Autocracy
Autocracy (ISBN: 9789401577434) was written by Gordon Tullock in 1987.
Governments
There principally are only few types of government:
Autocracy is rule by one, whether hereditery (monarchs) or militaristic (dictators).
- These are the most common throughout history.
- Dictatorship is especially prevalent in the modern world and seems to be on the rise.
Ceremonial kingdoms (e.g. Sweden) are not autocracies in any way that is relevant to political analysis.
Totalitarian autocracies are those which attempt to directly manage society (e.g. command economy).
- Totalitarianism is rare and practically invented in WWII.
- Sometimes, but typically after a coup, autocratic power is placed in a council.
- These seem unstable. Almost always collapse into single autocrat.
Soviet Union after Lenin's death, Stalin's death, Khrushchev's overthrow
- Many South American revolutionary juntas.
- These seem unstable. Almost always collapse into single autocrat.
- These are the most common throughout history.
Electoral systems involve some institutional or normative sharing of power.
- Oligarchies, councils of nobles, nominal democracy with specific class exclusions (e.g. suffrage for property owners only; slavery) are all electoral systems with historical significance.
Democracy in the modern sense is rare and was practically invented in WWI.
Tullock wishes he could use the term "polyarchy" for this category but that's taken.
Feudal systems are a complex of generally autocratic subsystems.
These are extremely rare:
Europe definitely had a feudal era, but the Catholic Church complicates the political model.
Japan definitely had a feudal era.
Arguably the Rajput kingdoms?
Arguably Mycenean Greece?
Specifically China does not have a feudal era: Chou emperors were powerless figureheads and any supposed feudatories were in fact independent autocracies.
- All of these temporary feudal systems were surrounded by larger autocracies that arguably are more representative and relevant for political analysis.
- Intermediary governments:
- Not much to be said about the range from feudalism to autocracy, given the former's rarity.
- Much has already been said about the range from feudalism to democracy. Perhaps too much? Western bias?
The range from autocracy to democracy could be called limited autocracy.
Succession of Governments
Naming and/or recognizing a successor is dangerous. Coalitions can rapidly build around expected heirs. Naming an official heir grants them legitimacy.
- If a successor must be named, aim for someone weak.
This is true for democracy, too.
U.S. vice presidents tend to be token politicians without the ability to arrange a political coup.
- Prime Ministerial systems do not have fixed succession rules by design.
The intended succession is obvious for hereditary autocracies.
- This has costs. Many instances of counts, dukes, and kings being assassinated by their heir, or by an opportunistic supporter of the heir.
The Ottomans had a bizarre system to keep hereditary heirs weak.
At age 12, a shahzade was sent to a remote sanjak to develop experience. Upon the death of the padishah, the first shahzade to return to Istanbul would inherit, and the rest would usually be killed to prevent rival claimants.
During the reign of Murad IV, the kafe system was established. All claimants (including but not limited to sons) were confined to the palace and only allowed to interact with the imperial harem.
For the most part, if a dictator names a successor, they are too weak to develop a rival coalition.
Rhee had the even older Yi Si-yeong as vice president.
- Planned succession by council (i.e. making use of the tendency for an autocratic council to collapse into a single autocrat) seems rare but also seems to work well.
There are instances of actual succession in dictatorships, but they are the exceptions.
Dictators seem to have a goal in transitioning to hereditary succession. Even given the above observations, compared to dictatorships, monarchies have a better track record for peaceful successions.
Some dictators release power to a new democracy. This allows them to retire peacefully.
Survival of Autocratic Regimes
Autocrats face threats from...
- rival coalitions within their own governments
- foreign intervention
- popular uprisings
Coalitions in Autocracy
In an autocracy, the "status quo" coalition distributes benefits among itself and excludes all others. A "rival" coalition can be constructed by promising those same benefits among fewer people. Purge the senior leadership and move everyone up a rank.
Furthermore:
There is no benefit to joining a losing coalition.
There is no benefit to staying in a losing coalition.
A large coalition has dispersed (i.e. lesser) benefits, but ultimately if a coalition is so large that it certainly will win, there is every incentive to join and capture some benefit.
Any individual that wants to become the autocrat will defect eventually, because they know that autocrats rarely choose their successor.
Leading a winning rival coalition does not guarantee power, e.g. Ben Khedda.
Assuming an individual can choose (i.e. is informed of a conspiracy before a coup begins), what guides an individual's choice of which coalition to join?
- There must be a margin at which the outcome is certain, so individuals' choices become certain.
- Bargaining models lead us to expect benefits are highest at this margin.
- This space is where leaders win or lose the coalition.
- This space is where individuals can extract most benefits from leaders.
- Bargaining models lead us to expect benefits are highest at this margin.
- Conspiracies must communicate their bargaining position covertly, esp. with displays of military force.
Pivotal actors have insider knowledge of how many people are brought to the coalition on their back. (Subleaders?)
One major difference from pivotal politics model: hesitation and backtracking are not always "forgivable".
Foreign Intervention
Imperial wars offer many advantages and opportunities to autocrats.
- A deployed military is less able to launch a coup.
For all these reasons, autocrats have reason to expect foreign intervention from other autocrats.
There's also a significant history of foreign intervention by democracies and limited autocracies.
- European Imperialism
The Organization of African Unity was an attempt at cooperation between dictators. In promising to not invade each other, they could maintain weakened militaries.
- There were many breaches of this cooperation, suggesting that it failed.
- Morocco and the Western Sahara War
Popular Uprisings
As long as an autocrat is willing to commit mass murder, and has control enough over the military and police to execute mass murder, there is never a threat from popular uprisings.
Most examples of popular uprisings across history have actually been the swapping of autocrats.
- Most typically, they are nobles rallying around a rival claimant when there is no standing army to oppose them.
- An English history:
The War of the Roses was an extremely complicated conflict; if this was a popular uprising, it's not clear which of the many factions was the 'popular' one.
Charles II returned to England while Monck organized a mutiny. He had also negotiated for parliamentary support beforehand.
- [[UnitedKingdom/WilliamIII|William III] entered England with an overwhelming military force. He had also negotiated for parliamentary support beforehand.
- If England is exceptional at all, perhaps it's the uniquely strong link between parliament and the military officer corps. Monarchs cannot rely on military backing.
- Unique in that simultaneous service is usually unconstitutional in other countries.
- The England that emerged from these uprisings, and the European kingdoms that followed suit, were nominally constitutional monarchies. But nothing like the modern understanding of that term.
House of Lords and Parliament of Paris were not elected.
House of Commons elections were not free nor fair.
More generally, parliamentary votes were not democratic. George II bought votes with appointments.
Most revolutions have actually been a dispute between parts of the standing government.
- The American Revolution was fought between the elected colonial legislatures and the appointed royal governors. It certainly was popular, as the elected officials behind it continued to be elected, but it was an action by a standing government and its professional military rather than a mass uprising.
The French Revolution began with parliamentary stalemate between Louis XVI and the Parliament of Paris.
- Certainly evolved into an uprising sometime thereafter. Is this the ideal popular uprising?
The Russian Revolution was fought between the Duma and the tsar.
- The subsequent October Revolution was a coup by the military over the provisional government that preempted democratic elections.
- The Iranian Revolution seems to be popular in Iran (going by the questionably free and fair elections). But a contrary perspective: the shah had already been forced once to flee by the military. He purposefully kept the military week afterwards. T^he revolution was precipitated by the shah ending practices of torture by the secret police and ordering troops to not fire on mobs. The revolutionaries certainly reinstated these practices.
Generally, a principled revolution is a public good facing a tragedy of the commons.
- Individuals face personal risks for dispersed benefits.
- Autocrats often make brutal public displays of the punishments for captured revolutionaries.
- Much like the construction of coalitions described above, revolutionaries face a choice between conspiracy or betrayal.
- If revolutionaries are rewarded for betrayal, an incentive for false reports may be created.
- As long as coalition members are not accused, autocrats have few reasons to not murder everyone accused, even if they are false reports.
- If revolutionaries are rewarded for betrayal, an incentive for false reports may be created.
Balancing Threats
There is a need to balance the powers of the military and police force. They are necessary to suppress threats of foreign intervention and popular uprising, but they are also powerful rivals. How to mitigate this risk?
- Personal command of military forces.
- Almost all historical monarchs led their own armies.
- Efficacy is dependent on the autocrat's skill. Better to have a bad general in command that can be used as a scapegoat, than to accept blame for military failures.
- Not a cheap option. Large personal cost in terms of time and effort.
Rifaat al-Assad's Defense Companies were shrunk to match the size of Hafez al-Assad's Special Forces.
- Aforementioned advantages and opportunities of imperial wars.
- Place military command under a council.
- Leaders cannot develop loyalty from junior officers or the military forces at large.
- Distrust of other councilors, especially given termed appointments, make conspiracy difficult.
- Swapping and reassigning the officer corps between forces.
Mussolini's changing of the guard
- Mao established a rotating draft for the Korean War, blending the factional armies into a single, loyal army.
- Encourage more factionalism within the military.
Repeated reorganizations of the early Institutional Revolutionary Party.
- Purges.
- Stalin
Khrushchev and Zhukov
The Janissaries
Many autocrats have failed to manage this balance.
Castillo Armas, Park, and arguable the gang of four all were brought down by their personal guard.
Rhee built up the South Korean military to counter North Korean aggression. A military coup followed.
Hussein built a weak officer corp. The invasion of Iran fell apart disastrously.
Leaving aside that balance, the only threat is rival coalitions.
To prevent a coup, establish a system with escalation dominance: rivals will not conspire because they believe escalations make it less likely to succeed.
To stop coups in their infancy, encourage defection.
- Should be straightforward to ensure that pivotal actors have a safer and more profitable option in betraying a conspiracy.
- Rewarding betrayal is always a superior option to torturing rivals for information.
- This can create incentives for false reports of conspiracy.
- Unlike the case of revolutionaries, autocrats generally cannot murder all supposed rivals without dramatically destabilizing their government.
Once a coup has begun, leaders of both coalitions begin to act the same.
- Seize and redistribute benefits to reward supporters and buy late recruits.
- Control communication (e.g. censor speech and expression, outlaw assembly, seize media outlets) to...
- Interrupt recruitment to the rival coalition.
- Prevent rival coalition from making displays of their bargaining position.
- Virtue signal.
Policies of Autocratic Regimes
Autocrats behave like politicians, parties, etc., in electoral systems. They make promises and select policies that build a winning coalition, rather than making a coalition to push a policy.
That Lenin and Pinochet made rapid changes to policy rapidly says nothing about autocracy, or at least nothing more compared to saying that FDR and Lincoln made rapid changes to policy.
- Espoused ideology isn't always meaningful in guiding autocrats' policies.
Special interest groups, including corrupt ones, exist in all governments.
- In democracies, companies hire lobbyists and ply campaigns with soft money.
- In monarchies, guilds and companies pay openly for exclusive royal contracts.
- In dictatorships, companies are either overtly taxed or covertly bribe officials in exchange for favorable trade laws and regulations.
The alternative to policy-making as normal that autocrats seem to have is self aggrandizement.
- Buckingham Palace, versailles, and the Forbidden City
- An important variant: investing abroad to prepare for loss of power.
- Autocrats are are expected to be aware of the costs of any policy, with regard to their survivability.
- Rhee seems to gave taken very little for himself.
Tito did not hesitate to self aggrandize.