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Merete Bech Seeberg Danish Political Science Association October 2013

How State Capacity Shapes the Effect of Authoritarian Elections

Paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the Danish Political Science Association, Vejle,

Denmark, 24-25 Oct 2013

[Unpublished manuscript, please do not quote]

Merete Bech Seeberg

Ph.D.-fellow

Department of Political Science,

Aarhus University

[email protected]

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mailto:[email protected]


How State Capacity Shapes the Effect of Authoritarian Elections

The “electoral tsunami” that has recently spread the formally democratic institution of

elections to authoritarian settings has caused researchers to explore the effect of

authoritarian elections. But a paradox prevails: elections can both serve as a stabilizing

mechanism underpinning the autocrat and spark a democratization process. In this

paper, I explore the role of authoritarian state capacity in determining the effect of

multi-party authoritarian elections. I review the literature on authoritarian elections and

suggest that state capacity is conducive to producing supermajority victories, deter elite

defections, quell opposition mobilization, and prevent voter protests, in turn allowing

multi-party elections to serve a stabilizing role in authoritarian regimes. The propositions

are tested across all authoritarian regimes from 1960 to 2010. The results support the

notion that where state capacity is high, dictators may use elections as a stabilizing tool.

But under conditions of low state capacity, authoritarian regimes are vulnerable to

elections. The results hold for both coercive and administrative state capacity.

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Introduction

It is widely recognized that the third wave of democratization has not only produced a rise in the number of

democracies. An equally important side-effect of this “electoral tsunami” (Morse, 2012: 161) is the spread

of the formally democratic institution of elections to authoritarian settings. In 2008, more than half of all

authoritarian regimes held multi-party national elections compared to 16 percent 30 years earlier (Seeberg,

2013). Since researchers first pointed to the phenomenon of “electoral authoritarianism” (Diamond, 2002;

Schedler, 2002), studies of the effect of authoritarian elections have proliferated. But in spite of emergent

research in the field, a paradox prevails: whereas some perceive of elections as a stabilizing mechanism

underpinning the autocrat (see for instance Magaloni, 2006; Geddes, 2005; Lust-Okar, 2006), others stress

the democratizing powers of autocratic elections (see for instance Lindberg, 2006; 2009; Schedler, 2006;

Howard and Roessler, 2006; Hadenius and Teorell, 2009).

In this paper, I review these two divergent perspectives to decipher the mechanisms through which

elections may affect authoritarian regime stability in various ways. I proceed to argue that rather than

debating whether elections are stabilizing or democratizing, we should identify the contextual factors that

shape the effects of authoritarian elections. The claim of this paper is that authoritarian state capacity, both

administrative and coercive, is one such factor. A far reaching and capable bureaucracy and a strong

coercive apparatus can help incumbents exploit elections while at the same time decreasing the use of

elections for opposition and voters. This proposition is tested across all authoritarian regimes from 1978-

2010 (with robustness checks going back to 1946) and the tentative results confirm the expectation. Where

state capacity is high, dictators may use multi-party elections as a stabilizing tool. But under conditions of

low state capacity, authoritarian regimes are vulnerable to elections. (In its final form, the paper will also

test a number of mechanisms through which high state capacity is argued to allow for authoritarian control

of elections but this part of the analysis has not been conducted yet).

I first lay out the paradox of authoritarian elections, and list the mechanisms through which elections are

expected to either increase or decrease regime stability. The second section brings forth the concept of

authoritarian state capacity, discusses how state capacity affects the mechanisms of multi-party

authoritarian elections and presents a set of hypotheses. The third section presents operationalizations of

the variables from the theoretical section and the fourth section moves on to test the propositions on a

global basis.

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The Paradox of Authoritarian Elections

Throughout the 2000s, researchers have insisted that authoritarian elections play a distinct role in

determining authoritarian regime stability. But how do they matter? Theoretical accounts are contrasting

and results mixed. To stabilize the regime, elections are argued to help rulers manage incumbent elites,

quell opposition, and control voters. The primary mechanism through which elections help rulers manage

the elite is by signalling. Supermajority victories signal to the elite that there is no political future outside of

the ruling party and thus discourage would-be defectors (Magaloni, 2006: 4-10, 16-19; Geddes, 2005: 11-

12). Second, elections are a form of credible commitment. While the ruler limits his personal dictatorship,

the risk of violent rebellion from his own elite is diminished in turn (Magaloni, 2008: 728-730). Third,

elections allow the incumbent to monitor elites and control their access to power: They help distribute

spoils and jobs amongst the elite (Magaloni, 2006: 16-19; Gandhi and Lust-Okar, 2009: 405), they can solve

the potentially damaging issues of succession, and function as a recruitment device for lower-level officials

(Geddes, 2005: 13).

The role authoritarian elections play toward the opposition is primarily one of strangulation and

cooptation. If the opposition boycotts elections, it automatically excludes itself from potential influence and

visibility. But if opposition parties play along, they contribute to the legitimization of the system (Linz, 1978:

60; Magaloni, 2006: 9-10, 258). Elections provide rulers with an effective divide and rule strategy as they

may hand out small concessions to only parts of the opposition and thus contain them, leaving the rest of

the opposition out (Malesky and Schuler, 2010: 482; Linz, 1978: 62; Gandhi and Lust-Okar, 2009: 405). The

most common voter-oriented argument for why elections sustain the regime is their ability to generate

public legitimacy (Schedler, 2002b: 36). But perhaps more important today is the role of elections as a tool

for rent distribution. Elections deliver information about supporters and opponents, and locally elected

candidates then effectively target regime supporters with spoils (Magaloni, 2006: 4-10; Lust, 2009: 124-

131).

In spite of the numerous arguments for why non-competitive elections sustain authoritarian regimes,

several authors argue for a destabilizing and perhaps even democratizing effect of elections. In the

traditionally information-scarce societies, the incumbent elite will use elections to gauge the support and

power of the ruler. If elections signal regime weakness, there is a risk that the elite will split and turn

against the dictator (Magaloni, 2006: 258). Opposition forces will respond to these same signals as do the

incumbent elites. If they perceive victory as being within reach, they are more likely to fight (Howard and

Roessler, 2006: 369). Elections can become focal points that enable the opposition to overcome

coordination problems or simply gain visibility (Pop-Eleches and Robertson, 2009: 13; Linz, 1978: 54-55).

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Elections also have the capacity to spark massive protests among voters that can in turn trigger regime

breakdown (Kuntz and Thompson, 2009). But even lacking large-scale protests, the mere holding of

repetitive elections may instil democratic norms in voters and spur the development of civic associations

that, in turn, bolster citizens’ capabilities (Lindberg, 2006: 111-115). The mechanisms are listed in Table 1.

Table 1: Mechanisms Linking Elections to Authoritarian Regime Outcomes

Stabilization through Elections Breakdown by elections

Elite Signaling

Credible commitment

Power-sharing, recruitment, conflict-

solving

Information on regime weakness

Opposition Cooptation and division Mobilization and visibility

Voters Legitimacy

Rent-distribution

Protests over flawed elections

Spread of democratic norms and

capabilities

The contrasting theoretical arguments for the effect of authoritarian elections are reflected in the mixed

results of cross-national studies. While Lindberg pinpoints a tendency for authoritarian elections in Africa to

heighten the level of civil liberties (2006), McCoy and Hartlyn find no such evidence in Latin America (2009).

Global studies do not paint a clearer picture. While Hadenius and Teorell (2009) find that the holding of an

election does not substantially improve the level of democracy after the year of the election, Brownlee

shows that neither do multi-party elections have significant effects on the stability or breakdown

propensities of authoritarian regimes. But he also discovers that they do in fact heighten the likelihood of

democratization after a regime has collapsed (2009).

Given the discrepancy in theoretical expectations, the mixed results are not surprising. The various

electoral effects presented in the literature seem to depend on strikingly different authoritarian contexts.

An authoritarian election is unlikely to provide the regime with legitimacy and at the same time provoke

protests over its flawed character. The same election will not serve to both divide and mobilize the

opposition. When research on authoritarian elections has unearthed seemingly antagonistic effects of

authoritarian elections, this may simply be because we cannot lump all authoritarian regimes – or even all

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electoral authoritarian regimes (or all competitive authoritarian regimes for that matter) – together. In her

groundbreaking 1999 article on the state of the democratization literature, Geddes reminded us that

authoritarian regimes based on different types of leadership may exhibit as many internal differences as are

to be found between authoritarian and democratic regimes (Geddes, 1999). And these differences matter

to the development of the regime. In this paper I argue that state capacity – administrative as well as

coercive – affects the ways in which elections play out in authoritarian regimes. In ways theorized below,

state capacity may foster (some of) the stabilizing mechanisms of authoritarianism while impeding the

destabilizing mechanisms.

State Capacity and Control of Authoritarian Elections

State capacity has for long been identified as vital in determining authoritarian regime stability (Skocpol,

1979: 32; Bellin, 2004: 142-144; Crystal, 1994: 264; Herbst, 2001: 361; Slater, 2003). An authoritarian

regime can endure even in the face of wide-spread protests if the state is sufficiently strong (Skocpol, 1979:

32; Way and Levitsky, 2006: 389-390). More recently, Levitsky and Way have brought state and ruling party

capacity into the study of the stability of competitive authoritarian regimes after the Cold War (Levitsky and

Way, 2010: 54-68). These capacities affect authoritarian rulers’ ability to handle elections (Way, 2005;

Schedler, 2009: 305; Way and Levitsky, 2006). But how do they do so? The connection still needs to be

established both theoretically and empirically. The following section will briefly define a concept of state

capacity before moving on to posing a number of hypotheses concerning both the overall effect of state

capacity on the relationship between elections and regime stability and the theoretical mechanisms

through which state capacity is expected to hold this effect.

The definition of state capacity employed here is Migdal’s notion of a state’s “capacities to penetrate

society, regulate social relations, extract resources, and appropriate or use resources in determined ways”

(Migdal, 1988: 4). This concept of state capacity covers both the capabilities of the state apparatus and the

ability of the rulers to use and control this apparatus. State capacity can be split into two dimensions:

administrative capacity and coercive capacity (Skocpol, 1979: 29). Administrative capacity is both the

territorial reach of the bureaucracy as well as its competences, that is, the ability and will to effectively

implement the orders of the rulers. Coercive capacity is the reach as well as the ability and will to

implement the rulers’ orders of units such as the army, the police, or a presidential security guard.

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Not all mechanisms of stabilization through elections are dependent on state capacity, as a strong ruling

party and economic control may also be important in sustaining authoritarian regimes through elections.

But the following section argues that the state is instrumental in generating supermajority victories,

preventing the opposition from mobilizing, and avoiding post-electoral protests. The supermajority

victories in turn contribute not only to signal-sending, but also to create legitimacy, deter elite defections,

and co-opt the opposition. The general expectation is thus:

H1: Authoritarian regimes with high state capacity (both administrative and coercive) and multi-

party elections are more stable than authoritarian regimes with low state capacity and multi-party

elections

Further, this difference in stability across different levels of state capacity is expected to be explained not

only by the level of state capacity but also as an effect of holding elections in a context of high state

capacity

H2: Multi-party elections are more likely to lead to breakdown of an authoritarian regime when

state capacity (administrative or coercive) is low, and more likely stabilize the authoritarian

regime when state capacity is high

This effect of state capacity on the relationship between elections and regime stability emerges as state

capacity allows for authoritarian regimes to firmly control multi-party elections in three major ways:

generating supermajority victories, preventing the opposition from mobilizing, and avoiding post-electoral

protests.

Administrative capacity is conducive to winning fraudulent elections with supermajority victories. Victories

that in turn signal regime invincibility, deter elites from defecting, and lure the opposition into the regime

(Magaloni, 2006: 16-19; Geddes, 2005: 11-12). Administrative capacity is essential in carrying out the

strategies through which a supermajority victory may be attained. One prominent strategy is systemic

manipulation, the use and abuse of legal provisions to distort electoral outcomes (Vickery and Shein, 2012:

2). It includes tactics such as gerrymandering of electoral districts and restrictions on campaigning and is

widely used in electoral autocracies. In Malaysia, the regime has systematically abused its ability to

construct districts with unequal numbers of voters, and predominantly Malay districts have been much

smaller than non-Malay districts, allowing the dominant party, United Malays National Organization

(UMNO) to secure a dominant role in government as long as it was the most popular party among ethnic

Malays (Hing and Ong, 1987: 122; Crouch, 1996b: 117-118; Rachagan, 1987: 217-219). Although such

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gerrymandering does not require great state capacity once set in place, the construction of a biased system

necessitates detailed knowledge of the voter composition in various areas of the country as well as expert

knowledge on electoral laws.

Another strategy that is commonly employed when attempting to secure an authoritarian electoral victory

is manipulation of voters before Election Day. Few authoritarian regimes can rely solely on the ruling party

machine when they campaign, distribute patronage, gather information on potential opposition voters, and

urge them to cast their votes for the incumbent. Instead, public employees and local authorities contribute

to the incumbents’ electoral control, and administrative capacity is thus crucial for this strategy to succeed.

Already embedded in the community and often enjoying the respect of the locals, public employees can

deliver information to the regime, target spoils at regime supporters and propaganda at potential

opposition. In Malaysia, the UMNO-controlled Village Security and Development Committees (JKKK)

projected UMNO as “the main provider of community services and source of social stability” (Hilley, 2001:

86) while at the same time surveying the local population and “identifying recalcitrant elements” (Hilley,

2001: 86). Further, the authoritarian regime may abuse the resources of the state and the public sector to

campaign, buy off voters, and pressure public employees to vote for the regime (Case illustrations). Thus,

the mechanism of rent-distribution forms part of a strategy to construct supermajority victories.

A third strategy for attaining supermajority victories is manipulation of the administration of elections. This

strategy involves technical manoeuvres such as manipulation of voter registration, ballot-stuffing, and fraud

in counting and tabulating votes. Here, administrative capacities of the regime are necessary. To conduct

widespread and systematic fraud, the bureaucracy must effectively control the voting process both in local

constituencies and on the national level. Although regimes, if possible, will often rely on the first two

strategies and stay clear of outright fraud that may anger voters and international society (Magaloni, 2006:

xx; Kuntz and Thompson, 2009: xx), few authoritarian elections are won without fraud (kilde, xx). In

Cameroun in 2007, the ruling party combined gerrymandering of districts with widespread fraud to secure

its electoral victory. By controlling voter registration on the ground in local districts through mayor’s offices,

police stations, and local chiefs, the government severely restricted the access to voter identity cards in

opposition strongholds (Albaugh, 2011: 399-402).

This paper not only tests the argument that electoral authoritarian regimes with higher levels of

administrative capacity are less likely to break down (Hypothesis 1). I also test the notion that authoritarian

regimes with higher levels of administrative state capacity are more likely to generate supermajority

electoral victories, that supermajority victories prevent elites from defecting, and that these elections in

turn are more likely to stabilize the regime:

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H3a: Regimes with high administrative capacity are more likely to produce super majority victories

than are regimes with low administrative capacity

H3b: Further, regimes with supermajority victories are less likely to break down than are regimes

without supermajority victories

H3c: Elite defections are rarer where administrative capacity is high

Apart from sustaining the regime through supermajority victories, state capacity also plays an important

part in preventing elections from spinning out of control and causing destabilization through mechanisms

independent of electoral hegemony. In spite of manipulation, an authoritarian election may still cause

opposition mobilization or provoke post-electoral protests that can spiral until the regime falls. To prevent

opposition mobilization and post-electoral protests, an authoritarian regime may – on top of the strategies

described to secure a supermajority victory – employ its coercive capacity. One strategy is what Way and

Levitsky term low-intensity coercion, and necessitates not only an efficient administration but also a strong

coercive apparatus. Fear of the state’s coercive capacity may in itself have a preventive effect on dissent.

Further, surveillance, detainment, and harassment of opposition by, for instance, tax police officers may do

the job (Levitsky and Way, 2010: 58). (Case illustrations).

If soft coercion is not sufficient to deter protesters and opposition, the regime is left with a fifth strategy,

high intensity coercion. Assassinations of key opposition politicians or violent crackdowns on protesters

may thus be a last resort (Way and Levitsky, 2006: 392). To carry out these tasks, the state must control a

coercive apparatus able and willing to crack down on the population. (Case illustration). In cases where

such capacity does not exist, incumbents lack the tools to control elections, and the regime may in turn

break down. In Georgia during the 2003 Rose Revolution, president Shevardnadze lacked the control of the

military and security forces that was necessary to repress the post-electoral demonstrations (Mitchell,

2004: 348) leading to the breakdown of the authoritarian regime.

Whereas these two forms of coercion should be available to a dictator disposing over a highly capable

state, from the viewpoint of an office-seeking dictator, one is preferable to the other. Thus, more blatant

forms of violence have two potential negative effects. Rather than strengthening the regime, they may

increase grievances in the populace with the potential for raising dissent (Kuntz and Thompson, 2009: 257-

258). And rather than demonstrating superiority, they may signal the regime’s inability to subtly oppress

and manipulate. Regimes with high state capacity are thus expected to primarily rely on systemic

manipulation, voter manipulation, low intensity coercion and to some extent small-scale fraud, but only

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turn to large-scale coercion if the other strategies have failed and large-scale post-electoral protests have

emerged. Weaker regimes on the other hand may miss out on the subtle forms of electoral manipulation

and employ whatever capacity they have left on Election Day, typically relying on blatant fraud and high

intensity coercion with the potential of these strategies backfiring. Regimes with very limited state capacity

are unable to systematically carry out any of the strategies in question.

The paper tests both the general proposition that high coercive capacity decreases the likelihood of

breakdown as described in hypothesis 2 (in that it enables the regime to employ low intensity coercion

throughout the electoral campaign and high-intensity coercion in emergency cases), that high coercive

capacity prevents post-electoral protests from arising, that post-electoral protests heighten the risk of

breakdown, and that regimes are more likely to survive post-electoral protests where coercive capacity is

high

H4a: Post-electoral protests are rarer in contexts of high coercive capacity

H4b: Regimes without post-electoral protests are more stable

H4c: Regimes with higher coercive capacity are more likely to survive in the face of post-

electoral protests.

In sum, administrative and coercive capacity is expected to sharpen an authoritarian regime’s ability

to create supermajority victories and thus deter elites from defecting, hinder opposition

mobilization, prevent voter protests, and effectively silence these protests where they do arise. This

should make high capacity authoritarian regimes more stable, and in turn, democratization less likely

to occur.

Operationalization

A regime’s status as authoritarian is determined by the variable ‘democracy’ in Cheibub et.al’s extension

(CGV) of Przeworski’s original measure (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland, 2010). This minimalist measure of

democracy - a regime is considered democratic if elections feature ex ante uncertainty, ex post

irreversibility and repeatability1 corresponds to a Schumpterian definition of democracy in which elections

need not be free and fair but only feature uncertainty over who will take power in order to be democratic

1 Regimes are coded as democratic if the legislature is popularly elected, the chief executive is either popularly elected or appointed by a popularly elected body, more than one party competes in elections, and finally, an alternation in power has occurred under electoral rules similar to those under which the incumbent won in the first place (Cheibub et al., 2009: xx)

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(Schumpeter, 1979: 269). This measure is chosen to exclude semi-democratic regimes from the analysis and

thus avoid deeming elections democratizing simply because they take place in already democratic contexts

(see Seeberg, 2013, unpublished manuscript). To account for the fact that the CGV dataset codes regime

characteristics as of Dec 31st in any given year whereas I am interested in the characteristics of the regime

in place during the year, I shift data one year forward so that all data refers to the country as of Jan 1 st in

that year.

From the group of authoritarian regimes I exclude country-years in which no government

controlled the majority of the territory, the regime was foreign-occupied, or a provisional government was

in place to oversee a transition to democracy. Data were drawn from the Authoritarian Regimes Data’s

(GWF) variable ‘nonautocracy’ (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, 2012). All country-years classified as

authoritarian based on these two criteria are included in the analysis.

To identify regime breakdowns, I exploit the variable on transitions in the CGV dataset. However, as

pointed out by Geddes et.al., the CGV dataset has one important flaw in that it does not identify transitions

from one authoritarian regime to the next (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz, 2012: 18-19). To get at these

breakdowns, I utilize the variable on irregular leadership entry from the Archigos database (Goemans,

Gleditsch, and Chiozza, 2009). Thus, an authoritarian regime breaks down either when it transitions to

democracy or if at least one leader entered into power irregularly or by foreign imposition in any given year

(irregular leadership entries are expected to catch cases of transition from one autocracy to the next) (for

coding details, see Seeberg, 2013).

To account for the occurrence of multi-party elections, I created a measure for whether an

executive or legislative election was held in an authoritarian regime in any given year. The data was

collected by comparing Kelley’s Quality of Elections Database (QED) (Kelley and Kolev, 2010) to the

Database on Political Institutions (DPI) (Keefer et al., 2001) and solving disagreement by referring to Nohlen

et. al (and for years after 2005, various other sources) (see Seeberg, 2013). To identify which authoritarian

regimes are electoral, I ask whether at least one election occurred in which multiple defacto parties were

represented in the legislature in any year from the beginning of that regime spell and up until the current

year (I am in the process of recoding the cases so that elections must have been held within the prior seven

years in order for a regime to be counted as electoral) . I also run robustness checks relaxing the criteria to

multiple defacto parties in the election but not necessarily in the legislature and to defacto one-party

elections (data on parties from CGV).2

2 To check the robustness of the results, I rerun the analyses using data on elections from the NELDA database (Hyde and Marinov, xxx) and identifying authoritarian regimes based on the GWF data that code democracies based on freeness and fairness of elections rather than competitiveness.

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In cross-national studies, administrative state capacity is typically proxied either by surveys and

expert evaluations or by national data on extractive capacity (Hendrix, 2010: 275). I choose the latter

approach as this data is less biased towards “democratic” state capacity and more likely to be available for

authoritarian regimes. The logic for employing tax extraction to proxy state capacity is that “The

development of state power, or the state’s authority over society and the market economy, is usefully

examined by highlighting its ability to get citizens to do something that they would rather not do—namely,

pay taxes. Tax collection is ultimately the product of policy making, the monitoring of economic activity, the

administration of complex laws, and judicial and punitive enforcement. For scholars, varied levels of tax

revenues reflect variations in these state processes” (Lieberman, 2002: 92). Furthermore, the taxes

extracted should themselves contribute positively to the level of state capacity (Fukuyama, 2013: 6, Slater,

2010: 34-37). I attain data on tax revenue as percentage of GDP from xxx.

The main criticism of this approach to measuring state capacity is the fact that actual extraction

rates do not necessarily accurately proxy the state’s capacity to extract as extraction also depends on

willingness to extract. However, this argument is often employed with respect to advanced democracies

that may have ideological preferences for low extraction rates (see for instance Fukuyama, 2013: 6-7).

Studying autocracies, it seems more valid to assume that the state will extract to the degree that its

capacity allows for. However, I do conduct robustness checks substituting tax revenue with a measure for

“relative political extraction” (RPE). The measure of relative political extraction captures a country’s actual

tax extraction in relation to the predicted tax extraction. A country’s predicted tax extraction is assessed for

every year using an algorithm that takes into account the country’s GDP, oil production, mining, and

exports (Arbetman-Rabinowitz et al., 2011).

Lacking cross-national data on security services, I operationalize the state’s coercive capacity as (ln)

military spending/capita from the Correlates of War Project (COW). For robustness, I rerun the analyses

with a variable on military personnel/capita (also from COW).

Supermajority victories are identified as those in which a country scores 6 on the DPI variable on

executive competitiveness indicating a vote share of at least 75 percent for the winning candidate (or party

in non-presidential systems) (I am thinking about lowering this threshold but have not conducted the

analyses yet). Data on post-electoral protests and crack-downs are attained from the NELDA database, xxxx.

Data on elite defections are from Gandhi and Reuter (2010).

A number of control variables are also included. The usual suspects in studies of authoritarian

durability that may also affect the tendency to hold elections are wealth, growth, and natural resources

(references). Wealth is measured as the natural logarithm of GDP per capita and growth as the percentage

change from one year to the next. Total fuel income per capita proxies a country’s dependence on natural

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resources and is also lagged one year. Data for all these economic control factors are obtained from the

Haber-Menaldo 2011 APSR dataset (Haber and Menaldo, 2011) and all variables are lagged one year.

Further, complying with the literature on authoritarian elections, I include controls for time period and

prior liberalization (Brownlee, 2009: 525). Prior liberalization is proxied by the Freedom House civil liberties

scores of the previous year and is included to make sure that a destabilizing effect of elections is not a

spurious effect of an ongoing liberalization process that has caused both elections and breakdown ( I am

also experimenting with operationalizing prior liberalization with a variable of whether the election in

question is the first I a given regime). To control for time period I include a dummy to capture the difference

between the Cold War and the Post Cold War periods expecting that authoritarian regimes may be more

vulnerable both towards pressure for installing elections and breakdown in general in the international

context that resulted from the breakdown of Communism after 1989. (I am also planning on controlling for

regional variation).

Results

The analyses are conducted on all authoritarian regimes (with and without elections) from 1978-2010 and

the observations are country-years.3 Turning to hypothesis 1, I ask whether electoral authoritarian regimes

under conditions of low state capacity are more likely to break down than electoral autocracies with high

state capacity?

Table 1, Descriptive Statistics, State Capacity Indicators

Variable Observations Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

(Ln)Military Expenditure

8129 7.42 2.67 0 19.03

RPE 6195 1.00 .47 .01 4.52

Splitting the variables on coercive (military expenditure) and administrative (RPE) capacity at their means

and turning them into dummy variables scoring 1 if the value is above the mean and 0 if on or below, I

construct variables for whether administrative and coercive capacity is high or low for every electoral

authoritarian regime in every year. Do regimes with high and low capacity respectively show different

propensities for breakdown? (This introductory analysis as it stands now is rather crude. I would like to find

an alternative way of testing the simple proposition the low capacity states with elections are less stable

3 One problem with the RPE data, though, is the exclusion of a group of stable authoritarian regimes such as several Stan countries, North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam on which the data is not available – I have to look into this issue as I am unsure of how many electoral regimes are affected.

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than high capacity states with elections. And perhaps also testing whether high capacity states with

elections are more stable than high capacity states without elections, and vice versa, whether low capacity

states without elections are more stable than low capacity cases with election).

Table 2. Mean differences in likelihood of breakdown between low and high capacity electoral autocracies

CGV and own data

GWF and NELDA

CGV and NELDA

Military Expenditure

.0518*** .0249* .0394***

RPE(gdp) .0426** .0373*** .0341**Note: Positive differences indicate that low capacity cases are less likely to break down. *** p > 0.01, ** p > 0.05, *p > 0.1.

Table 2 shows the difference in breakdown propensities between high and low capacity electoral

authoritarian regimes. Regardless of the indicator employed to tap into state capacity, high capacity cases

are less likely to break down than are low capacity cases and all differences are statistically significant.

Thus, regimes with high coercive capacity measured as military expenditure are on average 5 percent less

likely to break down than are low capacity electoral autocracies. And electoral authoritarian regimes with

high administrative capacity measured as RPE are on average 4 percent less likely to breakdown than are

their weaker counterparts. When running the analyses with logistic regression without controls and with

controls for GDP growth, high capacity cases remain significantly less likely to breakdown than do low

capacity cases (not reported here). Hypothesis 1 cannot be rejected.4

But does this mean that multi-party elections contribute to breakdown when state capacity is lacking

whereas they may stabilize the regime in high capacity contexts? Or is this simply an indicator that state

capacity – regardless of elections – matter for authoritarian stability? To test the overall effect of state

capacity on the relationship between elections and authoritarian stability, I conduct a number of logistic

time series regressions with interaction terms for elections and the different types of state capacity

(Hypothesis 2).

4 When I rerun the analysis including regimes with multiple parties competing elections but where only one party may be present in the legislature, the difference is only statistically significant for administrative capacity (RPE). But when conducting robustness checks using GWF and NELDA data instead of or in addition to CGV data and my own data on elections, country-years from 1960-1978 are included in the analysis and all differences turn significant. However, the check goes to show that the difference is mostly relevant for truly multi-party elections.

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Table 3, The Effect of Administrative Capacity on the Relationship between Multi-Party Authoritarian Elections and Regime Breakdown

I II III IVBreakdown Breakdown Breakdown Breakdown

Multi-party elections 0.169(0.222)

0.125(0.242)

0.982*

(0.569)0.526

(0.609)RPE (GDP) -0.188

(0.204)-0.089(0.209)

-0.461*

(0.262)Elections#RPE -0.917

(0.569)-1.067*

(0.605)LnGDP/cap (lag 1) -0.015

(0.164)GDP growth (lag 1) -0.014**

(0.007)Fuel income/cap (lag 1) -0.000*

(0.000)Prior liberalization -0.547***

(0.104)Post Cold War 0.001

(0.217)Constant -2.976***

(0.143)-2.635***

(0.255)-2.721***

(0.258)0.775

(1.462)

Constant 0.242(0.243)

0.296(0.281)

0.286(0.280)

-0.124(0.388)

Observations 3998 2861 2861 2074Note: Logistic regressions, time series. Non-robust standard errors in parentheses. *** p > 0.01, ** p > 0.05, *p > 0.1. Explanatory variable is multi-party elections, moderating variable is administrative capacity (RPE). Data on elections from Seeberg (2013), data on regime survival from CGV and Archigos.

Turning first to hypothesis 2, I test the effect of administrative capacity (measured as RPE (GDP)) on the

relationship between multi-party elections (based on data from Seeberg, 2013, as described above) and

regime stability (based on data from CGV and Archigos as described above). Model I in Table 3 illustrates

how electoral authoritarianism, defined as an authoritarian regime with multiple defacto parties competing

in elections, correlates positively with regime breakdown yet the correlation is insignificant. When

introducing administrative capacity in model II, both elections and administrative capacity fail to affect the

likelihood of breakdown significantly. Finally, in model IV, where an interaction term between

administrative capacity and elections is included along with all the control variables, the relationships

changes. Whereas the positive effect of elections is still insignificant, higher levels of administrative capacity

seem to lessen the risk of authoritarian breakdown (the effect is negative and significant). Most

importantly, though, the interaction term is negative and significant indicating that controlling for wealth,

15


growth, resource reliance, prior liberalization, and time period, elections reduce the likelihood of

authoritarian breakdown in regimes with higher levels of administrative capacity.5

However, given the non-linear nature of the logistic model, the relationships between elections, state

capacity, and regime stability will vary for different levels of the variables in questions as well as the control

factors (reference xxx). The results are therefore explored in depth graphically. Figure 1 illustrates how the

effect of having elections on the likelihood of regime breakdown changes for various levels of

administrative capacity while all other variables are held at their actual level for every observation.

Whereas elections increase the likelihood of breakdown in regimes with the very lowest levels of

administrative capacity, the effect is statistically insignificant (the dotted lines indicating the 95 percent

confidence intervals include the 0-line). However, turning to the 75 percent of regimes with the highest

levels of administrative capacity, the effect of elections on breakdown is significant and increasingly

negative. The greater a regime’s level of administrative capacity, the bigger is the difference in likelihood of

breakdown between electoral and non-electoral autocracies. Or in other words, the greater a regime’s

administrative capacity, the more likely is it that elections will stabilize the regime. Towards the end of the

spectrum, the confidence intervals increase, as the analysis includes few regimes with the maximum level

of administrative capacity.

5 Some authors have questioned the validity of the p-values computed on interaction effects in non-linear models (see Norton, Wang, and Ai, 2004; Ai and Norton, 2003). Their suggested solution (the inteff program for stata 12) does not run with time-series data. However, I do not fall prey to the simple yet faulty solution of relying on the significance level of the the interaction term in the overall level but rather calculate confidence intervals for all the marginal effects of elections at various levels of state capacity. Further, the significance is also tested when the effect is measured in terms of odds ratios rather than marginal effects (in this case, the model is still linear and the significance can be established for one single point. This is the solution suggested by Hilbe, 2009 and Buis et al 2010 to the problem pointed out by Norton et. al).--- This robustness check has not been conducted yet---

16


Figure 1, Marginal Effect of multi-party elections on likelihhod of regime breakdown for various levels of

administrative capacity

-8-6

-4-2

02

0 .25 .5 .75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 2.25 2.5 2.75 3 3.25 3.5 3.75 4 4.25 4.5RPE_gdp

Note: Marginal effects of multi-party elections on likelihood of breakdown with 95 percent confidence intervals. RPE (GDP) varies from its minimum to its maximum for the sample. All other variables are held at their actual levels for each observation. Data on elections from Seeberg (2013), data on regime survival from CGV and Archigos.

These results pertain to multi-party elections. Including into the group of electoral autocracies those that

do not have parties outside of the ruling front in the legislature, the effect of both elections, administrative

capacity, and their interaction term are statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Turning to hypothesis 3, the results for coercive capacity (measured as the natural logarithm of military

expenditure per capita) largely corresponds with those for administrative capacity. Model I of Table 4 gives

the same insignificant relationship between multi-party elections and regime stability as does Table 3. As in

Table 3, controlling for state capacity and its interaction with elections does not alter the results until all

17


additional controls are included. In the final model (panel IV of table 4), however, multi-party elections turn

out to have a statistically significant positive effect on regime breakdown. At first glance, when controlling

for economic factors, prior liberalization, and time period, holding elections increases the risk of

breakdown. However, the interaction term is also significant and negative, indicating that for higher levels

of coercive capaity, election have the opposite effect – they tend to stabilize the regime. Again, the results

must be explored graphically for various levels of coercive capacity while keeping all other variables at

realistic levels.

Table 4, The Effect of Coercive Capacity on the Relationship between Authoritarian Elections and Regime Stability

I II III IVBreakdown Breakdown Breakdown Breakdown


0.162(0.227)

1.665(1.283)

2.484*

(1.408)LnMilitary expenditure/cap

-0.064(0.056)

-0.050(0.057)

0.140(0.097)

Elections#Military expenditure

-0.203(0.173)

-0.404**

(0.191)

LnGDP/cap (lag 1) -0.280(0.199)

GDP growth (lag 1) -0.017*



(0.105)Post Cold War -0.053

(0.222)Constant -2.976***

(0.143)-2.502***

(0.444)-2.595***

(0.452)1.687

(1.473)lnsig2uConstant 0.242

(0.243)0.078

(0.267)0.070

(0.266)-0.052(0.371)

Observations 3998 3713 3713 2297Note: Logistic regressions, time series. Non-robust standard errors in parentheses. *** p > 0.01, ** p > 0.05, *p > 0.1. Explanatory variable is multi-party elections, moderating variable is coercive capacity (natural logarithm of annual military spendings per capita). Data on elections from Seeberg (2013), data on regime survival from CGV and Archigos.

18


Figure 2, Marginal Effect of multi-party elections on likelihood of regime breakdown for various levels of

coercive capacity

-10

-50

5

0 .5 11.522.533.544.555.566.577.588.599.51010.51111.51212.51313.51414.51515.51616.51717.51818.519Ln Military Expenditure/cap

Note: Marginal effects of multi-party elections on likelihood of breakdown with 95 percent confidence intervals. Ln military expenditure/capita varies from its minimum to its maximum for the sample. All other variables are held at their actual levels for each observation. Data on elections from Seeberg (2013), data on regime survival from CGV and Archigos.

As for the effect of administrative capacity, Figure 2 illustrates how elections have a positive but statistically

insignificant effect on the likelihood of breakdown where coercive capacity is low. But the dotted lines are

95 percent confidence intervals (and 2-sided). The positive effect of elections on the propensity for

breakdown is in fact significant at the 10 percent level for low levels of coercive capacity. For the 60

percent of regimes with the highest levels of coercive capacity, elections are significantly and increasingly

more likely to stabilize the regime as coercive capacity increases. Again, the confidence intervals and thus

the spectrum for the true effect of elections on regime breakdown, increases where state capacity is higher

as the analysis includes few cases with very high levels of state capacity. However, the effect is negative

and statistically different from zero throughout. Thus, coercive capacity affects the relationship between

19


elections and regime stability to such a degree that elections increase the likelihood of breakdown where

coercive capacity is low and decrease the same likelihood where coercive capacity is high.

Again, these results pertain to multi-party elections. Including into the group of electoral autocracies those

that do not have parties outside of the ruling front in the legislature, the effect of elections, coercive

capacity, and their interaction term are statistically insignificant.

To check the robustness of the results, the analyses have been carried out using data from the NELDA

database to track elections and data from the GWF dataset to account for regime survival. The robustness

checks are reported in Appendix 1. Initially, the interaction term is insignificant in both the analysis of

administrative and coercive capacity. But this is most likely due to the inclusion of extra cases from the

period 1946-1978 (that is, prior to the third wave of democratization) when using the GWF dataset.

Excluding these cases and only conducting the robustness checks on the same period as the original

analyses, the significant, negative effect of administrative capacity on the relationship between elections

and authoritarian regime stability is confirmed (see Appendix 1, Figure 1 and Table 1). For coercive

capacity, the overall interaction terms is still insignificant but turns out to be significant and in the expected

direction for part of the spectrum of coercive capacity when analyzing marginal effects graphically (see

Appendix 1, Table 2 and figure 2). (Further robustness checks with alternative variables for administrative

and coercive capacity will also be carried out) .

(Tests of the remaining hypotheses 3-4 on the mechanisms through which state capacity moderates the

effect of elections on regime stability have not been conducted yet)

Conclusion

We have witnessed a seemingly paradoxical effect of authoritarian elections: These formal institutions

seem to drive democratic change as well as serve as a handy stabilizing tool for autocrats across the globe.

This paper attempts to show that we have both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence to suggest

that state capacity helps solve this paradox. If we take into account the context in which authoritarian

elections are embedded, and here, state capacity is one important factor, the dual effect of authoritarian

elections is no longer paradoxical. In contexts of medium to high levels of administrative or coercive

capacity, holding elections under authoritarianism decreases the risk of regime breakdown. But where

administrative or coercive capacity is low, election can turn into risky business for an autocrat and increase

the likelihood of regime change. Exploring this matter further should help not only in making the debate on

20


the effect of authoritarian elections more fruitful but could also provide us with implications regarding

democracy promoting policies in electoral authoritarian regimes.

21


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Appendix 1

Table 1, The Effect of Administrative Capacity on the Relationship between Multi-Party Authoritarian Elections and Regime Breakdown, GWF and NELDA data, excluding years prior to 1978

IVgwf_fail


RPE (GDP) -0.243(0.290)

Elections#RPE -0.945*

(0.555)LnGDP/cap (lag 1) -0.092

(0.150)GDP growth (lag 1) -0.047***




(0.242)Constant 0.877

(1.364)lnsig2uConstant -1.533*

(0.911)Observations 1774Note: Logistic regressions, time series. Non-robust standard errors in parentheses. *** p > 0.01, ** p > 0.05, *p > 0.1. Explanatory variable is multi-party elections, moderating variable is administrative capacity (RPE). Data on elections from NELDA, data on regime survival from GWF.

25



administrative capacity, GWF and NELDA data, excluding years prior to 1978

-8-6

-4-2

02

0 .25 .5 .75 1 1.25 1.5 1.75 2 2.25 2.5 2.75 3 3.25 3.5 3.75 4 4.25 4.5RPE_gdp

Note: Marginal effects of multi-party elections on likelihood of breakdown with 95 percent confidence intervals. RPE (GDP) varies from its minimum to its maximum for the sample. All other variables are held at their actual levels for each observation. Data on elections from NELDA, data on regime survival from GWF.

26


Table 2, The Effect of Administrative Capacity on the Relationship between Multi-Party Authoritarian Elections and Regime Breakdown, GWF and NELDA data, excluding years prior to 1978

IVgwf_fail


LnMilitary expenditure/cap

0.035(0.102)

Elections#Military expenditure

-0.129(0.130)

LnGDP/cap (lag 1) -0.081(0.176)

GDP growth (lag 1) -0.051***




(0.240)Constant 0.824

(1.368)lnsig2uConstant -2.258

(1.688)Observations 1991Note: Logistic regressions, time series. Non-robust standard errors in parentheses. *** p > 0.01, ** p > 0.05, *p > 0.1. Explanatory variable is multi-party elections, moderating variable is administrative capacity (RPE). Data on elections from NELDA, data on regime survival from GWF.

27



coercive capacity, GWF and NELDA data, excluding years prior to 1978

-6-4

-20

2

0 .5 11.522.533.544.555.566.577.588.599.51010.51111.51212.51313.51414.51515.51616.51717.51818.519lnmilexcap100

Note: Marginal effects of multi-party elections on likelihood of breakdown with 95 percent confidence intervals. Ln military expenditure per capita varies from its minimum to its maximum for the sample. All other variables are held at their actual levels for each observation. Data on elections from NELDA, data on regime survival from GWF.

28

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