Autocracies with Adjectives: We need better Typologies of Authoritarian Regimes

The study of regime types, Hager Ali argues, is imbalanced. Theories and concepts of democracy have received attention for decades. But amid the resurgence of autocracies, scholars of authoritarianism still do not have the luxury of nuanced typologies to dissect the broad spectrum of non-democratic regimes. In this series, edited by Hager Ali, authors cover a wide range of institutions, cases, and issues in a written exchange to advance to study of authoritarianism.

When democracies’ most basic features lose their distinctive edge, differentiating regime types becomes a problem for scholars of democracy and autocracy alike. Hager Ali aims to redraw demarcations between regimes across the political spectrum. To do so, she argues that civilian control over militaries is just as fundamental as suffrage

ECPR General Conference 2022, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck Organisers: European Consortium for Political Research Hager Ali (Speaker)

A blog article’s accessible shorter format, potential reach beyond academia, and swift turnaround time makes blogging an important part of a contemporary scholar’s research profile. You will hear from our editors, along with recurrent contributors Hager Ali and Ruairidh Brown, about what it takes to craft a great submission.

Dresden Forum for International Politics 2024, Dresden Organisers: Development and Peace Foundation Hager Ali (Speaker)

This panel explores conflict resolution in a multipolar world. GIGA Researcher Hager Ali gave a talk about how the rise of authoritarian governance and military coups impacts peace negotiations in intra-state conflicts.

ECPR General Conference 2024, University College Dublin, Dublin Hager Ali (Organiser)

This section aims to provide a platform for researchers working on hybrid regimes and authoritarianism at ECPR’s general conference. This section welcomes a wide variety of papers and panels that share their focus on hard authoritarian regimes and mixed regime types.

ECPR Joint Sessions 2024, Leuphana University, Lüneburg Hager Ali (Organiser)

This workshop focuses on the politics, practices, and institutions of contemporary hybrid and hard authoritarian regimes.

ECPR General Conference 2023, Charles University, Prague Organisers: European Consortium for Political Research Hager Ali (Speaker)

Hager Ali presents her paper "Autocracies with Adjectives: The Need for Better Classifications of Autocratic Regimes" at the ECPR General Conference 2023 in Prague. The presentation is part of the panel "Classifying Contemporary Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes: Old Questions, New Data, and Salvaged Concepts", co-chaired by her.

Party-based regimes are the most durable autocracies. Although there exist stronger and weaker ruling parties depending on the elite-leader relationship, the attitude of party-based regimes towards citizens also matters to their nature. Fabio Angiolillo argues that ruling parties’ recruitment strategies in autocracies can facilitate a much deeper understanding of party-based autocracies.

ECPR General Conference 2023, Charles University, Prague Organisers: European Consortium for Political Research Hager Ali (Chair)

Panel Organisation and Co-Chair for the Panel "Classifying Contemporary Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes: Old Questions, New Data, and Salvaged Concepts" in Section 2 "Advancements and Innovations in Research Design and Methods: New Conditions or New Challenges?"

Resistance to autocratisation is not limited to democracies. In fact, Luca Tomini, Suzan Gibril, and Venelin Bochev demonstrate that the main actors resisting autocratisation and their strategies vary across regime types.

Observers were quick to call the events on 8 January in Brazil a coup attempt. But Jonathan Powell and Salah Ben Hammou caution against conflating coup advocacy with coup attempts. Authoritarianism scholars should also note that usage of the term 'coup' has varied through history

We need to move on from dichotomising regimes into democracy and not-democracy, and study authoritarian systems at face value. As Hager Ali argues, we need to develop a language capable of categorising and comparing individual authoritarian practices.

The fashion for seeing all authoritarian regimes through the lens of ‘democratic backsliding’ or ‘autocratisation’ has overshadowed our understanding of classic authoritarians' strategies. Thareerat Laohabut focuses on Thailand to illustrate this problem.

In line with Hager Ali’s introduction to this series, it is clear that we do not have the full range of 'nuanced typologies [needed] to dissect the broad spectrum of non-democratic regimes'. Looking systematically at the structural variation formatting institutions under authoritarianism complicates our analysis.

In her opening blog in this series on autocracies with adjectives, Hager Ali writes that 'every democratic institution has an autocratic equivalent'. Following Ali’s suggestion to see autocracy in democracy’s mirror, Matthijs Bogaards critically examines the notion of 'defective autocracy'.

Since the 1980s, electoral autocracy has been considered the most common form of dictatorship. Yet, as Adrián del Río shows, little is known about what this regime is and how we can recognise it. In fact, there is only a 34% probability that famous datasets agree on identifying such a regime. As Hager Ali's introduction to this series argues, such a lack of precision threatens our capacity to test hypotheses, generalise findings and propose policies.

Hager Ali recently called for greater analytical precision in the study of authoritarian regimes. The study of military regimes – particularly those with a significant civilian presence – is one area of research in need of such nuance.

Hager Ali has argued that we urgently need a deeper understanding of evolving authoritarian regimes. This is especially the case in relation to the impact of the social media revolution on these regimes – and how regimes exploit that revolution for their own ends.

Hager Ali launched this series by pointing out that 'we lack the terminology to do anything beyond counting non-democracies.' Yet Edward Goldring argues that we sometimes struggle to accurately do that. This raises troubling questions for analyses of non-democracies, and emphasises the importance of studying history

Innovative legitimation practices are a key reason why new autocracies consolidated during the recent authoritarian surge. Hager Ali stresses the importance of studying autocratic regimes, because it allows us to dissect their broad spectrum. Studying autocratic legitimacy, however, will enhance our understanding of how and why people (un-)willingly live under autocratic rule.

Many autocracies emerge through military coups, but studies of hybrid regimes and electoral autocracies largely disregard the role of militaries in their trajectory. Sebastian Elischer shows how armies consolidate their power when they take control, and suggests a further research agenda.

Political purges are dramatic, yet common, events in dictatorships. Sometimes bloody and very consequential. By dissecting the sequence of decisions behind these events, Austin S. Matthews shows that the way a dictator goes about a purge can determine outcomes like regime survival and risk of a coup.

Legislatures are at the centre of democratic politics, but also take on crucial roles in authoritarian regimes. Felix Wiebrecht illustrates how a multidimensional approach helps us to understand their role in dictatorships and paves the way for more research.

Hager Ali notes that we need better typologies of authoritarian regimes. The same applies to their legislatures. They can differ from each other as much as from their democratic counterparts.

Hager Ali proposes a better scholastic categorisation of authoritarianism. Without differentiating between authoritarianisms, some avenues used by autocrats to consolidate their power, like going through courts, escape detection. 

Hager Ali and Catherine Owen argue in their contributions to this series, there are multiple types of authoritarian regime and autocratic public policy. Thus, we cannot always expect the implementation of an authoritarian regime to have the same effect on policy.

Hager Ali opened this Autocracies with Adjectives series by asserting that political science structurally fails to treat autocracies with the same diligence it uses for democracies. She argues in particular that the discipline is even missing accurate data and terms to categorise autocracies adequately. The Arab Gulf countries are an excellent example.

Organiser: Freedom House Hager Ali (Speaker)

Invited talk with Hager Ali on the Blog-Series "Autocracies with Adjectives", the most recent Nations in Transit-Report, and Hybrid Regimes.

The study of regime types, Hager Ali argues, is imbalanced. Theories and concepts of democracy have received attention for decades. But amid the resurgence of autocracies, scholars of authoritarianism still do not have the luxury of nuanced typologies to dissect the broad spectrum of non-democratic regimes. In this series, edited by Hager Ali, authors cover a wide range of institutions, cases, and issues in a written exchange to advance to study of authoritarianism.

When democracies’ most basic features lose their distinctive edge, differentiating regime types becomes a problem for scholars of democracy and autocracy alike. Hager Ali aims to redraw demarcations between regimes across the political spectrum. To do so, she argues that civilian control over militaries is just as fundamental as suffrage

ECPR General Conference 2022, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck Organisers: European Consortium for Political Research Hager Ali (Speaker)

A blog article’s accessible shorter format, potential reach beyond academia, and swift turnaround time makes blogging an important part of a contemporary scholar’s research profile. You will hear from our editors, along with recurrent contributors Hager Ali and Ruairidh Brown, about what it takes to craft a great submission.