Table Of ContentCHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY
IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Series Editor: Hanspeter Kriesi
AUTOCRATIZATION
IN POST-COLD
WAR POLITICAL
REGIMES
Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century
Series Editor
Hanspeter Kriesi
Department of Political & Social Science
European University Institute
Fiesole, Florence, Italy
Democracy faces substantial challenges as we move into the 21st
Century. The West faces malaise; multi-level governance structures
pose democratic challenges; and the path of democratization rarely runs
smoothly. This series examines democracy across the full range of these
contemporary conditions. It publishes innovative research on estab-
lished democracies, democratizing polities and democracy in multi-level
governance structures. The series seeks to break down artificial divisions
between different disciplines, by simultaneously drawing on political
communication, comparative politics, international relations, political
theory, and political economy.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14889
Andrea Cassani · Luca Tomini
Autocratization
in post-Cold War
Political Regimes
Andrea Cassani Luca Tomini
Department of Social and Political Department of Political Sciences
Sciences Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
Università degli Studi di Milano Brussels, Belgium
Milan, Italy
Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century
ISBN 978-3-030-03124-4 ISBN 978-3-030-03125-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03125-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959247
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P
reface
This book deals with post-Cold War processes of autocratization.
Autocratization is the opposite of democratization, that is, a process of
regime change towards autocracy. While these political transformations
are growing in number and frequency, autocratization remains a rela-
tively understudied phenomenon, especially its most recent manifesta-
tions. Moreover, discussions on the topic are often fraught with distress,
especially considering that expectations for the future of democracy and
political freedom in the world ran high in the early 1990s, after the col-
lapse of the Soviet Union. With no ambition to depict future global sce-
narios, we try to analyse the recent episodes of autocratization occurred
all over the world with rigour. The overall message of the book is that,
even if an outright worldwide wave of autocratization is probably not
underway thus far, the phenomenon exists, is empirically relevant, and
for these reasons deserves attention.
We aspire to speak to a heterogeneous audience that includes the
broader community of scholars, analysts, observers, journalists, IOs’
and NGOs’ practitioners interested in political development and regime
change in different geographical areas. More specifically, we aim to
advance the study of post-Cold War processes of autocratization from
both a conceptual and empirical viewpoint, focusing on questions that
have thus far received limited attention. What is autocratization? What
distinct forms can it take? What are the countries affected? How does
regime change towards autocracy happen? What are the prevailing pat-
terns of post-Cold War autocratization? We address these questions
v
vi PREFACE
relying on a mix of research techniques that include descriptive statistical
analysis, Qualitative Comparative Analysis and case study.
This monograph differs from other publications that similarly deal
with autocratization, but study cases occurred in the interwar and post-
World War II periods of the twentieth century. With a focus on the
post-Cold War era, this book examines forms of autocratization that dif-
fer even considerably from the events occurred in the past. Moreover,
contrary to other recent publications on the topic, the analysis presented
in this book is not limited to a single geographical area. We follow a
Comparative Area Studies approach and treat cases from the former
Soviet Union, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, among oth-
ers. The focus of this book on the modes of autocratization—that is,
how autocratization happens—represents a further point of interest, in a
literature mainly committed to study the determinants of these processes
of regime change. Finally, our research also adds to the broader debate
on authoritarian politics, and shifts scholars’ attention from the study of
how contemporary authoritarian regimes survive to the analysis of how
contemporary regimes become authoritarian, or more authoritarian.
This monograph is part of a broader research project that has started
in late 2015, following a panel organized at the Annual Conference of
the Società Italiana di Scienza Politica (SISP, Italian Society of Political
Science). During the past two and a half years, we have organized and
participated in several panels on autocracy and autocratization in other
national and international Political Science conferences, and we have
engaged in several collaborative projects, benefitting from the opportu-
nity to share ideas and findings with many colleagues. We would like to
express our gratitude to all of them.
Milan, Italy Andrea Cassani
Brussels, Belgium Luca Tomini
P A -c
raise for utocrAtizAtion in post old
W p r
Ar oliticAl egimes
“When democratization left room to processes of autocratization, no
author was ready to develop a new conceptual framework for analysing
those processes, to single out the historical and geographical trends and
to investigate the modalities of change. In this much welcome book the
authors do that for the first time with insight and depth, making this
book a compulsory careful reading for every comparatist.”
—L. Morlino, Professor of Political Science, LUISS G. Carli,
Rome, Italy
Former President, International Political Science Association (IPSA)
vii
c
ontents
1 Introduction: From Democratization to Autocratization 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 The World of Autocratization Studies 3
1.3 Defining Autocratization, Mapping the Phenomenon,
Studying Its Modes 6
1.4 Plan of the Book 7
References 10
2 What Autocratization Is 15
2.1 Introduction 16
2.2 Conceptual Disagreement in the Debate on Regime
Change Opposite to Democratization 17
2.3 Autocratization as an Analytical Approach 19
2.4 Autocratization and Its Different Forms 21
2.5 A Typology of Autocratization 25
2.6 What Autocratization Is Not (and a Few
Controversial Cases) 27
2.7 Concluding Remarks 30
References 31
3 Trends of post-Cold War Autocratization 37
3.1 Introduction 38
3.2 Measuring Autocratization 39
ix
x CONTENTS
3.3 Trends of Autocratization, 1990–2015 43
3.4 Concluding Remarks 49
References 56
4 Modes of post-Cold War Autocratization 57
4.1 Introduction 57
4.2 What We Know About How Autocratization Happens 58
4.3 A New Classification of Autocratization Modes 60
4.4 Modes of Autocratization, 1990–2015 62
4.5 Matching Modes and Forms Autocratization:
A Qualitative Comparative Analysis 67
4.5.1 From Liberal Democracy to Defective Democracy 69
4.5.2 From Defective Democracy to Electoral Autocracy 71
4.5.3 From Defective Democracy to Closed Autocracy 73
4.5.4 From Electoral Autocracy to Closed Autocracy 75
4.6 Concluding Remarks 77
References 91
5 Cases of post-Cold War Autocratization 95
5.1 Introduction 95
5.2 Ecuador, 2006: From Liberal Democracy to Defective
Democracy 97
5.2.1 Point of Departure: Ecuador’s Weak Liberal
Democracy 98
5.2.2 Autocratization in Ecuador 99
5.2.3 Point of Arrival: Defective Democracy in Ecuador 101
5.3 Moldova, 2001: From Defective Democracy to Electoral
Autocracy 103
5.3.1 Point of Departure: Moldova’s Defective
Democracy 104
5.3.2 Autocratization in Moldova 106
5.3.3 Point of Arrival: Electoral Authoritarianism
in Moldova 109
5.4 Thailand, 2006 and 2014: From Defective Democracy
to Closed Autocracy 113
5.4.1 Point of Departure: Thailand’s Defective
Democracy 114
5.4.2 Autocratization in Thailand 114
