Bernhard Michael, B Edgell Amanda, Lindberg Staffan I
Department of Political Science University of Florida USA.
V-Dem Institute, Department of Political Science Gothenburg University Sweden.
Eur J Polit Res. 2020 May;59(2):465-487. doi: 10.1111/1475-6765.12355. Epub 2019 Sep 19.
Authoritarian incumbents routinely use democratic emulation as a strategy to extend their tenure in power. Yet, there is also evidence that multiparty competition makes electoral authoritarianism more vulnerable to failure. Proceeding from the assumption that the outcomes of authoritarian electoral openings are inherently uncertain, it is argued in this article that the institutionalisation of elections determines whether electoral authoritarianism promotes stability or vulnerability. By 'institutionalisation', it is meant the ability of authoritarian regimes to reduce uncertainty over outcomes as they regularly hold multiparty elections. Using discrete-time event-history models for competing risks, the effects of sequences of multiparty elections on patterns of regime survival and failure in 262 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010 are assessed, conditioned on their degree of competitiveness. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of electoral uncertainty enhances authoritarian regime survival. However, for competitive electoral authoritarian regimes this entails substantial risk. The first three elections substantially increase the probability of democratisation, with the danger subsequently diminishing. This suggests that convoking multiparty competition is a risky game with potentially high rewards for autocrats who manage to institutionalise elections. Yet, only a small number of authoritarian regimes survive as competitive beyond the first few elections, suggesting that truly competitive authoritarianism is hard to institutionalise. The study thus finds that the question of whether elections are dangerous or stabilising for authoritarianism is dependent on differences between the ability of competitive and hegemonic forms of electoral authoritarianism to reduce electoral uncertainty.
威权在位者经常将民主效仿作为延长其执政任期的一种策略。然而，也有证据表明多党竞争使选举威权主义更容易走向失败。基于威权选举开放的结果本质上具有不确定性这一假设，本文认为选举的制度化决定了选举威权主义是促进稳定还是导致脆弱性。这里所说的“制度化”是指威权政权在定期举行多党选举时降低结果不确定性的能力。运用竞争风险的离散时间事件史模型，评估了1946年至2010年期间262个威权政权中多党选举序列对政权生存和失败模式的影响，并以其竞争程度为条件。研究结果表明，选举不确定性的制度化提高了威权政权的生存率。然而，对于竞争性选举威权政权来说，这意味着巨大的风险。头三次选举大幅增加了民主化的可能性，随后这种危险逐渐减少。这表明，召集多党竞争是一场风险很大的博弈，对于成功将选举制度化的独裁者来说可能会有高额回报。然而，只有少数威权政权在头几次选举之后仍保持竞争性，这表明真正的竞争性威权主义很难制度化。因此，该研究发现，选举对威权主义来说是危险还是稳定，取决于竞争性选举威权主义和霸权性选举威权主义在降低选举不确定性能力上的差异。
