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vulnerability and compensation: constructing an index of co-optation in autocratic regimes

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Abstract

Co-optation is one of the most important concepts that have been discussed in recent years to explain the persistence of autocratic regimes. Institutions like parties, legislatures, and elections have all been shown to fulfil a co-optation function. However, a broader assessment of co-optation beyond an institutional focus has yet to be undertaken. This article addresses this lacuna and presents a comprehensive concept and operationalisation of co-optation in autocratic regimes. The article argues that co-optation is constituted by the compensation of the regime’s vulnerability to threats posed by powerful societal pressure groups. The article highlights how compensation of vulnerability can be achieved through institutional inclusion or material benefits, and how this has to be tailored to the respective pressure group’s requirements. I collect twenty-six indicators of vulnerability and compensation related to six societal pressure groups and aggregate them into an index of co-optation that reflects the structure of the theoretical concept. The index is evaluated by examining distributions within and across categories of autocratic legislatures, and by testing its effect on autocratic regime breakdown in a set of Cox survival models.

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Notes

  1. Own translation from German.

  2. See also Gandhi and Przeworski (2007) for a similar idea: They derive appropriate level of institutionalisation (i.e., compensation) from the socio-economic and political conditions of a country (i.e., vulnerability).

  3. Note that autocratic rulers have a variety of means at their disposal to avert threats from pressure groups. Elsewhere, I have argued with my colleagues that autocratic rule rests on three pillars: Legitimation, co-optation, and repression (Gerschewski et al, 2012; see also Gerschewski, 2013). Both legitimation and repression could be understood as an alternative means of compensating vulnerability; however, these instruments of autocratic stabilisation are beyond the scope of this article.

  4. I deviate from Cheibub et al’s (2010) coding in two respects: First I recode observations the authors coded autocratic solely due to the lack of government turnover (Cheibub et al, 2010: 69–71) democratic if they are coded as having competitive elections on Polity IV’s executive recruitment competitiveness component variable (Marshall et al, 2013: 21–22). Second, I exclude observations that are coded as cases of state failure, foreign occupation, or interim arrangements according to Polity IV’s standard authority codes (Marshall et al, 2013: 19–20).

  5. Note, however, that the effect disappears when controlled for legitimation and repression, two instruments of autocratic power maintenance I elsewhere examine jointly with co-optation as the three pillars of autocratic rule (Merkel et al, 2015).

  6. For the results of the established proportionality test developed by Grambsch and Therneau (1994) see the online appendix available at (www.palgrave-journals.com/eps).

  7. Furthermore, none of the indices of group-specific co-optation of the military, labour, capital, parties, ethnic groups, and landlords exerts a significant effect on breakdown probability. For reasons of space I present these findings in an online appendix available at (www.palgrave-journals.com/eps).

  8. However, note that the count variable of missing values is marginally significant and negatively associated with the likelihood of autocratic breakdown. Regimes for which less data are available are more stable. This association might well point to a systematic bias in the data generation process: Autocratic regimes for which less data are available might share some characteristics – like a more rigid information policy – that is in part responsible for their enhanced prospects of survival. For a more detailed illustration of the structure of missing values in the indicators of group-specific vulnerability and compensation, see the online appendix available at (www.palgrave-journals.com/eps).

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Acknowledgements

This article springs from the research project Critical Junctures and the Survival of Dictatorships conducted between 2011 and 2014 at the Berlin Social Science Center (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, WZB) and funded by the German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) in which I had the pleasure of collaborating with Wolfgang Merkel, Christoph Stefes, Johannes Gerschewski, and Dag Tanneberg. Many of the ideas presented in this article are our joint intellectual property. I thank two anonymous reviewers, Julian Brückner, Ferdinand Eibl, Gero Erdmann, Bert Hoffmann, Viola Lucas, Thomas Richter, Andreas Schedler, Piero Stanig, and Milan Svolik, as well as the participants of a panel at the IPSA 2012 World Congress of Political Science in Madrid for their comments on earlier versions, as well as Laura Appeltshauser, Simon Haux, Bettine Josties, Laura Lambert, Marcus Spittler, and Wardeh Tamim for their research assistance.

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  1. Department of War Studies, King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK

    alexander schmotz

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schmotz, a. vulnerability and compensation: constructing an index of co-optation in autocratic regimes. Eur Polit Sci 14, 439–457 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2015.62

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