The modern regency : a new theory of leadership transition in dictatorships and regime resilience : evidence from communist single-party regimes

Abstract

Extant literature has shown the importance of routinized leadership succession for authoritarian resilience. However, the factors leading to orderly power transitions in autocracies are unclear. Is there a durable path of leadership transition in authoritarian regimes that have been overlooked by the field of political science? What mechanisms help non-electoral dictatorships overcome the political turbulence of the leadership transitions? How do entrenched methods of power succession buttress authoritarian resilience? Relying upon extensive qualitative comparative studies and process-tracing of trajectories of regime institutionalization in 15 single-party communist regimes in the post-strongman era, the author explores the astonishing resilience of five remaining socialist party-states and the causes of the collapse of the other ten.

The author suggests a new theory of nonviolent leadership succession, “modern regency.” This theory argues that a peaceful leadership transition requires a third-party authority invested in the outcome of each instance of succession. According to this theory, prominent informal political heavyweights–modern regents–who do not hold institutional posts in the incumbent party’s leadership can alleviate the potential or actual crises entailed by the turbulence of each instance of leadership succession.

Two types of political actors may play the role of modern regents. The first type is represented by former political leaders who, although voluntarily retired, retain the levers of power over their successors. The second type of modern regent refers to a parent country that can influence leadership selection in its satellite states. The informal presence of modern regents in the process of leadership succession and its institutionalization contributed to regime resilience in the five communist regimes that have survived to date. Moreover, the involvement of Moscow with the leadership change in its satellite states from the Eastern Bloc had sustained their regime survival until the ascension of Gorbachev.

Instead of only studying how the modern regents help alleviate succession crises, this dissertation investigated a number of other implications of their informal presence in regime politics. First, the unofficial authority of modern regents counterintuitively facilitates the institutionalization of elite politics as time progresses. Second, modern regents are not constrained by rules and conventions that govern elite relations in the regime, which makes their influence nearly indisputable. The dissertation suggests a new model of tripolar power-sharing that combines two crucial problems in authoritarian power-sharing: the crown-prince problem and the dictator’s dilemma. It helps to explain periods of leadership transfer through the strategical choices of modern regent, successor, and collective elites. Third, applying the methodology of new institutionalism, the study proposes the novel periodization of regime institutionalization. It explains that the communist regimes that have preserved their rule and initial credible commitments did so by taking advantage of nepotism in the top level of political hierarchy.