Legitimation, Co-optation, and Repression and the Survival of Electoral Autocracies

Conceptualizing ‘the three pillars of autocratic stability’, Gerschewski (2013) proposes legitimation, cooptation and repression as the fundamental principles of lasting autocratic rule. Recent studies put this so-called WZB model to an empirical test and probe the effects these three causal factors have on regime survival in light of autocratic elections (Lueders and Croissant 2014). Their finding that the WZB model has only limited explanatory power in competitive autocracies has sparked a broader debate about the empirical application of the model as such (Kailitz and Tanneberg 2015, Lueders and Croissant 2015). Our paper contributes to this debate. We argue that because the ‘the three pillars’ are hypothesized to have a joint effect on autocratic regime stability, empirical tests must look for such interactions. So far, all analyses have neglected this crucial aspect and, instead, treated these pillars in isolation from each other. We rectify this and empirically investigate which, if any, combination of the institutions of legitimation, cooptation, and repression are connected with longevity of autocratic regimes. Taking the data from Lueders and Croissant (2015) on elections in hegemonic and competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2009, we apply fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis in order to identify the configurations of autocratic institutions that lead to persistence and those which lead to non-persistence. Our initial analyses reveal that different combinations of legitimation, cooptation and repression can, indeed, explain why some autocrats (do not) loose elections in competitive authoritarian regimes. Work cited: Gerschewski, Johannes. 2013. “The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Cooptation in Autocratic Regimes.” Democratization (20/1): 13–38. Kailitz, Steffen, and Dag Tanneberg. 2015. “Legitimation, Kooptation, Repression und das Überleben von Autokratien „im Umfeld autokratischer Wahlen“. Eine Replik auf den Beitrag von Hans Lueders und Aurel Croissant.” Z Vgl Polit Wiss 9 (1-2): 73–82. Lueders, Hans, and Aurel Croissant. 2014. “Wahlen, Strategien autokratischer Herrschaftssicherung und das Überleben autokratischer Regierungen.” Z Vgl Polit Wiss. Lueders, Hans, and Aurel Croissant. 2015. “Eine Antwort auf die Replik von Kailitz und Tanneberg zu unserem Beitrag „Wahlen, Strategien autokratischer Herrschaftssicherung und das Überleben autokratischer Regierungen“.” Z Vgl Polit Wiss 9 (3): 183–93.