Autocracies

Under the tenure of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the political system in Hungary has moved significantly in an autocratic direction, yet there is a lack of research explaining the historical context, political landscape and drive behind this shift.
This book offers a deep historical and theoretical investigation into how this authoritarian, populist regime has evolved. Backlash from globalization in the 21st century, dissatisfaction with the European Union and international fiscal institutions have created a situation in which Orban’s regime is able to thrive. New kinds of autocracy cannot be properly understood without a thorough analysis of Eastern Europe’s development in the 20th century and the neoliberal agenda before and after the regime changes. There is a major oversight in the contemporary literature regarding the historical and theoretical origins of right-wing authoritarian populism in Hungary. 
This book explores the main factors behind the Orbán regime including the country’s authoritarian populist past, the charismatic charm of populist leaders, and cooperation between neoliberal and state autocracy. By providing a thoroughly researched historical narrative and offering an alternative critique of right-wing populism, this text will prove invaluable for researchers seeking to understand Eastern European history and politics, as well as populism, authoritarianism and neoliberalism more broadly.

ISBN: 9781838677541

Chapter 1. Theory of Authoritarian Populism and Neoliberalism
Chapter 2. The Origins of Authoritarian Populism in Hungary 
Chapter 3. The Orbán’s Regime: Neoliberal and Authoritarian Populist Backlash
Chapter 4. Conclusion: A War Between Law and Politics

Attila Antal is Senior Lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary He is a coordinator at the Social Theory Research Group at the Institute of Political History. His research focuses on the political theory of populism, social and critical theory, theory of democracy, green political thought, ecological Marxism, constitutionalism and political history.

https://books.emeraldinsight.com/page/detail/The-Rise-of-Hungarian-Populism/?K=9781838677541

This article takes a closer look at the internal evolution of the North Korean political system and how it has been subjugated to the personalist regime of the Kim family. The author argues that North Korea should no longer be perceived as a totalitarian regime since it is now a fully entrenched personal regime in the first place. The author investigates how this process of personalization took place in the institutional, ideological and mobilizational dimensions of the DPRK as well as the influence on its international relations (gatekeeping). Based on these insights the author provides some scenarios for endogenous transitions from this regime type and how hereditary succession and personalism affect its survival strategies..

Weltweit ist eine Rückkehr des Autoritarismus zu beobachten. Vormals demokratische Regierungen wandeln sich unter der Führung einer einzigen Partei oder eines selbststilisierten starken Mannes, z.B. Putin in Russland, Erdoğan in der Türkei, Duterte auf den Philippinen, usw. zu sogenannten Autokratien. Selbst in freiheitlichen Staaten wie den USA oder Polen steht die Demokratie vor der „Doppelbedrohung“ durch populistische und nationalistische Kräfte.
Im vorliegenden Heft beschäftigen sich die Schüler_innen mit dem Unterschied von autoritär und demokratisch verfassten Staaten, sie betrachten ausgewählte Fälle und beantworten schließlich die Frage, ob auch in unserer Demokratie die Gefahr autokratischer Tendenzen besteht.

Non-democratic regimes have increasingly moved beyond merely suppressing online discourse, and are shifting toward proactively subverting and co-opting social media for their own purposes. Namely, social media is increasingly being used to undermine the opposition, to shape the contours of public discussion, and to cheaply gather information about falsified public preferences. Social media is thus becoming not merely an obstacle to autocratic rule but another potential tool of regime durability. I lay out four mechanisms that link social media co-optation to autocratic resilience: 1) counter-mobilization, 2) discourse framing, 3) preference divulgence, and 4) elite coordination. I then detail the recent use of these tactics in mixed and autocratic regimes, with a particular focus on Russia, China, and the Middle East. This rapid evolution of government social media strategies has critical consequences for the future of electoral democracy and state-society relations.

Please give your comments in the discussion: https://www.academia.edu/s/e3625eefcf?source=link -- Although Prime Minister Viktor Orban and members of the government have suddenly begun to express their Western commitment to NATO since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, over the past twelve years there have been a number of government decisions that have helped Vladimir Putin's Russia. The Russian imperialism is the essential phenomenon of the Russian regime, it exist without aggressive expansion.It is time to stop Russia – and it is time to stop its friends and supporters, too. No trust for the agents or friends of that terrible bear, any more.

Seorang pimpinan sangat berperan dalam perusahaan dengan berperilaku adil kepada karyawan. Dengan kata lain peningkatan semangat kerja karyawan terletak pada gaya kepemimpinan dalam mengatur perusahaan. Perusahaan harus dapat menerapkan gaya kepemimpinan yang aktif. Gaya kepemimpinan yang aktif akan membawa perusahaan kepada keberhasilan. Gaya kepemimpinan yang aktif meliputi gaya kepemimpinan autocratic, partisipative dan free rein leader. Gaya Kepemimpinan autocratic dimana pemimpin menganggap bahwa semua kewajiban untuk mengambil keputusan, untuk menjalankan tindakan dan untuk mengarahkan, memberi motivasi dan mengawasi bawahannya terpusat di tangannya. Seorang pemimpin yang  otokrat mengawasi pelaksanaan pekerjaan dengan maksud untuk meminimumkan penyimpangan dari arah yang ia berikan. Gaya kepemimpinan The Participative leader pimpinan menjalankan kepemimpinannya dengan konsultasi. Pemimpin dengan gaya participative akan mendorong kemampuan mengambil keputusan dari para bawahannya sehingga pikiran-pikiran mereka akan selalu meningkat dan makin matang. Gaya Kepemimpinan The Free rein leader, pemimpin mendelegasikan wewenang untuk mengambil keputusan kepada para bawahan yang agak lengkap. Dengan demikian para membuat bawahan merasa harus dapat memiliki kemampuan atau keahlian yang tinggi.

This paper takes a closer look at those authoritarian political regimes with a leader holding absolute power referred to as either ‘personalist’ or ‘neo-patrimonial regimes.’ In the literature, these regimes have been set apart since they exhibit a different behavior than their counterparts that are not under personal rule. This paper proposes another approach and aims to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of such regimes not being treated as a separate type, but analyzed with regard to their personalist element as a characteristic that can be present in various autocratic types. Firstly, this paper gives an overview of the characteristics of personalism and the dynamics by which autocrats acquire such amounts of personal power. Secondly, to provide data for the question at hand, the author links medium-N quantitative datasets of regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa (1972-2010). By linking insights from Hadenius & Teorell, Bueno de Mesquita, Geddes and many other prominent scholars who have contributed to political regime theory, the author investigates the various sources of personalist regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to answer the research question.

The research field of regime theory has seen a proliferation of different approaches and typologies to explain the ever-changing reality. This paper has created a typology of these regime typologies and their respective datasets in order to describe and analyze their various merits for research. Finally this paper maps various typologies according to their most common research areas. The aim is to maximize the application potential each of specific typology, highlight their limits and aid scholars in their selection of typologies for qualitative or quantitative research in order to get a better understanding of democratization processes or regime theories.

An examination of the local government reforms instituted by the Musharraf government in 2000 in Pakistan. It demonstrates how the devolution reforms decreased the political and administrative influence of the bureaucracy by removing their executive administration powers and caused further politicization and decay of the civil service. Non-traditional authorities and local elites were able to capture many of the new elected positions resulting in little improvement in the people’s participation. Patron-client relations between the local elite and civil servants were reversed, further weakening the bureaucracy. The rise in power of the military and its infiltration into all institutions of the state allowed it to systemically weaken the bureaucracy’s elite cadre (the DMG) and marginalize a potential institutional competitor. Local elites became subservient to the military as well, which further decreased the need for a partnership with the bureaucracy. This served to remove a potentially powerful competitor for the military regime and fit the larger trend of the increasing encroachment of the military into the state. The nature of the reforms, though meant to increase democratization and participation, further served to entrench the power of military as the strongest institution in the country.

In the works of Kant and Rawls, we find an acute sensibility for the pre-eminent importance of freedom of speech, indeed both authors can be placed among its great philosophical champions. Both are aware that claims to free speech draw on a variety of normative sources, and that they can serve individual as well as political goals. For both authors, free speech is a characteristic and necessary liberal as well as democratic institution, but their conceptions markedly differ when applied to non-liberal and non-democratic societies.
This elementary difference between Kant and Rawls comes to the fore in Rawls’ treatment of non-liberal, hierarchical societies. The difference is that freedom of speech, for Kant, is a universal claim that can serve as a test of legitimacy (Rechtmäßigkeit) of all legal orders, while for Rawls, some legal orders are owed full recognition even if they do not in principle guarantee freedom of speech. I want to discuss this difference in four steps. In the first two steps, I sketch some main features of free personal and political speech in Kant (II) and Rawls (III). I argue that a much-overlooked shift in Rawls’ development ties his account of free speech to issues concerning justice. In the next step, I discuss Rawls’ perspective on some non-democratic regimes in his Law of Peoples, regimes that he understands as well-ordered but which do not guarantee freedom of speech. I criticize Rawls’ account from Kant’s perspective (IV). In a fourth step, I introduce a ‘module’ from Kant’s pre-republican thought into Rawls’ conception, aiming to secure a core area of justice-related speech, and respond to some initial objections (V).  I suggest that under Kant’s premises for autocratic legitimacy, an important extension of speech rights is called for even for non-liberal, non-democratic states, and that a Rawlsian account should and can adopt it.

Die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der prägendenden Theorie der Varieties of Capitalism und beleuchtet die Möglichkeiten der Erweiterung um autokratische Systeme anhand der Beispiele Katar und Saudi Arabien unter Rückgriff auf den inkorporierten Kapitalismus wie ihn Frankenberger/Buhr konzipiert haben.

Many Europeans went to Afghanistan in the 19th-century and entered the service of ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan (r. 1880-1901). Almost all of the Amir's employees abstained from publishing anything while inside the country; but upon leaving or escaping Afghanistan wrote voluminously about their experiences, which were critical of the Amir. Taking Lillias Hamilton, who served as court physician to ʿAbd al-Rahman from 1894 to 1897 as a case study, this paper argues that Hamilton practiced self-censorship, not only in Afghanistan, but after fleeing the country. Although Hamilton published a book and a large number of articles, and presented numerous talks after leaving Afghanistan, her publications and lectures intentionally eschewed any analyses of the Amir and focused instead on trivial matters. Only after the Amir's death in October 1901 did Hamilton do away with the mantle of self-censorship, and begin to express her polemical views of the Amir. These revelations, which include the Amir's despotic rule and unorthodox religious beliefs and practices, were not divulged while the potentate was alive lest it might bring about harm to her European counterparts who were still living in Kabul.

Abstract: Originally the linkage & leverage theory was conceptualized by S. Levitsky & L. Way to measure and analyze democracy promotion by the West. J. Tolstrup updated their model, making it neutral by adapting the Western-centered mid-level theory to cover authoritarian promotion as well. This paper is a continuation of this model and an attempt to make it more concrete and useful. The author provides an instrumentarium of how (great) powers have used various forms of linkage in support of other (authoritarian) regimes in order to integrate or consolidate that state’s position within the former’s zone of influence. Further this set of tools shows how the same forms of linkage can be used to destabilize or coerce non-compliant regimes or even bring about regime change. In response, as Tolstrup observed, target regimes are no toys in the hands of great powers, they have agency as well and can use gatekeeping techniques in order to erode various forms of linkage. Some of these gatekeeping methods are also described. The instrumentarium is not exhaustive nor normative, but hopefully provides a new stepping-stone in the mid-level study of autocracy and democracy promotion within international relations.
Keywords: Authoritarian promotion, Democratization, Linkage, Leverage, Gatekeeping, Black Knight, regime overthrow, Coup d’état, Coup proofing techniques, Dependency.

This article traces the process of Xi Jinping’s campaign in 2012-2017 and explains how an anticorruption effort has been transformed into an exercise of power-consolidation for his office. The findings of this article are three-fold. First, the power-consolidation process has benefited from a combination of an ideological campaign and a disciplinary campaign, which were not only synchronized but also feed into one another to achieve a shared goal. Second, the campaign became politicized around midterm and intensified afterwards. The pace of progress of the campaign coincided with Xi Jinping’s advancement of power. Third, the most significant outcome of Xi Jinping’s campaign is not the numbers of disciplined corrupt officials but the paradigm-change in the disciplinary regime of the Party: first, the reversal of the depoliticization process of the Party’s disciplinary regime; second, the retention of temporarily mobilized anticorruption resources; and third the simplification of evidence production procedure. The combined result is a considerable expansion of the CCDI’s anticorruption investigative capacities and a significant increase of Xi Jinping’s leverage to impose political loyalty and compliance upon Party officials in the future.

Free access to Full-text of this article at this link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10670564.2018.1497911?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Object. This article examines the ways social science research approaches the study of authoritarian regimes and identifies ways to engage with regimes that are both deliberately opaque and oppressive. Method. The article examines existing methodological prescriptions and practices as they pertain to the study of authoritarian regimes. These cover issues of data collection, research safety, subjective safety, and the positioning of knowledge about authoritarianism within the wider scope of social sciences. Results. The article identifies three distinct but interrelated challenges in the study of authoritarian regimes: (1) access and timing, (2) data validity and integrity, and (3) ethical issues. Conclusion. Methods commonly deployed in the study of democratic and open regimes cannot be readily deployed to the study of authoritarian ones. Greater reflexivity is needed to understand the methodological challenges inherent to the study of authoritarianism.

This article examines the phenomenon of Iraqi Kurdish out-migration to the West between 1991 and 2003. It argues that migrants looked to the West and Westerners as potential patrons and were incited to migrate by their conceptualizations of patronage and clientage roles. Iraqi Kurdish migrants to the West constituted one of the largest flows of asylum-seeking clandestine migrants in the world by the late 1990s. European governments first accepted their asylum claims as “legitimate,” but later accused the migrants of being a “problem” and ceased granting asylum to most applicants. This article demonstrates how participants in the Iraqi Kurdish body politic posture themselves as clients and formulate the ideal roles of patrons in the migration process based on prior experience as clients of the state, tribal leaders, and other figures. Patronage and clientage roles provide both an interpretive frame and a motivator for the act of migrating.

Post-communist Ukraine is in the midst of implementing reforms which it missed for centuries. It gradually evolves into a unique geopolitical entity which, finally, acquires a fair chance to be consistent and self-sufficient. However, if the West takes a neutral stance today – as it frequently happened in history – a “decentralized” Ukraine will fall again under the centralized Russian assault.

Discussions of China's rising domestic security expenditure often present this spending as evidence of the Chinese Communist Party's strong coercive capacity. This article argues that a lack of theoretical clarity about domestic security has resulted in flawed conclusions about these expenditures and their implications for China's coercive capacity. Challenging the conventional wisdom , the article analyses China's domestic security spending from 1992 through 2012 and argues that it is important to consider not only the total amount that China spends but also how it spends these resources and the magnitude of the threats that this expenditure must address. It finds that China's domestic security spending is not historically unprecedented, is not expanding as a proportion of national expenditure, and is not necessarily high (or producing high coercive capacity) when compared to other countries. The article also shows that certain locations struggle more to fund their coercive capacity than others, and that these locations overlap with areas where internal security threats may be particularly acute. The challenges that the coercive apparatus must address have also grown over the same period during which domestic security spending has risen. Finally, attempts to improve the political position of China's coercive agents cannot be equated with improvements in their capacity to manage Chinese society. Cumulatively, this reassessment provides more evidence of the limitations on China's coercive capacity than of its strength.

Mauritius and Swaziland are similar in many regards. Both countries gained independence in the same year from the same colonial power, both started out with a Westminster parliamentary model and both countries were dependent on primary exports to fuel economic growth but whilst Mauritius continued on a path to democratic consolidation, Swaziland reverted to monarchic system. While Mauritius diversified from primary commodities and experimented with an export-led growth strategy, Swaziland stagnated. Mauritius is now recognized as one of the beacons of African democracy whereas Swaziland is seen as a despotic state. What lessons can Swaziland glean from the Mauritian experience should it decide to turn towards a path of democracy? This is the question that this paper concerns itself with. In addressing this question, the paper also grapples with the inherently controversial and subjective debate about the various definitions and categorizations of democracy and autocracy that has raged on in the empirical and theoretical literature.

Post-Soviet parties of power are dominant parties created in the years after the collapse of the USSR. It is not a type of political party, but a term that means that executives form them, producing a legal and illegal advantage over other parties in elections and in the daily allocation of resources. This paper attempts to determine if the Kazakh party of power Nur Otan is also a hegemonic party along the line with Sartori's definition. I argue that party of power could be any dominant party, including a hegemonic party, and hence we need further analysis to identify its appropriate typological definition. The answer to this question is not only important for the purpose of typological labelling, rather its importance lies in aiding our ability to gain insight into the existing Kazakh authoritarian regime's institutional framework of sustainability. After the analysis, the paper comes to the conclusion that Nur Otan is a hegemonic party, but it is a new subtype of the hegemonic party that achieves hegemony within the party system, but not within the whole political system as a classic hegemonic party of the 20th century. Therefore, it contributes to the current stability of the autocratic regime, but the institutional framework of the regime's sustainability after the departure of Nursultan Nazarbayev from the state presidency is not certain.

Social Imaginaries, Volume 5, Issue 2 (Autumn 2019). P. 105-139.
URL: https://www.pdcnet.org/si/content/si_2019_0005_0002_0105_0139

The essay contributes to the discussion of the religio-political nexus by examining the interplay between the religious and the political and the dynamics of political imaginary evoked by the Christianization and reception of Christian political theology in Russia. After a cursory overview of theoretical foundations underpinning the religio-political problematic, the essay introduces political theology as a constitutive element of the religio-political nexus and its most emphatic forms of theocracy and sacral rulership. Political theology sheds light on the gravitation between the religious and the political and the meta-institutional potential of the religio-political nexus. The essay focuses on the creative appropriation of religious themes by political imaginary contributing to the institution of autocracy in Russia. Christian monotheism and religious worldviews along with Byzantine political theology introduced theocratic vision and comprised the conceptual-symbolic framework within which autocratic configuration of power was articulated and legitimized. The increasing dependence of the church on the secular authority and reinterpreta­tion of the doctrine of symphonia resulted into the caesaropapism associated with absolute autocracy. ‘Monistic unity’, unification of all powers subjugated and embodied by a sacralised autocratic ruler evolved in Russia as a paradigmatic pattern with long-lasting effects.

The establishment of the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2010, succeeded by the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015, constituted an important discontinuity in the development of post-Soviet regionalism: while the preceding organisations remained cases of 'ink-on-paper' regional integration, in the case of the Customs Union the members actually implemented their commitments. This creates an important theoretical challenge: the literature (which the previous experience of Eurasian regionalism was very much in line with) conjectures that authoritarian states are unable to successfully implement an economic regional integration agreement (RIA). The aim of the article is to explore the conditions under which implementation of economic RIAs by autocracies happens. We argue that the implementation is influenced by the extent of economic, social and political ties between member states, and suggest that, unlike democratic states, which are more likely to implement a RIA where there are strong economic ties, non-democracies are more likely to do so in the case of intermediate economic dependence.

Prepublication Version of Forthcoming Piece. This article traces the development of extractive colonial institutions in Central Asia and the Caucasus under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union and addresses their legacies. It demonstrates that Soviet-era patterns of natural resource extraction from the region have been resilient in the post-independence period. As in the Soviet-era, valuable unrefined commodities, particularly raw cotton, and crude oil, have continued to flow out of the region. Although additional exports, including gold and labour migrants, have been added to the outflow, the general pattern of resource extraction established under the Soviet Union remains. However, major changes have occurred to the direction of the flow of resources from the region, as resources no longer head solely north to Russia. The establishment of new networks, with goods being exported to destinations such as China and Europe, have integrated the region into the global economy. The globalization of the region has enabled large amounts of wealth to be transferred into Western financial institutions where it is held, laundered, and sometimes moved on. This article argues that the flourishing of these global networks of extraction have buttressed autocratic rule in the region and reinforced the patronage networks that were first forged under the Soviet Union.

İktidar blokunun hangi unsurlardan oluştuğu üzerine az çok bir mutabakat olsa da tek adam merkezliliği (otokratikliği) açık olan mevcut rejimin nasıl tanımlanabileceğine dair teorik derinliği olan analizlerin sınırlı kaldığını söylemek gerekiyor. Rejimin dayanakları, şekillenme süreci, ittifakları, belli başlı özellikleri, sınırları, bugünkü koşullarda güçlü ve zayıf yanlarının analizinin ve bunları özetleyen yeni bir adlandırmanın ön açıcı olabileceği düşüncesiyle bu yazıyı kaleme aldım. Eksik ve tartışmalı yanları olabileceğini şimdiden kabul ederek, cüretkar sayılabilecek bu çıkışın, rejimi anlama ve açıklama noktasında verimli tartışmalara vesile olmasını diliyorum.

Rosja jest potężna militarnie i słaba ekonomicznie. Niemal monokultura surowcowa. Poddańcza kultura polityczna. Przywódcy jak szefowie mafii, dysponujący atomowym guzikiem. Napadają na sąsiadów przy ogromnym poparciu własnego społeczeństwa, nie wyłączając opozycji. Taki kraj, taka cywilizacja to nieszczęście dla świata. Niestety, trzeba z tą Rosją jakoś żyć. Ale nie wolno ulegać pokusie myślenia, że to normalny kraj. Rosyjscy przywódcy kumulują w sobie całą rosyjską frustrację i poczucie niższości wobec Zachodu. Rodzi się z tego zawiść, wrogość, agresja, chęć odwetu.

'This impressive book explores a new dimension in the relationship between political regime and international cooperation. In comprehensive empirical analysis that skilfully combines different methodological approaches and new data, the authors highlight how non-democratic regional organizations consolidate authoritarian rule through legitimation and economic benefits.' Christina L. Davis, Harvard University 'In this highly original study, Obydenkova and Libman detail how regime-type matters for international regional organizations. Through cross-national statistical analysis and detailed case studies of regional organizations in Eurasia, they show that regionalism has positive benefits for [non-democratic] regimes in terms of legitimation and leadership survival.' Mark R. Beissinger, Princeton University 'We have few systematic studies of the non-democratic organizations. This book provides a rich and innovative study which helps us understand this growing and important phenomenon. The volume is essential reading for those interested in international organizations and in authoritarian politics.' Jon C. W. Pevehouse, University of Wisconsin-Madison '[T]his groundbreaking and exhaustively researched book offers a definitive portrait of the new and potent phenomenon of authoritarian regionalism. Through quantitative analysis and revealing case studies, it shows how non-democratic regional organizations legitimate and sustain authoritarianism.. .. a vital and sobering contribution to the fields of comparative politics and international relations.' Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution, Stanford University '[S]ophisticated and insightful. .. Autocratic Regionalism explains how autocracies have avoided the once-celebrated end of history by … creating regional organizations of their own. Authors' account traces the development of regional organizations from the 19th century to our own era. .. an innovative, important, and substantive contribution to international relations and comparative politics.'

The thesis classifies cases of majoritarian and power-sharing democracy in plural societies. The research questions are: How are democratic regimes in plural societies articulated? Which dimensions can grasp the institutional varieties and practical performances of political regimes in ethnically divided democracies? What is the effect of majoritarian institutions in plural democracies, in terms of ethnic inclusion and exclusion?
Accordingly, I shall map 47 plural democracies through 18 variables along 2 institutional dimensions: (i) majoritarianism or power-sharing in the government, parliament and electoral system and (ii) the territorial articulation of power. I shall then add another dimension on (iii) regime quality related to group relations: ethnic inclusion or exclusion. This framework, coupling de jure institutions with de facto performances, proves that: (i) power-sharing democracy is associated with ethnic inclusion; nonetheless (ii) majoritarian democracy occurs in plural societies and can coexist with ethnic inclusion.
A simple quantitative analysis is insufficient to explain this pattern. I will thence conduct a most similar comparison of 2 majoritarian democracies of my sample – Turkey (majoritarian/ exclusive) and Mali (majoritarian/inclusive) – to confirm that: (i) majoritarian institutions in plural societies often lead to ethnic exclusion, albeit (ii) this scenario can be avoided when exogenous factors are at play (party system, political culture/tradition of accommodation). However, as the diachronic analysis will show, these factors remain precarious and (iii) majoritarian institutions, in particular the centralization of power, are demonstrated to be ill-suited to deal with territorially concentrated minorities.
The thesis offers a detailed and useful classification and discusses examples of majority rule and power-sharing in plural democracies, and finally proposes further research directions, including authoritarianism and regime change.

(co-authored with Ferdinand Müller-Rommel) Executive power has been and will continue to be a prominent and widely used concept in political science. This chapter shows that executive power has mostly been examined in context with political power and political institutions. After providing an overview of different concepts under historical perspective, the chapter introduces various definitions of executive power and advocates that executive power should be studied in context with the functioning of political institutions. In a third step, we examine different forms of executive power in authoritarian and democratic regimes. Fourth, we study the internal structure of political executives in democratic regimes particularly in light of their linkage to political parties and legislative support. Fifth, we discuss the issue of gender representation in the context of executive power. Finally, we tackle the pressing debate on how to measure executive power. We conclude that executive power should be treated not as a rigid, but as a flexible concept for analysing the complex interaction of political actors in their institutional environment.

What is the effect of foreign aid on the survival of autocratic regimes? Extant work about the effect of foreign aid on the recipient’s political regime has come to contradictory conclusions. Current findings display the full spectrum of possibilities from a democratizing effect to the enhancement of authoritarian survival. While some studies suggest that foreign aid strengthen autocrats and their incentives to cling to power, others have focused on specific periods and donors, thus finding a democratizing effect of foreign aid. In this article, we argue that the effect of foreign aid on autocratic survival does not operate in a direct way, but it is conditional on the levels of political leverage exerted by democratic donors vis-à-vis the autocratic leaders. This leverage, we find, is defined by the capability of democratic donors to back conditionality with effective political pressure. More specifically, we find that given similar levels of aid, autocratic recipients that are highly dependent on the United States—a quintessential democratic donor with extensive political influence—have a shorter survival rate when compared to those with which the United States has weaker ties and thus lower leverage.

Será el propósito general del presente artículo indagar acerca del estado actual de la democracia en América Latina, con base en un breve estudio de 17 países de la región, durante los años 2018 y 2021, teniendo en consideración que durante el último bienio América Latina se ha visto afectada por y ha sido epicentro de la epidemia del Coronavirus. Merece ser señalado además que la pandemia ha sorprendido a la región (o la mayor parte de ella) en un contexto caracterizado por la crisis estructural del estado, una situación de estancamiento o recesión económica y sistemas de salud al límite en lo que respecta a la capacidad de prestación de su servicio.

En una primera parte, llevaremos a cabo una definición contextual y conceptual de las nociones de Régimen Político y Democracia y la operacionalización de ambas dimensiones. En una segunda sección, procederemos a llevar a cabo una exposición de algunos resultados en los años 2018 y 2021 como así también los argumentos principales que respaldan dicha exposición. Por último, el trabajo finaliza con algunas conclusiones de carácter preliminar.