Competitive Authoritarianism is Serious Business

“The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism” by Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way provides insight into a type of nondemocratic and non-authoritarian regime into which post-Cold War nations degenerated: Competitive Authoritarianism. This system results when some form of existing democratic institutions within a state provide the principal means for obtaining political power, but autocratic incumbents undermine the rules of these institutions just enough to maintain power unfairly. Basically it is the difference between the substantive and procedural elements of pluralist (in this case, democratic) regimes which King mentioned in lecture. Procedurally, post-Cold War countries like Russia, Ukraine, and Serbia (just a few examples of many provided in the article) appear to possess legitimate democratic elections, but substantively, they typically take on more authoritarian practices. But once one digs deeper into the underlying processes involved in these “democratic” elections, one finds the autocratic incumbents engaging in actions of questionable legality (bribes, threats, and other co-optation devices) to suppress potential opposition parties. Major fraud, such as stacking elections in one’s party’s favor, remains rare among incumbents due to the risks involved, including being removed from office.

“Competitive Authoritarianism (CA)” is a humorously ironic title. Levitsky and Way propose that parties within weak and fragmented states did not possess the resources or ability to successfully repress all opposition to form a purely authoritarian regime. Due to pressures from the victorious, democratic West, they adopted a regime type that contained elements of both democracy and authoritarianism in which parties compete for power to use to repress potential opposing parties to the best of their abilities.

How long does this cycle continue? Is Competitive Authoritarianism a permanent regime type, or will it eventually transition into pure authoritarianism or democracy? For CA countries like those in Africa, the prospects for emerging from the cycle remain grim. Lijphart and Reilly provide an argument for the necessity of a PR type of pluralist system in countries as deeply divided as these. Theirs is a reasonable point; a PR system would create a necessity for balance between groups who are in stark opposition to each under the CA system. Despite this, parties in power enjoy power and see no need for forfeiting it by introducing a new, more representative regime type. What’s more, if the current party in power in a given CA country fails due to a scandal or some other factor, an opposition party would rise to take the reigns. Therefore it’s reasonable to conclude that Competitive Authoritarianism is not merely a stage but a very real regime type in and of itself.