When Hard Repression Backfires. On the Incomplementarity of Hard Repression and Performance Legitimation in Autocratic Settings

Do certain factors go together to produce a stable autocratic polity? Are there certain configurations that are more prone to stable autocracies than others? More concretely, are autocrats free to choose whatever instrument they like – or would this backfire in the long run? Based on a novel dataset that covers the autocratic experience of all East Asian countries since 1945, I argue that autocracies are more stable than others when they follow either an over- or a de-politicizing strategy. While the former relies on ideational legitimation that also justifies the usage of hard repression, the latter is a conjunction of performance legitimation and soft repression. It is argued that mixing these pairs is detrimental for autocratic regimes. It is shown that autocracies’ attempts to justify their rule via economic and social performance and exerting widespread violations of personal integrity rights are incompatible.