Autocracies with Adjectives: The Need for Better Typologies of Authoritarian Regimes

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

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.

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.

Democracy and Development: Global Dialogue on Autocratization and Re-Democratization, Central European University Democracy Institute, Budapest Organisers: Central European University Hager Ali (Invited Guest)

The CEU DI Annual Conference, under the theme “Democracy and Development: Global Dialogue on Autocracy and Re-Democratization", is dedicated to rethinking democracy in its political, social, and economic dimensions. This year’s conference will also mark the launch of the Global Forum on Democracy and Development, a project generously funded by the Open Society Foundation. This ambitious initiative aims to facilitate creative and critical cross-regional collaboration among scholars from the Global South and North.

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)

Hager Ali is an organiser and chair of this session. 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.

When citizens develop grievances, autocrats try to deflect blame to retain popular support. Scott Williamson argues that regime type influences strategies and success rates of autocrats, who shift blame when confronted by popular discontent.

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

The Nicaraguan government’s attack on Catholic priests is bringing the former alliance between the government and the Church to breaking point, while contributing also to the gradual implosion of the authoritarian regime. While the Pope encourages dialogue, the space for civil society has eroded.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.