Democracy Prevention: The International Repertoire of Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Despite revived scholarly interest in the politics of authoritarian rule, the effects international dynamics on its persistence remain both under-theorized and under-investigated empirically. Yet international factors are of outmost importance for the persistence of authoritarian regimes: (1) since the end of the Cold War, Western-led democracy promotion initiatives became more insistent and widespread, reinforced by globalization and transnationalization. While effective in some settings (such as the enlarged EU) these changes have been perceived as destabilizing elsewhere, and the resulting backlash has generated a set of democracy prevention strategies that require systematic scholarly examination. (2) There is increasing evidence of cooperation between authoritarian regimes. To explore these international dimensions of authoritarian rule and the effects on its persistence, the panel will discuss authoritarian regimes’ various democracy prevention strategies. It presents papers which will contribute to a European Journal of Political Research’s (EJPR) special issue on “Democracy Prevention” (co-edited by Christian von Soest and Laurence Whitehead). The papers were first presented at the ECPR Workshop “International Dimensions of Authoritarian Rule” at the 2013 Joint Sessions in Mainz and/or are part of the international network project “International Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes” (IDCAR), funded by the German Leibniz Association’s Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation.