Personalisation and regime legitimacy in autocracies

Abstract

Personalisation understood as either the increased focus on more personalised form political decision-making among key elites or the stronger public visibility of individual political leaders at home and abroad has not only been a central feature of autocracies in modern times. In recent years, personalisation has been associated with deepening autocratisation around the world. Given these trends, it is pertinent to examine how personalisation occurs and how it contributes to regime legitimacy. How do personality cults surrounding leaders contribute to regime legitimacy? What are the conditions that lead to personalisation but also de-personalisation? How do leaders credibly commit to sharing power with the ruling elites while personalising power? This panel brings together works that uses cases from different regions – Central Asia, North Korea, Turkey, and Jordan as well as various aspects of personalisaton – personality cult, charisma, and institutions - to explore the interaction between personalisation and regime legitimacy.

Title	Details
De-personalisation trends in Central Asia	View Paper Details
Personnel Management as a Credible Commitment Mechanism: Evidence from North Korea	View Paper Details
Charisma as a Legitimation Strategy: Emotion, Collective Memory, and Ritual in Erdogan’s Turkey	View Paper Details
Personality Cult Abroad? Making Sense of Saddam Hussein imagery in authoritarian-monarchical Jordan	View Paper Details
Personnel, Institutions, and Power: Revisiting the Concept of Political Personalization	View Paper Details