Levitsky and Way 2002

Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2002. "The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism". Journal of Democracy. 13 (2): 51-65.

• During 1990s, many countries combined democratic rules with authoritarian governance (51)
• Analyses frequently treated hybrid regimes as in the middle of transitioning, when in fact many of them had stopped and were stable in the nexus between authoritarianism and democracy (51-52)
• “In competitive authoritarian regimes, formal democratic institutions are widely viewed as the principal means of obtaining and exercising political authority.” (52)
• “Incumbents violate those rules so often and to such an extent, however, that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy.”
• Modern democratic regimes meet four criteria (53)
• executives and legislatures are chosen through open, free, fair elections
• virtually all adults are allowed to vote
• political rights and civil liberties are protected
• elected authorities possess the rel authority to govern, are not puppets of the military, Church, etc
• in competitive authoritarianism these rules are violated enough to make the playing field biased in favor of incumbents
• more likely to use bribery, cooptation, and subtle forms of persecution
• even though democratic institutions may be flawed, incumbents have to take them seriously (54)
• Four arenas of democratic contestation: elections, legislature, judiciary, the media
• electoral process is usually bitterly fought (55)
• could be characterized by large abuses of power, biased media coverage
• BUT ELECTIONS MUST HAPPEN
• and they are generally free of massive fraud
• incumbents may attempt to, or successfully manipulate election results, this can also result in regime-ending scandal
• legislature tends to be relatively weak, but can be focal points for opposition activity (55-56)
• circumventing or shutting down the legislature can be s=costly to a regime (56)
• legislature can allow opposition groups to meet, join up, oppose regime in concertation
• judicial arena
• regimes can attempt to control judiciary through impeachments, etc.
• but judicial independence will allow some maverick judges an opening
• courts can protect media and opposition figures from state persecution (57)
• the media
• journalists often emerge as important opposition leaders, despite being threatened and/or attacked by regime
• independent media can be a watchdog
• executives in competitive authoritarian regimes often seek to suppress independent media through subtle mechanisms, like selective allocation of state advertising, bribery, and manipulation of taxes (58)
• but any attempt to repress media can be costly
• constant tension: repression could be costly, but incumbents can lose power if challenges go undealt with (59)
• SUCCESSION IS NOT DEMOCRATIZATION
• removal of a regime creates opportunity for democratization, but can also allow others to simply step in and take over authoritarian system
• Linkages to the west seem to make retrenchment of authoritarian retrenchment difficult (6)
• MY CRITIQUE: includes Mexico as an example of democratization, so not a fine-grained look at which countries actually have really democratized
• Paths to competitive authoritarianism
• decay of an authoritarian regime
• collapse of authoritarian regime, but weak civil society cannot get to full democratization
• decay of democracy (61)
• longstanding crises create situation that allow for executive to take control, but not entirely sweep away old system
• Since fall of USSR, however, there is now little legitimacy for authoritarian regimes...peripheral states expected to adopt democratic institutions in order to keep up good relationship with funding governments in the West (61-62)
• MY CRITIQUE: Terrorism and security precautions now becoming the new, hip excuse for US to support authoritarian regimes