的国际层面的概念基础的问题，并通过专制重心的概念更好地了解专制因素的传播。(2)根据已开发的分析启发式模型，确定专制促进和扩散的来源、要素和目标，并追踪它们各自的路径。(3)将该模型应用于实证分析。研究设计基于最不同的案例设计，包括代表不同地区、不同专制亚型的三个确定的重心，这三个重心以专制传播的区域框架为因变量：沙特阿拉伯、委内瑞拉和哈萨克斯坦。跨地区比较涉及对邻国的影响和扩散路径。分析的重点是2001年至2014年这段时间，将以定性的方式进行。该项目对专制的国际层面这一仍然研究不足的领域提供了概念和经验上的贡献，特别是关于专制传播的具体机制的原因、方式和内容的调查结果。与大多数双边视角相比，区域背景下重心的空间类别意味着对解释专制化动态的附加值。我们的研究有望在威权重心附近产生关于收敛的证据，从而链接到未来关于收敛的研究。

The resilience of autocracies in various world regions and the emerging model of illiberal capitalist autocracies such as China or Russia has led to a growing scholarly attention on the durability of those regimes. Mainstream literature, however, focuses on the domestic dimension and neglects the international sphere, although autocracies not only seem to resist to the global spread of democracy but also display their own activities of autocracy promotion particularly within their regional realm. Meanwhile, foreign policy has gained relevance as an additional instrument of authoritarian power consolidation but needs a more thorough scholarly consideration in order to capture the dissemination of autocratic institutional elements, policies, rules, values and attitudes.This project argues that the promotion of autocracy (intentional, actor-driven) as well as the diffusion (unintentional, neutral transmission) can be attributed to authoritarian centers of gravity which we define as regimes that constitute a force of attraction and contagion for countries in the near abroad. The question is: What elements are imposed, diffused and transferred, in which way, in which intensity and effectiveness? What mechanisms between the authoritarian gravity centers and the neighboring countries are induced? The project follows three objectives: (1) Addressing the lack of a conceptual basis concerning the international dimension of authoritarian rule and offering a better understanding of the dissemination of autocratic elements through the concept of authoritarian centers of gravity. (2) Identifying the sources, elements, and addressees of autocracy promotion and diffusion and tracing their respective pathways on the basis of a developed analytical, heuristic model. (3) Applying this model in an empirical analysis.The research design is based on a Most Different Cases Design encompassing three identified centers of gravity which represent different regions, different autocratic subtypes and which have in common as the dependent variable the regional framing of autocratic dissemination: Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Kazakhstan. The cross-area comparison addresses the pathways of influence and diffusion towards the neighboring countries. The analysis focuses on the period of time from 2001 until 2014 and will be conducted in a qualitative way.The project provides a conceptual and empirical contribution to the still under-researched field of the international dimension of autocracies and, particularly, findings about the Why, How and What of concrete mechanisms of autocratic dissemination. The spatial category of gravity centers in a regional context implies an added value for explaining the dynamics of autocratization compared to mostly bilateral perspectives. Our study is expected to generate evidence on convergence in the neighborhood of authoritarian gravity centers and thus links to future studies on convergence.