Voting in a Hybrid Regime
Title | Voting in a Hybrid Regime PDF eBook |
Author | Ali Riaz |
Publisher | Springer |
Pages | 109 |
Release | 2019-06-22 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 9811379564 |
This Pivot explores the mechanism of election manipulation in ostensibly democratic but essentially authoritarian systems called the hybrid regime, using the 2018 parliamentary elections in Bangladesh as an example. The 2018 election has delivered an unprecedented victory to the incumbent Bangladesh Awami League. Elections pose serious dilemmas for the leaders of hybrid regimes. While contested elections bolster their claims of democracy and augment their legitimacy, they can also threaten the status quo. Faced with the challenge, the incumbents tend to hold stage-managed elections. This book offers incisive examination of Bangladesh’s political environment, rigorous scrutiny of the roles of state institutions including the law enforcing agencies, and meticulous analysis of election results. It also fills in a gap in the extant hybrid regime literature which seldom explores the strategies of engineered elections.
Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability
Title | Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability PDF eBook |
Author | Regina Smyth |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 277 |
Release | 2020-10-29 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1108841201 |
This comprehensive study of Russian electoral politics shows the vulnerability of Putin's regime as it navigates the risks of voter manipulation.
Competitive Authoritarianism
Title | Competitive Authoritarianism PDF eBook |
Author | Steven Levitsky |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | |
Release | 2010-08-16 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 1139491482 |
Based on a detailed study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008. It finds that where social, economic, and technocratic ties to the West were extensive, as in Eastern Europe and the Americas, the external cost of abuse led incumbents to cede power rather than crack down, which led to democratization. Where ties to the West were limited, external democratizing pressure was weaker and countries rarely democratized. In these cases, regime outcomes hinged on the character of state and ruling party organizations. Where incumbents possessed developed and cohesive coercive party structures, they could thwart opposition challenges, and competitive authoritarian regimes survived; where incumbents lacked such organizational tools, regimes were unstable but rarely democratized.
How to Rig an Election
Title | How to Rig an Election PDF eBook |
Author | Nic Cheeseman |
Publisher | Yale University Press |
Pages | 343 |
Release | 2024-07-23 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 0300280831 |
An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.
Understanding Elections in "hybrid" Regimes
Title | Understanding Elections in "hybrid" Regimes PDF eBook |
Author | Askat Dukenbaev |
Publisher | |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2017 |
Genre | Asia, Central |
ISBN |
Elections under non-democratic regimes have been studied so far mostly from an elite point of view, focusing on how elections support a regime's stability and provide opportunities for its opposition. Consequently, the role of ordinary voters in elections in non-democratic countries has thus far been neglected on the grounds that these elections are meaningless to ordinary voters due to the absence of a real choice, as well as voters' general lack of efficacy. Despite this claim, this dissertation argues that elections and voters in "hybrid" regimes need to be studied independently, as different from the other non-democratic political systems. The 25-year period of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, as discussed in this research, presents ample and important experience to make such a case. Thus, based on the analysis of the existing studies and literature, this dissertation begins by asking, "Why do voters keep voting in 'hybrid' regimes when they know the regime is non-democratic and they possess high levels of mistrust in the elections?" Are there any other reasons for them to vote beyond compulsions of state-run mobilization, coercion or manipulation? How do elections in the "hybrid" regimes differ from elections in strictly authoritarian ones? Based on analysis of election results and voter-level data in the case of Kyrgyzstan, this dissertation argues that elections in "hybrid" regimes do have important implications and meanings both for the opposition and for ordinary voters. Kyrgyzstan's example confirms Levitsky & Way's (2010) assertion that elections in such regimes polarize a ruling elite and help the opposition. But this dissertation goes on to discern how elections also affect voters. In particular, the findings of this research demonstrate that individual voter turnout is positively influenced by such objective sociodemographic factors as age, marital status, ethnicity, religion, education, and income as well as by attitudes towards a country's direction, state of democracy, electoral efficacy, political affiliation, and interest in politics. On the subjective level, most Kyrgyzstanis consider the "right to choose" to be the most important reason for voting, but they likewise refer to voting as an important act of "civic duty" and "contribution for the better future of the country." The voters of Kyrgyzstan enjoy having choice and opportunities for contribution to the country's development provided by the elections, even under the uncertain conditions of a "hybrid" regime. The findings of this dissertation, generalized to other Central Asian states, offer a new perspective in understanding of voters' behavior in the post-Soviet region and suggest important implications for the study of prospects of democratization in the other "hybrid" regimes in the Central Asian region and beyond. Regular elections provide opportunities not only for the government and its opposition, but also for ordinary voters who view elections not only as a fulfillment of their civic duty, but also as a meaningful contribution to the country's overall well-being, even though they know they cannot trust their government. In addition, elections play an important role in the political socialization and learning process, which has longer-term implications for the regime: should the government ever arrive at a breaking point, voters will be there to support the change and legitimize a new political order, as happened in the Soviet Union during Gorbachev's perestroika and in Kyrgyzstan since independence and onward.
Electoral Authoritarianism
Title | Electoral Authoritarianism PDF eBook |
Author | Andreas Schedler |
Publisher | L. Rienner Publishers |
Pages | 284 |
Release | 2006 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN |
Today, electoral authoritarianism represents the most common form of political regime in the developing world - and the one we know least about. Filling in the lacuna, this book presents cutting-edge research on the internal dynamics of electoral authoritarian regimes.
How Autocrats Compete
Title | How Autocrats Compete PDF eBook |
Author | Yonatan L. Morse |
Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
Pages | 359 |
Release | 2019 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 1108474764 |
Explains how autocrats compete in unfair elections in Africa and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of modern authoritarianism.