I theorize that a sub-set of states build and maintain authoritarian organizations (AOs) that exist to protect and reinforce authoritarian practices and values. First, I offer a logic for understanding AOs and their contributions to their member states. Second, I develop a framework that hypothesizes a range of benefits that an AO might offer its member states, identifying both material benefits (that contribute to repression and co-optation behaviors) and ideational benefits (that legitimize autocratic behavior) that an AO might provide. Finally, I assess three contemporary AOs: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Qualitative evidence shows that AOs most successfully contribute to the ideational side of the dictator’s toolkit, particularly by co-opting civil society into a structure set and maintained by authoritarians, and legitimizing authoritarian rule via distorting authoritarian practices, bandwagoning mutual rhetorical support at the international level, and challenging democracy as a norm of governance, chipping away at the Third and Fourth Waves of democratization. My research challenges the dominant understanding of IOs as generally democratizing actors, by identifying a subset of IOs that deliberately perform against this expectation. This research agenda also furthers our understanding the dictator’s toolkit by adding an international component to explanations of how non-democratic governments survive and counter democratizing pressures at home and abroad. / Political Science

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Numerous authoritarian states use institutions usually associated with democratic regimes like a constitution, elections, and a legislature. This seems to be counterintuitive. Authoritarian regimes should rather shrink away from democratic institutions. Elections can be won by the opposition and legislatures can make decisions against the interests of the ruler. So, why do autocratic regimes install institutions which limit their power and threaten their survival in office? Assuming actors behave rationally, one should expect authoritarian rulers only to introduce procedures working in their favor. This study looks at the effect of institutions in authoritarian regimes. The findings suggest that legislatures significantly lower the chances of regime breakdown in the long run. However, particularly in election years, authoritarian regimes are facing a higher likelihood of failure.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T19:30:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rodrigo Pereira Chagas.pdf: 8810051 bytes, checksum: 71c70c365f951c61ad63cd8772179ffc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-03 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The object of this study is to examine, within the framework of the ideology upheld by the Sociologist Florestan Fernandes (1920-1995), his understanding of the process commonly known as transition or political opening in Brazil (1974-1988) where he participated as a privileged agent, setting forth a highly elaborated analysis of Brazilian social structures and functioning as an organic intellectual dos de baixo in activities such as: professor, publicist and deputy. Within this framework, we visualize an intense and promising activity but often leading to deep disappointment that discourage the institutionalization of the military dictatorship (counter-revolution) in Brazil and the preservation of archaic structures through conservative modernization , combined with the systematic repression and refrain from popular participation in the nation s destiny . This study emphasizes two aspects that reflect Florestan Fernandes´ ideas: it examines some structural theoretical concepts, particularly, his conception of bourgeois autocracy on the one hand; and introduces his theoretical-practical facet that corresponds with the dynamic history of the struggle of classes / Nossa pesquisa buscou resgatar, através do ideário do sociólogo Florestan Fernandes (1920-1995), sua compreensão sobre o processo comumente denominado transição ou abertura democrática no Brasil (1974-1988) ¬ processo que participou como agente privilegiado, partindo de uma análise altamente elaborada sobre as estruturas sociais brasileiras e atuando diretamente como intelectual orgânico dos de baixo em atividades como: professor, publicista e deputado federal. No conjunto deste ideário, visualizamos uma atividade intensa e esperançosa, mas de grandes desilusões; que amargam a institucionalização da ditadura militar (contra-revolução) no Brasil e a manutenção de estruturas arcaicas através de modernizações conservadoras , conjugadas à repressão e afastamento sistemáticos da participação popular no destino da Nação . O trabalho dá destaque a dois momentos que compõem o ideário florestaniano: por um lado, resgata alguns aspectos teóricos estruturais, principalmente, sua concepção de autocracia burguesa; e, por outro, apresenta sua face teórico-prática, que corresponde à história dinâmica da luta de classes

The question of loyalty in autocratic regimes has drawn a sustained scholarly interest, especially with the resilience of many of these regimes over most of world history and over the past few decades in particular. Autocratic leaders need to secure the support of their militaries to survive in office and to minimize the risk of a coup. Among the commonly employed mechanisms in this regard is the extension of extra-budgetary financial rewards, including ‘Military-Owned Businesses (MOBs).’ Nevertheless, under the increasingly significant threat of an uprising from below, military defection remains the key for the success of the revolution. The question then becomes: under what conditions would a military defect from an autocratic ruling alliance? Although many answers have been proposed to solve this puzzle, an increasing number of cases are proving them insufficient. Alternatively, this project presents one novel answer to this question, which is: militaries are “defection-proofed” in the face of mass uprisings when they develop financial dependency on the regime. By contrast, when the management of the extra-budgetary resource for the military, i.e. MOBs, becomes the exclusive domain of the military and independent from the regime, the military is expected to defect. This proposed hypothesis represents a contribution to the democratization literature, both its installation, i.e. underlining a ‘pro-democracy’ capacity of the military in removing the dictator, as well as its consolidation, i.e. handling the legacy of the autocratic regime after the transition. This hypothesis is tested comparatively against the cases of mass protests in China (1989), Indonesia (1998), Thailand (2006), Iran (2009), and Egypt (2011). This comparative analysis represents another contribution of this study, bringing together a diverse array of cases unexpected to have much in common. Analysis draws on a mix of both primary resources collected from the field along with secondary materials. The comparisons are made considering the type of civil-military relations in each case, the size and type of financial rewards controlled by the military, and their effect, if any, on its decision to repress or defect based on the interaction between the military and the dictator.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the outcomes of the 2011 Arab Spring from the perspective of regime types within the Middle East and North Africa. The intense year of protest that spread throughout the Arab world had disparate effects between countries which this paper investigates. Utilizing an institutional approach, I separate the Arab world into monarchic and republican systems relying on data provided by the Arab Barometer II and III. Theoretically, I suggest, and find evidence to support, that monarchies were more resistant to the Arab protests because desires for change were not as strong within these countries because of the historical arrangements within these countries.

As early as Tacitus, Livian scholarship has struggled to resolve the "Livian paradox," the conflict between Livy's support of the Roman Republic and his overt approval of Augustus, who brought about the end of the Republic. This paper addresses the paradox by attempting to place Livy's writings within their proper historical and literary context. An examination of Augustus' position during the early years of Livy's writing shows that the princeps cloaked his power within the precedent of Republican autocracy, in which imperium could be unlimited in power so long as it was limited by time. As a result, although Augustus' rule would ultimately prove the end of Rome's republic, nevertheless during Livy's early writings Augustus' reign and the Republic were not antithetical. Livy's preface and early exempla further demonstrate that Livy's writings, while condemnatory of his contemporary Rome, blame Rome's decline on the character of the Roman people rather than a corruption of the Republic's political forms. In his preface Livy blames vitia, not ambitio for the universal destruction of the civil wars, while his exempla from the monarchic period and beyond show praise or condemnation of individuals for their actions, not their political offices. Livy praises most of Rome's monarchs for their individual character and their establishment of mores, while also portraying the early Romans' defense of libertas as injuriously overzealous. Ultimately, Augustus' attempts to legislate conservative, "traditional" morality made him a contemporary exemplum of Livy's ancient mores. Thus, the Livian paradox is answered by understanding that Augustus and the Republic were not antithetical, Livy was not concerned with political forms but morality, and Augustus' morality aligned with that championed by Livy.

<p>The problem of violent oppression is a persistent one. Every regime - autocratic or democratic - has an obligation to prevent the violent oppression of its citizens. My dissertation "Good Arms and Good Laws: Machiavelli, Regime-Type, and Violent Oppression" uses Machiavelli's understanding of different regime-types and their political dynamics to explore the means by which democracies and autocracies alike can prevent violent oppression within their borders. My exploration produces a standard for praiseworthy political regimes and action, based on what Machiavelli identifies as the people's desire "not to be oppressed."</p><p>Machiavelli's analysis of this problem of political violence leads to the conclusion that all types of regimes are united in needing an interdependent, yet competitive political relationship between their leading political figure(s) and the people at large. Different kinds of regimes vary, however, in the roles that their primary political classes must play in order to prevent oppression within their borders. After using the Florentine Histories to identify the lines of thinking central to Machiavelli's work, in chapter 1 I turn to Machiavelli's discussion of the citizen-militia in The Art of War. In chapters 2 and 3, I detail Machiavelli's recommendations for praiseworthy principalities in the Prince, where Machiavelli actually exhorts princes to arm their people (chapter 2) while simultaneously crafting for them the political ethics for which the text is notorious (chapter 3). In Chapters 4 and 5, I detail Machiavelli's recommendations for praiseworthy republics in the Discourses on Livy, where Machiavelli charges the people with policing the elites that would engage in projects of oppression if left to their own devices (chapter 4) while simultaneously praising elites who help to create and maintain mechanisms of violence (chapter 5). Machiavelli's analysis compels us to recognize that it is the particulars of these interdependent, yet competitive relationships between the people and their leading political figure(s) that define a regime and that our praise of that regime ought not depend categorically on whether the people rule, but rather whether the a regime's political classes effectively cooperate to prevent violent oppression.</p> / Dissertation

There is a recent emergence of open government initiatives for citizen participation in policy making in China. Open government initiatives seek to increase the level of participation, deliberation and transparency in government affairs, sometimes by use of Internet fora. In contemporary political science the introduction of these initiatives in authoritarian contexts has been described as a paradox of authoritarian deliberation. This thesis uses cybernetic theory, perspectives of information steering in all systems, to resolve the paradox and present a new view on authoritarianism and autocracy. A cybernetic definition of autocracy allows for an analysis of different types of autocracy in different models of governance. The theoretical tools developed are used to define and assess the potential for democratic autocracy, representative autocracy, deliberative autocracy and collaborative autocracy in online open government initiatives in China.   The argument of the thesis is that these initiatives must be understood within the environment in which they are introduced. In the case of the Chinese online environment, individuals often have limited possibilities of acting anonymously. To explore how online identity registration affects citizens, a lab-in-the-field experiment was set up. Chinese university students were invited to engage with a government sponsored online forum under conditions of both anonymity and identity registration. Previous research suggests that anonymity would lead users of online fora to be more active and produce more content. This hypothesis was partly proven false by the experiment. This study shows that users who have their identities registered, sometimes even produce more content. The study also shows that registered users tend to act against their own preferences and participate more in nationalistic debates. The concluding discussion is focused on the wider implications of these effects. If citizens are incentivized to channel their dissatisfaction as loyalty, rather than voice or exit, they might become complicit in sustaining authoritarianism. Interviews with experiment participants show that open government initiatives primarily enable deliberative and collaborative autocracy when introduced in the Chinese online environment. This has the potential of increasing the amount of dissatisfaction that citizens channel as loyalty via mechanisms of authoritarian collaboration.

A tese tem, como pano de fundo, os acontecimentos políticos recentes que, desde 2002, geram fundamentais mudanças no Oriente Médio e, como foco principal, o Egito e a Turquia, Estados-chave da região. O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar, com base em conceitos da teoria política clássica, moderna e contemporânea, a natureza dos regimes políticos dos países aqui citados. Países que deixaram de ser autocráticos, mas que, ao mesmo tempo, ainda não construíram uma forma de governo baseada na democracia liberal de estilo ocidental. Afinal, que espécie de governo está sendo construído no Egito e na Turquia? É possível colocar os modelos de democracia, liberalismo e democracia liberal enquanto paradigma definitivo para os dois casos? Ou se faz necessário abrir um horizonte mais amplo dentro da ciência política, buscando compreender as formas de governos mistos historicamente construídos desde a Antiguidade greco-romana? Nesse contexto, a tese busca também analisar outros conceitos importantes dentro da área, como Estado, soberania, nação e, especificamente, islã (governo de Deus), decisivo na forma como turcos e egípcios formam as suas respectivas sociedades e os seus governos. / The backdrop thesis is the recent political developments that have led to fundamental changes in the Middle East from 2002 to the 1st half of 2013, focusing mainly Egypt and Turkey, key states in the region, analyzing them from concepts of Classical, Modern and Contemporary Political Theory, and which is the nature of the political regimes of the countries cited here. These countries that have ceased to be autocratic, but where at the same time, not yet built a Liberal-Democratic form of Western-style government. After all, what kind of governments is going to be built in Egypt and Turkey? Is it possible to present models of democracy, liberalism and liberal democracy as paradigm for the final two cases? Or is it necessary to open a wider horizon in Political Science, trying to understand the forms of mixed governments, historically constructed since ancient Greco-Roman Age? In this context, the thesis analyzes other important concepts as state sovereignty, nation, and specifically the definition of Islam (rule of God), which is quite decisive in how Egyptians and Turks form their respective societies and their governments.