Autocratic opening to democracy: why legitimacy matters

Abstract

As recent experiments in democratisation around the world show signs of achieving success, or failure, or more usually something in between, the attention of democracy promotion actors in the international community is turning to the world's remaining outstanding autocracies. This article identifies the autocracies, discusses the notion of autocratic opening, and explores how opening can come about, with particular reference to international intervention. The article argues that, for identifying the prospects for autocratic opening and determining the forms of constructive engagement available to international actors, it is useful to distinguish between the different grounds on which various autocracies claim legitimacy, and the specific vulnerabilities to which their principal legitimating base gives rise.

Notes

1 Ambassador Mark Palmer, Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003, p 86.

2 This is in keeping with, for instance, the account offered in T Gurr, K Jaggers & WH Moore, ‘The transformation of the Western state: the growth of democracy, autocracy, and state power since 1800’, in A Inkeles (ed), On Measuring Democracy, New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993, pp 80 – 81.

3 A Puddington & A Piano, ‘The 2004 Freedom House Survey’, Journal of Democracy, 16 (1), 2005, pp 103 – 108. The most recent findings, for 2005—to be published in book form as Freedom in the World 2006 in summer 2006—put the number of ‘not free’ states as 45, the lowest number for over a decade, with a corresponding increase in partly free states, to 58. The number of autocracies and their identity would differ if other data banks were consulted, because of differences of definition and methodology—an observation that only compounds the point made here. On the frailties of all such statistical measurements, see D McHenry, Jr & A Mady, ‘A critique of quantitative measures of the degree of democracy in Israel’, Democratization, 13 (2), 2006, forthcoming.

4 Distinction from M Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

5 Of the 49 ‘not free states’ in Freedom House's survey around four-fifths are low income but at least six are ‘lower middle income’ and at least a further three are ‘upper middle income’ (World Bank classifications, which offer no data for three countries). Recent economic growth rates above 4.5% pa were recorded for at least six states. On the GINI scale for inequality that ranges from a high of 60 (as in the ‘free states’ of Brazil and South Africa) and the very low of under 25 (Scandinavia) several autocracies report figures in the low 40s (similar to the UK and USA) or even less. Around one-fifth of all autocracies comprise significant oil producers and exporters but many more are very exposed to imported oil price inflation. There are majority Islamic populations in around one-third. Many autocracies are situated in ‘bad neighbourhoods’ but some are adjacent to states with strong democratic traditions or a positive recent experience of political reform. North Korea remains aloof, but Cubans have many international connections and China is a major engine of economic globalisation. In Asia China appears to be seen as a potential rival to American soft power, partly through its association with the idea of a multipolar world where big powerful countries do not interfere aggressively in other countries' internal affairs. See J Kurlantzick, ‘The decline of American soft power’, Current History, December 2005, pp 422 – 423. On the significance of ‘linkage’ (density of ties to the West), see S Levitsky & L Way, ‘International linkage and democratization’, Journal of Democracy, 16 (3), 2005, pp 20 – 34.

6 J Linz and A Stepan distinguish sultanistic regimes from authoritarian, totalitarian and post-totalitarian regimes in their Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-communist Europe, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

7 See E Lust-Okar on elections to Jordan's parliament, where political contestation is primarily about gaining access to patronage through securing political representation. Lust-Okar, ‘Elections under authoritarianism: preliminary lessons from Jordan’, Democratization, 13 (3), 2006, pp 455 – 470.

8 On why extensive patrimonialism is not necessarily a source of regime weakness and can actually be a strength, so enabling an autocratic regime to survive the transition from one personalist leader (President Bourguiba) to another (President Ben Ali), as in Tunisia in 1987, see J Brownlee, ‘… And yet they persist: explaining survival and transition in neopatrimonial regimes’, Studies in Comparative International Development, 37 (3), 2002, pp 35 – 63.

9 M McFaul, ‘Transitions from communism’, Journal of Democracy, 16 (3), 2005, pp 5 – 19. ‘The presence of only a few of these factors is unlikely to generate the same outcome’ (p 17).

10 Scenarios foreseen long ago by S Huntington in Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.

11 A point made by J Ulfelder, ‘Contentious collective action and the breakdown of authoritarian regimes’, International Political Science Review, 26 (3), 2005, pp 311 – 334.

12 For greater detail, see P Burnell (ed), Democracy Assistance: International Co-operation for Democratization, London: Frank Cass, esp ch 2.

13 Although essential if competitive authoritarian regimes are to be moved closer to democracy, the writers say linkage is ‘primarily a structural variable … less malleable—and hence less amenable to foreign policy manipulation—than are individual leaders or constitutional frameworks, except in the medium to long term’. Levitsky & Way, ‘International linkage and democratization’, p 33.

14 On strategy, see P Burnell, ‘Political strategies of external support for democratization’, Foreign Policy Analysis, 1 (3), 2005, pp 361 – 384; and Burnell, ‘Democracy promotion: the elusive quest for grand strategies’, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, 16 (2), 2004, pp 100 – 116.

15 J Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, New York: Public Affairs, 2004. For Nye ‘soft power’ comes from a country's culture, political ideals, domestic policies and manner of conducting international relations.

16 The nutcracker as presented here is a simplified rendition of the strategy outlined by T Carothers in, for instance, his Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004). Palmer's Breaking the Real Axis of Evil recommendations are not dissimilar, although he is willing to countenance external military intervention and not just as a last resort. Some of the issues are explored further in Burnell, ‘Political strategies of external support for democratization’; and Burnell, ‘Democracy promotion: the elusive quest for grand strategies’.

17 Thus in Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, E Bjornlund advises international observers to concentrate more on strengthening the civil society's own capacity to observe and monitor both the electoral process and the political process between elections.

18 See Krishna Kumar, Promoting Independent Media: Strategies for Democracy Assistance, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2006.

19 Palmer, Breaking the Real Axis of Evil.

20 Thus, while, in Why did the Poorest Countries Fail to Catch up?, Paper 62, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 2005, B Milanovic of the World Bank claims that war and civil strife is the main explanation of lack of development in the poorest countries and democracy has had no effect on growth, M Halperin, J Siegle and M Weinstein argue that poor democracies have outperformed non-democracies and assert that the developmental success of East Asia's autocracies is ‘highly exceptional’. Halperin et al, The Democracy Advantage—How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace, New York: Routledge/Council on Foreign Relations, 2004.

21 B Roth, ‘Evaluating democratic progress’, in G Fox & B Roth (eds), Democratic Governance and International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p 508.

22 J Waterbury, ‘Fortuitous by-products’, Comparative Politics, 29 (3), 1996, p 399.

23 M Halperin & M Galic (eds), Protecting Democracy, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005, p 6. This view is new and untested; it may not have as much support as its proponents claim.

24 See K Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.