Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

Electoral Authoritarianism

Item

Title

Electoral Authoritarianism

Author

Schedler, Andreas

Research Area

Social Institutions

Topic

Government Systems

Abstract

Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the institutional facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the national level, yet violate liberal‐democratic minimum standards in systematic and profound ways. Since the end of the Cold War, they have turned into the most common form of nondemocratic rule in the world. Responding to the empirical expansion of nondemocratic multiparty elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has taken center stage in comparative political science. This essay reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field of comparative politics, summarizes cutting‐edge research on regime trajectories and internal regime dynamics, and lays out substantive issues and methodological desiderata for future research.

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extracted text

Electoral Authoritarianism
ANDREAS SCHEDLER

Abstract
Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the institutional
facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the
national level, yet violate liberal-democratic minimum standards in systematic and
profound ways. Since the end of the Cold War, they have turned into the most
common form of nondemocratic rule in the world. Responding to the empirical
expansion of nondemocratic multiparty elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has taken center stage in comparative political science. This essay
reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field
of comparative politics, summarizes cutting-edge research on regime trajectories
and internal regime dynamics, and lays out substantive issues and methodological
desiderata for future research.

INTRODUCTION
The modal dictator in the contemporary world holds multiparty elections.
He sets up the institutional façade of democracy, yet undermines its spirit
through authoritarian manipulation. He admits regular elections to highest
national office and allows independent opposition parties to participate. At
the same time, he subjects these elections to severe and systematic manipulation through strategies such as media censorship, voter intimidation, the
banning of parties or candidates, and electoral fraud. The contemporary dictator practices “electoral authoritarianism.”
Today, the grand categories of nondemocratic regimes of the Cold War
era—single-party systems, military regimes, and personal dictatorships—
have almost disappeared. We must not underestimate their significance.
The Chinese single-party regime alone rules over a fifth of humanity. Still,
electoral authoritarian “pseudo-democracies” have turned into the most
common type of nondemocratic regimes in the contemporary world (see
e.g., Hadenius & Teorell, 2007; Roessler & Howard, 2009).

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

In accordance with the empirical expansion of nondemocratic multiparty
elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has acquired a central place in comparative political science. In this essay, I review the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field of inquiry, summarize cutting-edge research on electoral authoritarian regime trajectories
and internal regime dynamics, and lay out substantive issues and methodological desiderata for future research.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
The foundational act that opened up the research agenda on electoral authoritarian regimes was an act of conceptual differentiation. By introducing the
notion of electoral authoritarianism scholars introduced a two-sided distinction. On the one side, they introduced a distinction among multiparty regimes:
some are authoritarian; they are different from electoral democracies as we
know them. On the other hand, they introduced a distinction among authoritarian regimes: some hold multiparty elections to highest office; they are different from nonelectoral dictatorships as we know them. The presence of
multiparty elections distinguishes electoral autocracies from closed autocracies. The authoritarian nature of these elections distinguishes them from
electoral democracies.
In the social sciences, conceptual innovations often follow the trail of empirical transformations. New concepts strive to capture new realities. The invention of “electoral authoritarianism” is no exception. New concepts, however,
unsettle established fields of thought. They do not spread, and should not
spread, without intense debate. Do the distinctions they draw capture relevant differences in the real world? How can we trace them on empirical
grounds? How should we name them? The idea of “electoral authoritarianism” has found widespread acceptance within the comparative study of
political regimes. As it could not be otherwise, though, its career has been
accompanied by ongoing debates on meaning, boundary delimitation, and
terminology.
THE DEMOCRATIC BOUNDARY
In the Last decade of the Cold War, the so-called “third wave of global
democratization” (Huntington, 1991) led to the return of electoral democracy in most of Latin America. The region’s new democracies brought huge
advances in civil and political liberties. At the same time, when compared
to “advanced” democracies, they appeared to be burdened by innumerable deficiencies, such as corruption, military tutelage, weak parties, and
weak judiciaries. Their disappointing defects sparked a broad literature on

Electoral Authoritarianism

3

“diminished subtypes of democracy,” also known as “democracies with
adjectives” (Collier & Levitsky, 1997).
If observers had found the normative balance of the third wave of democratization disappointing, their disappointments deepened with the “fourth
wave” of democratization after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In most of the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa, the disintegration of single-party
dictatorship did not give way to electoral democracy, but something else. It
produced regimes that established the electoral facades of liberal democracy,
yet violated democratic principles in severe and systematic ways. Describing
them as “democracies with adjectives” seemed to bend the notion of democracy beyond breaking point. Thus, the conceptual shift toward “elections
without democracy” (Journal of Democracy 2/2002).
A Contested Distinction. There is a broad normative consensus in the
literature about what democratic elections entail: competition, freedom,
integrity, and fairness. There is also broad consensus about the possibility
that autocrats can undermine the democratic spirit of elections by choosing
from an open-ended “menu of electoral manipulation” (Schedler, 2002b) that
includes vote rigging, exclusion, institutional discrimination, censorship,
and repression (see also Birch, 2011). No firm consensus exists, however,
on whether we should conceptualize manipulated multiparty elections
as deficiently democratic, plainly authoritarian, or something in between
(“hybrid”).
A Contested Boundary. Even when we agree that we need to distinguish in
principle between democratic and authoritarian elections, it is difficult to do
so in practice. Given its normative, conceptual, informational, and political
complexities, the dividing line between electoral democracies and electoral
autocracies has been uncertain and contested (see Schedler, 2013, Chapter 3).
A Contested Terminology. The notion of “electoral authoritarianism” has
proven fruitful in demarcating the conceptual territory of nondemocratic
multiparty regimes. It does not enjoy a terminological monopoly, though.
Following relevant debates still requires a certain amount of translation
between vaguely homonymous categories. Highlighting authoritarian party
pluralism, some authors talk of “multiparty autocracies.” Others stress the
contradictory institutional blend that characterizes electoral autocracies.
They speak of “hybrid,” “mixed,” or “inconsistent” regimes. Still others
locate these regimes in an equidistant position between democracy and

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

dictatorship. They refer to “pseudo-democracy,” “semi-democracy,” or
“semi-authoritarianism.”
THE AUTHORITARIAN BOUNDARY
While the distinction between democratic and authoritarian elections is primarily normative, the distinction between electoral and closed authoritarianism is primarily empirical. It only makes sense to distinguish these subtypes
of authoritarianism if they work differently. Yet, which is the causal role of
multiparty elections in authoritarian regimes? Do they make a difference that
makes a difference? Much of the foundational empirical work on authoritarian elections has revolved around this causal question. The debate has been
guided by three divergent theoretical perspectives:
•

•

•

Elections as adornments: The so-called “new institutionalism” in the study
of authoritarian regimes (Schedler, 2013) proceeds upon the assumption
that formally democratic institutions matter, even under authoritarian
governance. Not everybody shares this causal assumption. Some hold
authoritarian elections are epiphenomenal, mere reflections of underlying power structures, without causal weight of their own (e.g., Brownlee,
2007).
Elections as tools: Others, by contrast, conceive authoritarian elections
as instruments authoritarian rulers deploy to prolong the political life
expectancy of authoritarian rulers. They are utensils in the toolbox of
dictators. They do not define authoritarian regimes, but authoritarian
strategies across regimes (e.g., Gandhi, 2008).
Elections as arenas: A third perspective emphasizes the ambiguity
of elections. It contends that multiparty elections are more than mere
instruments of dictatorship. They change the inner logic of authoritarian
politics. They open arenas of struggle that are asymmetric, as they grant
huge advantages to the incumbent, and still ambiguous, as they endow
opposition actors with novel opportunities of contestation and mobilization. Though unfree and unfair by design, authoritarian multiparty
elections are contingent in their outcomes (e.g., Schedler, 2013).

Over the past years, at least two dozens of comparative studies have
put the contrasting hypotheses about “the power of elections” to statistical testing. The preliminary balance sheet of these large-N studies is
not evident at first sight. As in other substantive areas of cross-national
statistical inquiry, results are mixed, sometimes contradictory, and not
readily reconcilable. Overall, however, they appear to confirm the idea that
authoritarian multiparty elections matter—not as reliable instruments of

Electoral Authoritarianism

5

sovereign dictators, though, but as asymmetric arenas of struggle whose
outcomes are contingent on the dynamics of conflict that unfold within its
bounds (for an overview, see Schedler, 2013, Chapter 5).
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Statistical research on the longevity of electoral autocracies in comparison to
closed autocracies has been largely exhausted. Even if we keep refining our
data and techniques of data analysis, we are unlikely to obtain dramatically
new insights. Research on electoral authoritarian regimes has accordingly
shifted its attention toward two new fields of inquiry: the divergent trajectories of electoral autocracies and the political dynamics within them.
EXPLAINING REGIME TRAJECTORIES
Electoral authoritarian regimes differ widely in their longevity. Some
stumble and fall after a few rounds of elections, others cling to power
for decades. What explains this wide variance in regime durability? Two
contrasting explanatory perspectives have dominated the discussion:
Generic, structural, and external explanations have been competing against
regime-specific, actor-based, and internal explanations. Two important
monographs nicely represent these contrasting perspectives: Competitive
Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War by Steven Levitsky and
Lucan Way (2010) represents the former, Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in
Postcommunist Countries by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik (2011) the
latter perspective.
When we go about to explain patterns of stability and change within one
subtype of political regime, we can either choose to mobilize general explanations that are valid for any type of political regime. Alternatively, we can craft
more specific explanations that are grounded in the institutional and strategic
dynamics that are particular to the regime type in question. In this regard,
the two monographs take contrasting routes. While methodologically similar (both are qualitative case comparisons), the two books pursue contrasting
explanatory strategies.
Levitsky and Way seek general explanations. As the authors posit, in situations of high international linkage, when societies are densely interwoven
with the external environment, competitive autocracies are likely to democratize. When regimes are more isolated, they are likely to remain stable
unless they are structurally vulnerable to democratizing pressures from
Western powers. Their argument about the primacy of international factors
is meant to be time-specific rather than regime-specific. It is applicable to
the Post-Cold-War period in general, not limited to competitive regimes in

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

particular. Bunce and Wolchik, by contrast, focus their attention on domestic
dynamics that are exclusive to electoral authoritarian regimes: the strategies
opposition actors adopt toward multiparty elections. As they argue, if and
only if opposition actors adopt the “electoral model” of transition, they can
win against powerful incumbents. If they refrain from doing so, they will
keep losing.
While the two books differ in the regime-specificity of their explanations,
they also differ in the type of explanatory theories they offer. Levitsky and
Way privilege structural factors and discard the weight of actor dynamics.
They seek to unearth the macrofoundations of regime change and stability.
Bunce and Wolchik privilege the choices of actors and hold structural factors
to be secondary. They strive to uncover the microfoundations of electoral
authoritarian regime dynamics. The former employ explanatory variables
that are distant from regime outcomes, the latter ones that are more proximate. Levitsky and Way grant primacy to external factors, Bunce and Wolchik
to domestic factors.
Structure-based approaches raise questions about the consequences of societal and institutional structures: how do they translate into actor dynamics?
Actor-based approaches raise questions about the origins of actor dynamics: if strategic choices explain regime trajectories, what explains strategic
choices? An emergent stream of empirical studies has been addressing the
latter question: how can we explain actor dynamics that unfold within electoral autocracies?
EXPLAINING DYNAMICS WITHIN REGIMES
The concept of electoral authoritarianism is election-centric. It comprehends
pluralistic elections as the defining institution of one broad category of
authoritarianism. Based by definition on elections, it assumes by implication
that elections matter: It assumes that actor choices within the authoritarian
electoral arena are autonomous—they are not predetermined by external
structures. In addition, it assumes them to be consequential—they carry causal
weight of their own. To what extent do these assumptions hold empirically?
The blossoming literature on actor dynamics within authoritarian elections
has made significant advances in conceptualizing these dynamics, gathering
systematic information about them, and explaining them across time and
space.
Conceptualization. In an early contribution to the literature, Schedler (2002a)
conceived authoritarian elections as two-level games in which the struggle
for voters at the game level goes hand in hand with the struggle over rules

Electoral Authoritarianism

7

at the meta-game level. Electoral competition is nested within institutional
battles. At the meta-game of institutional struggle, governments decide among
strategies of electoral manipulation or reform. Opposition parties resolve
whether to boycott or participate, and whether to acquiesce or contest
electoral processes and results. State agents choose their level of regime
loyalty. At the game-level of electoral competition, both governments and
opposition parties choose their strategies of electoral mobilization. Citizens
choose their level of regime loyalty. In this two-level contest, actors compete
over electoral uncertainty under conditions of informational uncertainty.
Final election results are the combined product of voter choices and state
manipulation (see also Schedler, 2013, Chapter 4).
Data Development. About a decade ago, systematic information about
the inner dynamics of authoritarian elections was almost nonexistent.
Today, thanks to the personal initiative of numerous individual researchers,
a considerable number of public datasets exist on relevant attributes
of authoritarian elections, such as institutional rules, levels of electoral
competitiveness, alternation in power, strategies of manipulation, violence, opposition boycott, and protest. Some offer global coverage, long
time series, and large sets of variables. Examples are the DPI World
Bank Dataset on Political Institutions (http://econ.worldbank.org), the
NELDA dataset on National Elections across Democracy and Autocracy
(http://hyde.research.yale.edu/nelda/), and the IAEP Institutions and Elections Project (http://www2.binghamton.edu/political-science/institutionsand-elections-project.html). Many other datasets are more limited in purpose and coverage (for an overview on cross-national data sets, see Schedler,
2013, Appendix C). Though the availability of data on authoritarian elections
has increased enormously over the past decade, their collection has evolved
in uncoordinated manner. Even when scholars intend to measure similar
concepts, it is often difficult to compare their data or even fuse them into
integrative datasets (Schedler, 2012).
Explanation. If electoral democracies are complex systems, electoral autocracies are even more complex, as the democratic game of electoral competition interacts with the authoritarian meta-game of electoral manipulation. In
modern social sciences, our usual way of coping with complex realities is to
slice them into manageable component parts. Rather than looking at everything interacting with everything else, we isolate “independent variables” (x)
we expect to have an impact on “dependent variables” (y). In the comparative
study of electoral authoritarianism, we have followed this logic by isolating
and examining specific causal relationships—both within the two-level game

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of authoritarian elections and between the game and its social, political, and
international environments.
Most scholarly attention has focused on the analysis of meta-game strategies by government and opposition: the causes and consequences of levels
and types of manipulation and the causes and consequences of levels and
types of opposition protest (e.g., Birch, 2011; Lindberg, 2006, Robertson,
2010; Schedler, 2013; Simpser, 2013; Wilson, 2005). To a much lesser, though
increasing, extent, comparativists have been paying attention to game-level
dynamics: party building, candidate selection, electoral campaigning, and
voter behavior (e.g., Magaloni, 2006; Greene, 2007, Rose & Munro, 2002).
Too, they have started to conduct systematic research on the relations
between authoritarian election arenas and their “external environments,”
such as state structures (e.g., Snyder, 2006; Way, 2006), civil society (e.g.,
Aspinall, 2005; Weiss, 2006), and the international community (e.g., Hyde,
2011; Kelley, 2012).
Overall, the increasingly specialized stream of research on electoral
autocracies has provided manifold empirical confirmations for the theoretical intuition that motivated it in the first place: the relative autonomy
of authoritarian elections. Authoritarian multiparty elections are neither
epiphenomenal nor inconsequential, but follow causal logics of their own
and carry causal weights of their own.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Where is the study of electoral authoritarianism going? Where should it be
going? I will outline some substantive issues of research that in my view
deserve more scholarly attention. I will also outline two methodological
imperatives: the need for more and better cross-national data and the
need for more and better qualitative case comparisons. I will conclude by
speculating about the future of electoral authoritarianism: a continuing
trend or a fading one?
NEGLECTED AREAS
The blossoming literature on electoral authoritarianism has privileged some
aspects of authoritarian elections and neglected others.
Internal Heterogeneity. The extended family of electoral authoritarian
regimes is numerous and internally heterogeneous. The most common
internal distinction runs between competitive and hegemonic regimes. The
precise meaning of this distinction is somewhat contested, but in essence it

Electoral Authoritarianism

9

points to contrasting degrees in regime consolidation. Hegemonic regimes
are consolidated. The political dominance of the ruling party is firmly
institutionalized. It controls the constitutional rules of the game, wins
all elections it cares about by wide margins, and everybody expects it to
continue doing so well into the future. Competitive regimes, by contrast,
are nonconsolidated. The incumbent party’s grip on state power is more
contested and insecure. It wins elections by variable margins and looks
vulnerable to electoral defeat. We should expect competitive and hegemonic
regimes to work in fundamentally different ways. Yet only few empirical
studies have compared electoral authoritarian dynamics across these regime
subtypes. Those that did have found systematic differences (e.g., Schedler,
2013).
Regime Origins. A growing number of cross-national studies have documented the comparative advantages electoral autocracies possess. On
average, they live longer and die more peacefully than nonelectoral dictatorships. Just like the structural functionalism of earlier decades, the rational
functionalism of the contemporary literature has led authors to take the
effects of elections for their causes. The long-term benefits of elections are
presumed to explain why rational, utility-maximizing dictators adopt them
in the first place. The assumption of omniscient sovereign rulers who pick
the most useful devices from the toolset of political institutions possesses
theoretical elegance. However, it provides an undercomplex account of the
manifold origins of electoral authoritarian rule. Our empirical knowledge
on transitions to electoral authoritarianism, be it from closed regimes or
electoral democracies, is fragile and fragmentary.
Electoral Competition. To date, most of the empirical literature on authoritarian elections has focused on the meta-level of institutional conflict. The void
of comparative research is evident: it is very little we know about the game
level of authoritarian electoral competition. It is little we know about party
organizations, candidate selection, electoral alliances, election campaigns,
public discourse, media content, media consumption, and voter behavior.
Once we know more about these game-level structures and processes, we
will be in a position to trace their interactions with meta-game structures
and processes.
Embedded Elections. The nested game of authoritarian elections is nested in
other games. Elections are nested in national societies. Regime actors are
nested in the state, opposition actors in civil society. Local elections are nested

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

within national elections. National politics is nested in international politics.
Studying the internal interaction between the two levels of authoritarian elections may seem complex enough. Yet, if we wish to better comprehend the
dynamics of authoritarian elections, we need to study their external linkages
as well. Comparative research about them is barely commencing.
Electoral History. The remarkable rise of electoral autocracies since the end
of the Cold War often lets us overlook the fact that the use of multiparty
elections as instruments of authoritarian rule, rather than “instruments of
democracy” (Powell, 2000), is nothing new. Authoritarian multiparty elections have a long history, in particular in Europe and the Americas of the
nineteenth century. In addition to the “historical turn” in democratization
studies (Capoccia & Ziblatt, 2010), we need a historical turn in the comparative study of electoral authoritarianism.
Data Requirements. Over the past decades, we have seen an impressive
growth of cross-national quantitative data in comparative politics. In the
study of electoral authoritarianism, too, numerous scholars have engaged
in the development of cross-national dataset, above all, on electoral manipulation and electoral competitiveness. To push quantitative comparative
research on authoritarian elections on its next stage, we need both to revise,
integrate, complement, and consolidate the data we have collected so far. In
addition, we need to construct new and better data on almost all aspects of
authoritarian elections:

•

•

•

Election results: Incredible, but true. Despite countless private initiatives
of data collection, access to historical and contemporary national election
data, not to speak of subnational data, is still precarious. We still need to
institutionalize the systematic collection of data on elections and parties
across the world (Schedler, 2012: pp. 256–257 and 259).
Electoral governance: We possess certain cross-national data on rules of
electoral competition (Teorell & Lindstedt, 2010), but very few on institutions of electoral governance, such as suffrage rights, rules of voter
and party registration, and the structure of election management and
electoral dispute settlement.
Voter preferences: If we wish to apply the analytical tools of electoral studies to authoritarian contexts, we need to collect individual-level data
on voter attitudes. Though we possess rich data on individual countries, we possess few cross-national data on voters under authoritarian
conditions.

Electoral Authoritarianism

•

•

11

Election campaigns: Collecting comparative data on authoritarian
regimes is difficult. Collecting them on processes of electoral competition is difficult even in democratic contexts. Still, data projects such
as the Comparative Manifesto Project (MAPOR) that codes the content
of election platforms should in principle be adaptable to authoritarian
settings (https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu).
Electoral protest: The only available worldwide source of cross-national
longitudinal data on contentious action, the political conflict data in the
Arthur Banks Cross-National Time Series (CNTS), captures no more than
a minuscule fraction of the contentious events that actually take place in
any country in any year (Schedler, 2012: pp. 247–248).

As a matter of course, even within a quantitative framework, we need
not study everything in cross-national perspective. We also need systematic
observations on subnational elections and electoral histories in single
countries. Almost half of all quantitative comparative research (published
in top journals between 1989 and 2007) covers single countries (Schedler &
Mudde, 2010: p. 421). The quantitative study of electoral autocracies should
embrace this trend.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
While there is much insight to be gained from careful and innovative quantitative research, statistical research on electoral authoritarianism has kept
us far away from actors. There is much we lose in explanatory accuracy if
we survey the two-level game of authoritarian elections exclusively from the
bird’s perspective of cross-national quantification. To achieve methodological balances, we need more case studies that embrace and exploit the comparative advantages of qualitative research—such as the closeness to actors,
attention to history, sequence, and process, and access to empirical evidence
on public discourse or the internal dynamics of collective actors.
THE FUTURE OF ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIANISM
Even while recognizing the limits of prediction in the social sciences, it is
tempting to ponder the future of electoral authoritarianism. With the exception of Singapore, all hegemonic party regimes that predated the fall of the
Berlin Wall have disappeared, while competitive authoritarian regimes have
emerged as “the typical stepping stone to democratization” (Hadenius &
Teorell, 2007: p. 152). Should we conclude that “the era of electoral authoritarianism” (Morse 2012) is bound to end soon? Well, not quite, no yet. A fair
number of electoral autocracies have defied the laws of political mortality. In

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

addition, a continuous stream of new members continues to repopulate both
subtypes of electoral authoritarianism.
The Regeneration of Hegemonic Regimes. Hegemonic regimes are long-lived by
definition and inherently stable. They are not immortal, though. The disappearance of almost all of the long-lasting hegemonies of the twentieth century does not imply that electoral hegemonies are a matter of the past. Both
competitive regimes and closed autocracies may transform themselves into
hegemonic regimes. They have done so in the past and they are likely to do
so in the future.
•

•

Transitions from competitive authoritarianism: Many competitive autocrats strive to transform their precarious incumbency advantages
into solid hegemonic domination. Some have failed, at least for now.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a prominent example. Others, however,
have succeeded. In the post-Soviet space, Nursultan Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan, Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, and Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan have conducted successful transitions from competitive
authoritarianism to personalist breeds of hegemonic rule.
Transitions from closed authoritarianism: When closed autocracies
introduce multiparty elections they can hope to establish instantaneous
hegemonic domination. They possess huge initial advantages over
their competitors. They have the organizational infrastructure, the
administrative capacity, the appearance of popular support, and the
military power they need to face the challenges of authoritarian electoral
competition. No doubt, the most important case of a possible future
transition from closed to hegemonic authoritarianism is China.

The Regeneration of Competitive Authoritarianism. Unlike hegemonic regimes,
competitive authoritarian regimes are not in equilibrium. They are battle
grounds. Their battles are asymmetric, between contenders of unequal
standing, yet not predetermined in their outcomes. Representing “the
most volatile regime type” (Roessler & Howard, 2009: p. 103), many have
democratized, such as Peru, Serbia, and Ghana. Others have been cut short
by military coups and political disorder, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Togo. Still,
a fair number of regimes, such as Russia, Algeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe,
are hanging on, muddling through. The family of competitive autocracies
has also been admitting new members from closed autocracies, such as
Afghanistan and Myanmar. However, more importantly, it has been admitting new members from Latin American democracies. In Venezuela, Bolivia
and Ecuador, anti-political establishment actors (Schedler, 1996) have taken

Electoral Authoritarianism

13

power through democratic means, concentrated power through dubious
means, and subverted the competition for power through authoritarian
means (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013). Today, all three arguably belong to the
category of competitive electoral autocracies. The same applies to Nicaragua
after the return of Daniel Ortega and Honduras after the 2009 military coup.
All in all, electoral authoritarianism seems more than a fleeting fad. Since
the invention of modern mass elections, their authoritarian use has been an
inherent possibility. After the end of the Cold War, this strategic possibility
reached pandemic dimensions. Today, the pathology has slowed down its
contagious spread. Yet the global virus of electoral authoritarianism has come
to stay with us for the foreseeable future.

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Levitsky, S., & Loxton, J. (2013). Populism and competitive authoritarianism in the
Andes. Democratization, 20(1), 107–136.
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2010). Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the
cold war. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

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Lindberg, S. I. (2006). Democracy and elections in Africa. Baltimore, MD and London,
England: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Magaloni, B. (2006). Voting for autocracy: Hegemonic party survival and its demise in
Mexico. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Morse, Y. L. (2012). The era of electoral authoritarianism. World Politics, 64(1 (January)), 161–198.
Powell, B. G. (2000). Elections as instruments of democracy: Majoritarian and proportional
visions. New Haven, CT and London, England: Yale University Press.
Robertson, G. B. (2010). The politics of protest in hybrid regimes: Managing dissent in
post-communist Russia countries. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Roessler, P. G., & Howard, M. M. (2009). Post-cold war political regimes: When do
elections matter?. In S. I. Lindberg (Ed.), Democratization by elections: A new mode of
transition (pp. 101–127). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rose, R., & Munro, N. (2002). Elections without Order: Russia’s Challenge to Vladimir
Putin. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Schedler, A. (1996). Anti-political-establishment parties. Party Politics, 2(3 (July)),
291–312.
Schedler, A. (2002a). The nested game of democratization by elections. International
Political Science Review, 23(1 (January 2002)), 103–122.
Schedler, A. (2002b). Elections without democracy: The menu of manipulation. Journal of Democracy, 13(2 (April)), 36–50.
Schedler, A. (2012). The measurer’s dilemma: Coordination failures in cross-national
political data collection. Comparative Political Studies, 45(2 (February)), 191–220.
Schedler, A. (2013). The politics of uncertainty: Sustaining and subverting electoral authoritarianism. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Schedler, A., & Mudde, C. (2010). Data usage in quantitative comparative politics.
Political Research Quarterly, 63(2 (June)), 417–433.
Simpser, A. (2013). Why governments and parties manipulate elections. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Snyder, R. (2006). Beyond electoral authoritarianism: The spectrum of nondemocratic regimes. In A. Schedler (Ed.), Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree
competition (pp. 219–231). Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Teorell, J., & Lindstedt, C. (2010). Measuring electoral systems. Political Research Quarterly, 63(2 (June)), 434–448.
Way, L. A. (2006). Authoritarian failure: How does state weakness strengthen electoral competition?. In A. Schedler (Ed.), Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of
unfree competition (pp. 167–180). Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner
Publishers.
Weiss, M. L. (2006). Protest and possibilities: Civil society and coalitions for political change
in Malaysia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Wilson, A. (2005). Virtual politics: Faking democracy in the post-soviet world. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.

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FURTHER READING
Alvarez, R. M., Thad, E. H., & Susan, D. H. (Eds.) (2008). Election fraud: Detecting and
deterring electoral manipulation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Gandhi, J., & Lust-Okar, E. (2009). Elections under authoritarianism. Annual Review
of Political Science, 12, 403–422.
Lehoucq, F. E. (2003). Electoral fraud: Causes, types, and consequences. Annual
Review of Political Science, 6, 233–56.
Lindberg, S. I. (Ed.) (2009). Democratization by elections: A new mode of transition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schaffer, F. C. (Ed.) (2007). Elections for sale: The causes and consequences of vote buying.
Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Schedler, A. (Ed.) (2006). Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree competition.
Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

ANDREAS SCHEDLER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Andreas Schedler earned his PhD from the University of Vienna. A resident
of Mexico since 1997, he is professor of political science at the Center for Economic Teaching and Research (CIDE) in Mexico City. He has done research
on anti-political-establishment parties, political accountability, democratic
consolidation and transition, elections, authoritarianism, and organized
violence. In the field of methodology, he has worked on concept analysis
and cross-national measurement. His articles have appeared in scholarly
journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics,
the Journal of Democracy, the European Journal of Political Research,
Party Politics, the Journal of Political Philosophy, and Political Research
Quarterly. He is the editor of Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of
Unfree Competition (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006)
and the author of The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting
Electoral Authoritarianism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013).
Webpage: http://works.bepress.com/andreas_schedler/
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16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

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Chinese Politics (Political Science), Jessica Chen Weiss



Electoral Authoritarianism
ANDREAS SCHEDLER

Abstract
Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the institutional
facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the
national level, yet violate liberal-democratic minimum standards in systematic and
profound ways. Since the end of the Cold War, they have turned into the most
common form of nondemocratic rule in the world. Responding to the empirical
expansion of nondemocratic multiparty elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has taken center stage in comparative political science. This essay
reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field
of comparative politics, summarizes cutting-edge research on regime trajectories
and internal regime dynamics, and lays out substantive issues and methodological
desiderata for future research.

INTRODUCTION
The modal dictator in the contemporary world holds multiparty elections.
He sets up the institutional façade of democracy, yet undermines its spirit
through authoritarian manipulation. He admits regular elections to highest
national office and allows independent opposition parties to participate. At
the same time, he subjects these elections to severe and systematic manipulation through strategies such as media censorship, voter intimidation, the
banning of parties or candidates, and electoral fraud. The contemporary dictator practices “electoral authoritarianism.”
Today, the grand categories of nondemocratic regimes of the Cold War
era—single-party systems, military regimes, and personal dictatorships—
have almost disappeared. We must not underestimate their significance.
The Chinese single-party regime alone rules over a fifth of humanity. Still,
electoral authoritarian “pseudo-democracies” have turned into the most
common type of nondemocratic regimes in the contemporary world (see
e.g., Hadenius & Teorell, 2007; Roessler & Howard, 2009).

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

In accordance with the empirical expansion of nondemocratic multiparty
elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has acquired a central place in comparative political science. In this essay, I review the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field of inquiry, summarize cutting-edge research on electoral authoritarian regime trajectories
and internal regime dynamics, and lay out substantive issues and methodological desiderata for future research.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
The foundational act that opened up the research agenda on electoral authoritarian regimes was an act of conceptual differentiation. By introducing the
notion of electoral authoritarianism scholars introduced a two-sided distinction. On the one side, they introduced a distinction among multiparty regimes:
some are authoritarian; they are different from electoral democracies as we
know them. On the other hand, they introduced a distinction among authoritarian regimes: some hold multiparty elections to highest office; they are different from nonelectoral dictatorships as we know them. The presence of
multiparty elections distinguishes electoral autocracies from closed autocracies. The authoritarian nature of these elections distinguishes them from
electoral democracies.
In the social sciences, conceptual innovations often follow the trail of empirical transformations. New concepts strive to capture new realities. The invention of “electoral authoritarianism” is no exception. New concepts, however,
unsettle established fields of thought. They do not spread, and should not
spread, without intense debate. Do the distinctions they draw capture relevant differences in the real world? How can we trace them on empirical
grounds? How should we name them? The idea of “electoral authoritarianism” has found widespread acceptance within the comparative study of
political regimes. As it could not be otherwise, though, its career has been
accompanied by ongoing debates on meaning, boundary delimitation, and
terminology.
THE DEMOCRATIC BOUNDARY
In the Last decade of the Cold War, the so-called “third wave of global
democratization” (Huntington, 1991) led to the return of electoral democracy in most of Latin America. The region’s new democracies brought huge
advances in civil and political liberties. At the same time, when compared
to “advanced” democracies, they appeared to be burdened by innumerable deficiencies, such as corruption, military tutelage, weak parties, and
weak judiciaries. Their disappointing defects sparked a broad literature on

Electoral Authoritarianism

3

“diminished subtypes of democracy,” also known as “democracies with
adjectives” (Collier & Levitsky, 1997).
If observers had found the normative balance of the third wave of democratization disappointing, their disappointments deepened with the “fourth
wave” of democratization after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In most of the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa, the disintegration of single-party
dictatorship did not give way to electoral democracy, but something else. It
produced regimes that established the electoral facades of liberal democracy,
yet violated democratic principles in severe and systematic ways. Describing
them as “democracies with adjectives” seemed to bend the notion of democracy beyond breaking point. Thus, the conceptual shift toward “elections
without democracy” (Journal of Democracy 2/2002).
A Contested Distinction. There is a broad normative consensus in the
literature about what democratic elections entail: competition, freedom,
integrity, and fairness. There is also broad consensus about the possibility
that autocrats can undermine the democratic spirit of elections by choosing
from an open-ended “menu of electoral manipulation” (Schedler, 2002b) that
includes vote rigging, exclusion, institutional discrimination, censorship,
and repression (see also Birch, 2011). No firm consensus exists, however,
on whether we should conceptualize manipulated multiparty elections
as deficiently democratic, plainly authoritarian, or something in between
(“hybrid”).
A Contested Boundary. Even when we agree that we need to distinguish in
principle between democratic and authoritarian elections, it is difficult to do
so in practice. Given its normative, conceptual, informational, and political
complexities, the dividing line between electoral democracies and electoral
autocracies has been uncertain and contested (see Schedler, 2013, Chapter 3).
A Contested Terminology. The notion of “electoral authoritarianism” has
proven fruitful in demarcating the conceptual territory of nondemocratic
multiparty regimes. It does not enjoy a terminological monopoly, though.
Following relevant debates still requires a certain amount of translation
between vaguely homonymous categories. Highlighting authoritarian party
pluralism, some authors talk of “multiparty autocracies.” Others stress the
contradictory institutional blend that characterizes electoral autocracies.
They speak of “hybrid,” “mixed,” or “inconsistent” regimes. Still others
locate these regimes in an equidistant position between democracy and

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

dictatorship. They refer to “pseudo-democracy,” “semi-democracy,” or
“semi-authoritarianism.”
THE AUTHORITARIAN BOUNDARY
While the distinction between democratic and authoritarian elections is primarily normative, the distinction between electoral and closed authoritarianism is primarily empirical. It only makes sense to distinguish these subtypes
of authoritarianism if they work differently. Yet, which is the causal role of
multiparty elections in authoritarian regimes? Do they make a difference that
makes a difference? Much of the foundational empirical work on authoritarian elections has revolved around this causal question. The debate has been
guided by three divergent theoretical perspectives:
•

•

•

Elections as adornments: The so-called “new institutionalism” in the study
of authoritarian regimes (Schedler, 2013) proceeds upon the assumption
that formally democratic institutions matter, even under authoritarian
governance. Not everybody shares this causal assumption. Some hold
authoritarian elections are epiphenomenal, mere reflections of underlying power structures, without causal weight of their own (e.g., Brownlee,
2007).
Elections as tools: Others, by contrast, conceive authoritarian elections
as instruments authoritarian rulers deploy to prolong the political life
expectancy of authoritarian rulers. They are utensils in the toolbox of
dictators. They do not define authoritarian regimes, but authoritarian
strategies across regimes (e.g., Gandhi, 2008).
Elections as arenas: A third perspective emphasizes the ambiguity
of elections. It contends that multiparty elections are more than mere
instruments of dictatorship. They change the inner logic of authoritarian
politics. They open arenas of struggle that are asymmetric, as they grant
huge advantages to the incumbent, and still ambiguous, as they endow
opposition actors with novel opportunities of contestation and mobilization. Though unfree and unfair by design, authoritarian multiparty
elections are contingent in their outcomes (e.g., Schedler, 2013).

Over the past years, at least two dozens of comparative studies have
put the contrasting hypotheses about “the power of elections” to statistical testing. The preliminary balance sheet of these large-N studies is
not evident at first sight. As in other substantive areas of cross-national
statistical inquiry, results are mixed, sometimes contradictory, and not
readily reconcilable. Overall, however, they appear to confirm the idea that
authoritarian multiparty elections matter—not as reliable instruments of

Electoral Authoritarianism

5

sovereign dictators, though, but as asymmetric arenas of struggle whose
outcomes are contingent on the dynamics of conflict that unfold within its
bounds (for an overview, see Schedler, 2013, Chapter 5).
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Statistical research on the longevity of electoral autocracies in comparison to
closed autocracies has been largely exhausted. Even if we keep refining our
data and techniques of data analysis, we are unlikely to obtain dramatically
new insights. Research on electoral authoritarian regimes has accordingly
shifted its attention toward two new fields of inquiry: the divergent trajectories of electoral autocracies and the political dynamics within them.
EXPLAINING REGIME TRAJECTORIES
Electoral authoritarian regimes differ widely in their longevity. Some
stumble and fall after a few rounds of elections, others cling to power
for decades. What explains this wide variance in regime durability? Two
contrasting explanatory perspectives have dominated the discussion:
Generic, structural, and external explanations have been competing against
regime-specific, actor-based, and internal explanations. Two important
monographs nicely represent these contrasting perspectives: Competitive
Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War by Steven Levitsky and
Lucan Way (2010) represents the former, Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in
Postcommunist Countries by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik (2011) the
latter perspective.
When we go about to explain patterns of stability and change within one
subtype of political regime, we can either choose to mobilize general explanations that are valid for any type of political regime. Alternatively, we can craft
more specific explanations that are grounded in the institutional and strategic
dynamics that are particular to the regime type in question. In this regard,
the two monographs take contrasting routes. While methodologically similar (both are qualitative case comparisons), the two books pursue contrasting
explanatory strategies.
Levitsky and Way seek general explanations. As the authors posit, in situations of high international linkage, when societies are densely interwoven
with the external environment, competitive autocracies are likely to democratize. When regimes are more isolated, they are likely to remain stable
unless they are structurally vulnerable to democratizing pressures from
Western powers. Their argument about the primacy of international factors
is meant to be time-specific rather than regime-specific. It is applicable to
the Post-Cold-War period in general, not limited to competitive regimes in

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

particular. Bunce and Wolchik, by contrast, focus their attention on domestic
dynamics that are exclusive to electoral authoritarian regimes: the strategies
opposition actors adopt toward multiparty elections. As they argue, if and
only if opposition actors adopt the “electoral model” of transition, they can
win against powerful incumbents. If they refrain from doing so, they will
keep losing.
While the two books differ in the regime-specificity of their explanations,
they also differ in the type of explanatory theories they offer. Levitsky and
Way privilege structural factors and discard the weight of actor dynamics.
They seek to unearth the macrofoundations of regime change and stability.
Bunce and Wolchik privilege the choices of actors and hold structural factors
to be secondary. They strive to uncover the microfoundations of electoral
authoritarian regime dynamics. The former employ explanatory variables
that are distant from regime outcomes, the latter ones that are more proximate. Levitsky and Way grant primacy to external factors, Bunce and Wolchik
to domestic factors.
Structure-based approaches raise questions about the consequences of societal and institutional structures: how do they translate into actor dynamics?
Actor-based approaches raise questions about the origins of actor dynamics: if strategic choices explain regime trajectories, what explains strategic
choices? An emergent stream of empirical studies has been addressing the
latter question: how can we explain actor dynamics that unfold within electoral autocracies?
EXPLAINING DYNAMICS WITHIN REGIMES
The concept of electoral authoritarianism is election-centric. It comprehends
pluralistic elections as the defining institution of one broad category of
authoritarianism. Based by definition on elections, it assumes by implication
that elections matter: It assumes that actor choices within the authoritarian
electoral arena are autonomous—they are not predetermined by external
structures. In addition, it assumes them to be consequential—they carry causal
weight of their own. To what extent do these assumptions hold empirically?
The blossoming literature on actor dynamics within authoritarian elections
has made significant advances in conceptualizing these dynamics, gathering
systematic information about them, and explaining them across time and
space.
Conceptualization. In an early contribution to the literature, Schedler (2002a)
conceived authoritarian elections as two-level games in which the struggle
for voters at the game level goes hand in hand with the struggle over rules

Electoral Authoritarianism

7

at the meta-game level. Electoral competition is nested within institutional
battles. At the meta-game of institutional struggle, governments decide among
strategies of electoral manipulation or reform. Opposition parties resolve
whether to boycott or participate, and whether to acquiesce or contest
electoral processes and results. State agents choose their level of regime
loyalty. At the game-level of electoral competition, both governments and
opposition parties choose their strategies of electoral mobilization. Citizens
choose their level of regime loyalty. In this two-level contest, actors compete
over electoral uncertainty under conditions of informational uncertainty.
Final election results are the combined product of voter choices and state
manipulation (see also Schedler, 2013, Chapter 4).
Data Development. About a decade ago, systematic information about
the inner dynamics of authoritarian elections was almost nonexistent.
Today, thanks to the personal initiative of numerous individual researchers,
a considerable number of public datasets exist on relevant attributes
of authoritarian elections, such as institutional rules, levels of electoral
competitiveness, alternation in power, strategies of manipulation, violence, opposition boycott, and protest. Some offer global coverage, long
time series, and large sets of variables. Examples are the DPI World
Bank Dataset on Political Institutions (http://econ.worldbank.org), the
NELDA dataset on National Elections across Democracy and Autocracy
(http://hyde.research.yale.edu/nelda/), and the IAEP Institutions and Elections Project (http://www2.binghamton.edu/political-science/institutionsand-elections-project.html). Many other datasets are more limited in purpose and coverage (for an overview on cross-national data sets, see Schedler,
2013, Appendix C). Though the availability of data on authoritarian elections
has increased enormously over the past decade, their collection has evolved
in uncoordinated manner. Even when scholars intend to measure similar
concepts, it is often difficult to compare their data or even fuse them into
integrative datasets (Schedler, 2012).
Explanation. If electoral democracies are complex systems, electoral autocracies are even more complex, as the democratic game of electoral competition interacts with the authoritarian meta-game of electoral manipulation. In
modern social sciences, our usual way of coping with complex realities is to
slice them into manageable component parts. Rather than looking at everything interacting with everything else, we isolate “independent variables” (x)
we expect to have an impact on “dependent variables” (y). In the comparative
study of electoral authoritarianism, we have followed this logic by isolating
and examining specific causal relationships—both within the two-level game

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of authoritarian elections and between the game and its social, political, and
international environments.
Most scholarly attention has focused on the analysis of meta-game strategies by government and opposition: the causes and consequences of levels
and types of manipulation and the causes and consequences of levels and
types of opposition protest (e.g., Birch, 2011; Lindberg, 2006, Robertson,
2010; Schedler, 2013; Simpser, 2013; Wilson, 2005). To a much lesser, though
increasing, extent, comparativists have been paying attention to game-level
dynamics: party building, candidate selection, electoral campaigning, and
voter behavior (e.g., Magaloni, 2006; Greene, 2007, Rose & Munro, 2002).
Too, they have started to conduct systematic research on the relations
between authoritarian election arenas and their “external environments,”
such as state structures (e.g., Snyder, 2006; Way, 2006), civil society (e.g.,
Aspinall, 2005; Weiss, 2006), and the international community (e.g., Hyde,
2011; Kelley, 2012).
Overall, the increasingly specialized stream of research on electoral
autocracies has provided manifold empirical confirmations for the theoretical intuition that motivated it in the first place: the relative autonomy
of authoritarian elections. Authoritarian multiparty elections are neither
epiphenomenal nor inconsequential, but follow causal logics of their own
and carry causal weights of their own.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Where is the study of electoral authoritarianism going? Where should it be
going? I will outline some substantive issues of research that in my view
deserve more scholarly attention. I will also outline two methodological
imperatives: the need for more and better cross-national data and the
need for more and better qualitative case comparisons. I will conclude by
speculating about the future of electoral authoritarianism: a continuing
trend or a fading one?
NEGLECTED AREAS
The blossoming literature on electoral authoritarianism has privileged some
aspects of authoritarian elections and neglected others.
Internal Heterogeneity. The extended family of electoral authoritarian
regimes is numerous and internally heterogeneous. The most common
internal distinction runs between competitive and hegemonic regimes. The
precise meaning of this distinction is somewhat contested, but in essence it

Electoral Authoritarianism

9

points to contrasting degrees in regime consolidation. Hegemonic regimes
are consolidated. The political dominance of the ruling party is firmly
institutionalized. It controls the constitutional rules of the game, wins
all elections it cares about by wide margins, and everybody expects it to
continue doing so well into the future. Competitive regimes, by contrast,
are nonconsolidated. The incumbent party’s grip on state power is more
contested and insecure. It wins elections by variable margins and looks
vulnerable to electoral defeat. We should expect competitive and hegemonic
regimes to work in fundamentally different ways. Yet only few empirical
studies have compared electoral authoritarian dynamics across these regime
subtypes. Those that did have found systematic differences (e.g., Schedler,
2013).
Regime Origins. A growing number of cross-national studies have documented the comparative advantages electoral autocracies possess. On
average, they live longer and die more peacefully than nonelectoral dictatorships. Just like the structural functionalism of earlier decades, the rational
functionalism of the contemporary literature has led authors to take the
effects of elections for their causes. The long-term benefits of elections are
presumed to explain why rational, utility-maximizing dictators adopt them
in the first place. The assumption of omniscient sovereign rulers who pick
the most useful devices from the toolset of political institutions possesses
theoretical elegance. However, it provides an undercomplex account of the
manifold origins of electoral authoritarian rule. Our empirical knowledge
on transitions to electoral authoritarianism, be it from closed regimes or
electoral democracies, is fragile and fragmentary.
Electoral Competition. To date, most of the empirical literature on authoritarian elections has focused on the meta-level of institutional conflict. The void
of comparative research is evident: it is very little we know about the game
level of authoritarian electoral competition. It is little we know about party
organizations, candidate selection, electoral alliances, election campaigns,
public discourse, media content, media consumption, and voter behavior.
Once we know more about these game-level structures and processes, we
will be in a position to trace their interactions with meta-game structures
and processes.
Embedded Elections. The nested game of authoritarian elections is nested in
other games. Elections are nested in national societies. Regime actors are
nested in the state, opposition actors in civil society. Local elections are nested

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

within national elections. National politics is nested in international politics.
Studying the internal interaction between the two levels of authoritarian elections may seem complex enough. Yet, if we wish to better comprehend the
dynamics of authoritarian elections, we need to study their external linkages
as well. Comparative research about them is barely commencing.
Electoral History. The remarkable rise of electoral autocracies since the end
of the Cold War often lets us overlook the fact that the use of multiparty
elections as instruments of authoritarian rule, rather than “instruments of
democracy” (Powell, 2000), is nothing new. Authoritarian multiparty elections have a long history, in particular in Europe and the Americas of the
nineteenth century. In addition to the “historical turn” in democratization
studies (Capoccia & Ziblatt, 2010), we need a historical turn in the comparative study of electoral authoritarianism.
Data Requirements. Over the past decades, we have seen an impressive
growth of cross-national quantitative data in comparative politics. In the
study of electoral authoritarianism, too, numerous scholars have engaged
in the development of cross-national dataset, above all, on electoral manipulation and electoral competitiveness. To push quantitative comparative
research on authoritarian elections on its next stage, we need both to revise,
integrate, complement, and consolidate the data we have collected so far. In
addition, we need to construct new and better data on almost all aspects of
authoritarian elections:

•

•

•

Election results: Incredible, but true. Despite countless private initiatives
of data collection, access to historical and contemporary national election
data, not to speak of subnational data, is still precarious. We still need to
institutionalize the systematic collection of data on elections and parties
across the world (Schedler, 2012: pp. 256–257 and 259).
Electoral governance: We possess certain cross-national data on rules of
electoral competition (Teorell & Lindstedt, 2010), but very few on institutions of electoral governance, such as suffrage rights, rules of voter
and party registration, and the structure of election management and
electoral dispute settlement.
Voter preferences: If we wish to apply the analytical tools of electoral studies to authoritarian contexts, we need to collect individual-level data
on voter attitudes. Though we possess rich data on individual countries, we possess few cross-national data on voters under authoritarian
conditions.

Electoral Authoritarianism

•

•

11

Election campaigns: Collecting comparative data on authoritarian
regimes is difficult. Collecting them on processes of electoral competition is difficult even in democratic contexts. Still, data projects such
as the Comparative Manifesto Project (MAPOR) that codes the content
of election platforms should in principle be adaptable to authoritarian
settings (https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu).
Electoral protest: The only available worldwide source of cross-national
longitudinal data on contentious action, the political conflict data in the
Arthur Banks Cross-National Time Series (CNTS), captures no more than
a minuscule fraction of the contentious events that actually take place in
any country in any year (Schedler, 2012: pp. 247–248).

As a matter of course, even within a quantitative framework, we need
not study everything in cross-national perspective. We also need systematic
observations on subnational elections and electoral histories in single
countries. Almost half of all quantitative comparative research (published
in top journals between 1989 and 2007) covers single countries (Schedler &
Mudde, 2010: p. 421). The quantitative study of electoral autocracies should
embrace this trend.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
While there is much insight to be gained from careful and innovative quantitative research, statistical research on electoral authoritarianism has kept
us far away from actors. There is much we lose in explanatory accuracy if
we survey the two-level game of authoritarian elections exclusively from the
bird’s perspective of cross-national quantification. To achieve methodological balances, we need more case studies that embrace and exploit the comparative advantages of qualitative research—such as the closeness to actors,
attention to history, sequence, and process, and access to empirical evidence
on public discourse or the internal dynamics of collective actors.
THE FUTURE OF ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIANISM
Even while recognizing the limits of prediction in the social sciences, it is
tempting to ponder the future of electoral authoritarianism. With the exception of Singapore, all hegemonic party regimes that predated the fall of the
Berlin Wall have disappeared, while competitive authoritarian regimes have
emerged as “the typical stepping stone to democratization” (Hadenius &
Teorell, 2007: p. 152). Should we conclude that “the era of electoral authoritarianism” (Morse 2012) is bound to end soon? Well, not quite, no yet. A fair
number of electoral autocracies have defied the laws of political mortality. In

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

addition, a continuous stream of new members continues to repopulate both
subtypes of electoral authoritarianism.
The Regeneration of Hegemonic Regimes. Hegemonic regimes are long-lived by
definition and inherently stable. They are not immortal, though. The disappearance of almost all of the long-lasting hegemonies of the twentieth century does not imply that electoral hegemonies are a matter of the past. Both
competitive regimes and closed autocracies may transform themselves into
hegemonic regimes. They have done so in the past and they are likely to do
so in the future.
•

•

Transitions from competitive authoritarianism: Many competitive autocrats strive to transform their precarious incumbency advantages
into solid hegemonic domination. Some have failed, at least for now.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a prominent example. Others, however,
have succeeded. In the post-Soviet space, Nursultan Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan, Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, and Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan have conducted successful transitions from competitive
authoritarianism to personalist breeds of hegemonic rule.
Transitions from closed authoritarianism: When closed autocracies
introduce multiparty elections they can hope to establish instantaneous
hegemonic domination. They possess huge initial advantages over
their competitors. They have the organizational infrastructure, the
administrative capacity, the appearance of popular support, and the
military power they need to face the challenges of authoritarian electoral
competition. No doubt, the most important case of a possible future
transition from closed to hegemonic authoritarianism is China.

The Regeneration of Competitive Authoritarianism. Unlike hegemonic regimes,
competitive authoritarian regimes are not in equilibrium. They are battle
grounds. Their battles are asymmetric, between contenders of unequal
standing, yet not predetermined in their outcomes. Representing “the
most volatile regime type” (Roessler & Howard, 2009: p. 103), many have
democratized, such as Peru, Serbia, and Ghana. Others have been cut short
by military coups and political disorder, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Togo. Still,
a fair number of regimes, such as Russia, Algeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe,
are hanging on, muddling through. The family of competitive autocracies
has also been admitting new members from closed autocracies, such as
Afghanistan and Myanmar. However, more importantly, it has been admitting new members from Latin American democracies. In Venezuela, Bolivia
and Ecuador, anti-political establishment actors (Schedler, 1996) have taken

Electoral Authoritarianism

13

power through democratic means, concentrated power through dubious
means, and subverted the competition for power through authoritarian
means (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013). Today, all three arguably belong to the
category of competitive electoral autocracies. The same applies to Nicaragua
after the return of Daniel Ortega and Honduras after the 2009 military coup.
All in all, electoral authoritarianism seems more than a fleeting fad. Since
the invention of modern mass elections, their authoritarian use has been an
inherent possibility. After the end of the Cold War, this strategic possibility
reached pandemic dimensions. Today, the pathology has slowed down its
contagious spread. Yet the global virus of electoral authoritarianism has come
to stay with us for the foreseeable future.

REFERENCES
Aspinall, E. (2005). Opposing Suharto: Compromise, resistance, and regime change in
Indonesia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bunce, V., & Wolchik, S. (2011). Defeating authoritarian leaders in postcommunist countries. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Birch, S. (2011). Electoral Malpractice. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Brownlee, J. (2007). Authoritarianism in an age of democratization. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Capoccia, G., & Ziblatt, D. (2010). The historical turn in democratization studies: A
new research agenda for Europe and beyond. Comparative Political Studies, 43(8/9),
931–968.
Collier, D., & Levitsky, S. (1997). Democracy with adjectives: Conceptual innovation
in comparative research. World Politics, 49(3 (April)), 430–451.
Gandhi, J. (2008). Political Institutions under Dictatorship. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Greene, K. F. (2007). Why dominant parties lose: Mexico’s democratization in comparative
perspective. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Hadenius, A., & Teorell, J. (2007). Pathways from authoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 18(1 (January)), 143–156.
Huntington, S. P. (1991). The third wave: Democratization in the late twentieth century.
Norman, OK and London, England: University of Oklahoma Press.
Hyde, S. D. (2011). The pseudo-democrat’s dilemma: Why election observation became an
international norm. Ithaca, NY and London, England: Cornell University Press.
Kelley, J. (2012). Monitoring democracy: When international election observation works,
and why it often fails. Princeton, NJ and Oxford, England: Princeton University
Press.
Levitsky, S., & Loxton, J. (2013). Populism and competitive authoritarianism in the
Andes. Democratization, 20(1), 107–136.
Levitsky, S., & Way, L. A. (2010). Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the
cold war. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Lindberg, S. I. (2006). Democracy and elections in Africa. Baltimore, MD and London,
England: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Magaloni, B. (2006). Voting for autocracy: Hegemonic party survival and its demise in
Mexico. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Morse, Y. L. (2012). The era of electoral authoritarianism. World Politics, 64(1 (January)), 161–198.
Powell, B. G. (2000). Elections as instruments of democracy: Majoritarian and proportional
visions. New Haven, CT and London, England: Yale University Press.
Robertson, G. B. (2010). The politics of protest in hybrid regimes: Managing dissent in
post-communist Russia countries. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Roessler, P. G., & Howard, M. M. (2009). Post-cold war political regimes: When do
elections matter?. In S. I. Lindberg (Ed.), Democratization by elections: A new mode of
transition (pp. 101–127). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Rose, R., & Munro, N. (2002). Elections without Order: Russia’s Challenge to Vladimir
Putin. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Schedler, A. (1996). Anti-political-establishment parties. Party Politics, 2(3 (July)),
291–312.
Schedler, A. (2002a). The nested game of democratization by elections. International
Political Science Review, 23(1 (January 2002)), 103–122.
Schedler, A. (2002b). Elections without democracy: The menu of manipulation. Journal of Democracy, 13(2 (April)), 36–50.
Schedler, A. (2012). The measurer’s dilemma: Coordination failures in cross-national
political data collection. Comparative Political Studies, 45(2 (February)), 191–220.
Schedler, A. (2013). The politics of uncertainty: Sustaining and subverting electoral authoritarianism. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Schedler, A., & Mudde, C. (2010). Data usage in quantitative comparative politics.
Political Research Quarterly, 63(2 (June)), 417–433.
Simpser, A. (2013). Why governments and parties manipulate elections. New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Snyder, R. (2006). Beyond electoral authoritarianism: The spectrum of nondemocratic regimes. In A. Schedler (Ed.), Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree
competition (pp. 219–231). Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Teorell, J., & Lindstedt, C. (2010). Measuring electoral systems. Political Research Quarterly, 63(2 (June)), 434–448.
Way, L. A. (2006). Authoritarian failure: How does state weakness strengthen electoral competition?. In A. Schedler (Ed.), Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of
unfree competition (pp. 167–180). Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner
Publishers.
Weiss, M. L. (2006). Protest and possibilities: Civil society and coalitions for political change
in Malaysia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Wilson, A. (2005). Virtual politics: Faking democracy in the post-soviet world. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.

Electoral Authoritarianism

15

FURTHER READING
Alvarez, R. M., Thad, E. H., & Susan, D. H. (Eds.) (2008). Election fraud: Detecting and
deterring electoral manipulation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Gandhi, J., & Lust-Okar, E. (2009). Elections under authoritarianism. Annual Review
of Political Science, 12, 403–422.
Lehoucq, F. E. (2003). Electoral fraud: Causes, types, and consequences. Annual
Review of Political Science, 6, 233–56.
Lindberg, S. I. (Ed.) (2009). Democratization by elections: A new mode of transition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schaffer, F. C. (Ed.) (2007). Elections for sale: The causes and consequences of vote buying.
Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Schedler, A. (Ed.) (2006). Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree competition.
Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

ANDREAS SCHEDLER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Andreas Schedler earned his PhD from the University of Vienna. A resident
of Mexico since 1997, he is professor of political science at the Center for Economic Teaching and Research (CIDE) in Mexico City. He has done research
on anti-political-establishment parties, political accountability, democratic
consolidation and transition, elections, authoritarianism, and organized
violence. In the field of methodology, he has worked on concept analysis
and cross-national measurement. His articles have appeared in scholarly
journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics,
the Journal of Democracy, the European Journal of Political Research,
Party Politics, the Journal of Political Philosophy, and Political Research
Quarterly. He is the editor of Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of
Unfree Competition (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006)
and the author of The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting
Electoral Authoritarianism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013).
Webpage: http://works.bepress.com/andreas_schedler/
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16

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Regime Type and Terrorist Attacks (Political Science), Kara Kingma et al.
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Chinese Politics (Political Science), Jessica Chen Weiss


Electoral Authoritarianism
ANDREAS SCHEDLER

Abstract
Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the institutional
facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the
national level, yet violate liberal-democratic minimum standards in systematic and
profound ways. Since the end of the Cold War, they have turned into the most
common form of nondemocratic rule in the world. Responding to the empirical
expansion of nondemocratic multiparty elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has taken center stage in comparative political science. This essay
reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field
of comparative politics, summarizes cutting-edge research on regime trajectories
and internal regime dynamics, and lays out substantive issues and methodological
desiderata for future research.

INTRODUCTION
The modal dictator in the contemporary world holds multiparty elections.
He sets up the institutional façade of democracy, yet undermines its spirit
through authoritarian manipulation. He admits regular elections to highest
national office and allows independent opposition parties to participate. At
the same time, he subjects these elections to severe and systematic manipulation through strategies such as media censorship, voter intimidation, the
banning of parties or candidates, and electoral fraud. The contemporary dictator practices “electoral authoritarianism.”
Today, the grand categories of nondemocratic regimes of the Cold War
era—single-party systems, military regimes, and personal dictatorships—
have almost disappeared. We must not underestimate their significance.
The Chinese single-party regime alone rules over a fifth of humanity. Still,
electoral authoritarian “pseudo-democracies” have turned into the most
common type of nondemocratic regimes in the contemporary world (see
e.g., Hadenius & Teorell, 2007; Roessler & Howard, 2009).

Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

In accordance with the empirical expansion of nondemocratic multiparty
elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has acquired a central place in comparative political science. In this essay, I review the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field of inquiry, summarize cutting-edge research on electoral authoritarian regime trajectories
and internal regime dynamics, and lay out substantive issues and methodological desiderata for future research.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
The foundational act that opened up the research agenda on electoral authoritarian regimes was an act of conceptual differentiation. By introducing the
notion of electoral authoritarianism scholars introduced a two-sided distinction. On the one side, they introduced a distinction among multiparty regimes:
some are authoritarian; they are different from electoral democracies as we
know them. On the other hand, they introduced a distinction among authoritarian regimes: some hold multiparty elections to highest office; they are different from nonelectoral dictatorships as we know them. The presence of
multiparty elections distinguishes electoral autocracies from closed autocracies. The authoritarian nature of these elections distinguishes them from
electoral democracies.
In the social sciences, conceptual innovations often follow the trail of empirical transformations. New concepts strive to capture new realities. The invention of “electoral authoritarianism” is no exception. New concepts, however,
unsettle established fields of thought. They do not spread, and should not
spread, without intense debate. Do the distinctions they draw capture relevant differences in the real world? How can we trace them on empirical
grounds? How should we name them? The idea of “electoral authoritarianism” has found widespread acceptance within the comparative study of
political regimes. As it could not be otherwise, though, its career has been
accompanied by ongoing debates on meaning, boundary delimitation, and
terminology.
THE DEMOCRATIC BOUNDARY
In the Last decade of the Cold War, the so-called “third wave of global
democratization” (Huntington, 1991) led to the return of electoral democracy in most of Latin America. The region’s new democracies brought huge
advances in civil and political liberties. At the same time, when compared
to “advanced” democracies, they appeared to be burdened by innumerable deficiencies, such as corruption, military tutelage, weak parties, and
weak judiciaries. Their disappointing defects sparked a broad literature on

Electoral Authoritarianism

3

“diminished subtypes of democracy,” also known as “democracies with
adjectives” (Collier & Levitsky, 1997).
If observers had found the normative balance of the third wave of democratization disappointing, their disappointments deepened with the “fourth
wave” of democratization after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In most of the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa, the disintegration of single-party
dictatorship did not give way to electoral democracy, but something else. It
produced regimes that established the electoral facades of liberal democracy,
yet violated democratic principles in severe and systematic ways. Describing
them as “democracies with adjectives” seemed to bend the notion of democracy beyond breaking point. Thus, the conceptual shift toward “elections
without democracy” (Journal of Democracy 2/2002).
A Contested Distinction. There is a broad normative consensus in the
literature about what democratic elections entail: competition, freedom,
integrity, and fairness. There is also broad consensus about the possibility
that autocrats can undermine the democratic spirit of elections by choosing
from an open-ended “menu of electoral manipulation” (Schedler, 2002b) that
includes vote rigging, exclusion, institutional discrimination, censorship,
and repression (see also Birch, 2011). No firm consensus exists, however,
on whether we should conceptualize manipulated multiparty elections
as deficiently democratic, plainly authoritarian, or something in between
(“hybrid”).
A Contested Boundary. Even when we agree that we need to distinguish in
principle between democratic and authoritarian elections, it is difficult to do
so in practice. Given its normative, conceptual, informational, and political
complexities, the dividing line between electoral democracies and electoral
autocracies has been uncertain and contested (see Schedler, 2013, Chapter 3).
A Contested Terminology. The notion of “electoral authoritarianism” has
proven fruitful in demarcating the conceptual territory of nondemocratic
multiparty regimes. It does not enjoy a terminological monopoly, though.
Following relevant debates still requires a certain amount of translation
between vaguely homonymous categories. Highlighting authoritarian party
pluralism, some authors talk of “multiparty autocracies.” Others stress the
contradictory institutional blend that characterizes electoral autocracies.
They speak of “hybrid,” “mixed,” or “inconsistent” regimes. Still others
locate these regimes in an equidistant position between democracy and

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

dictatorship. They refer to “pseudo-democracy,” “semi-democracy,” or
“semi-authoritarianism.”
THE AUTHORITARIAN BOUNDARY
While the distinction between democratic and authoritarian elections is primarily normative, the distinction between electoral and closed authoritarianism is primarily empirical. It only makes sense to distinguish these subtypes
of authoritarianism if they work differently. Yet, which is the causal role of
multiparty elections in authoritarian regimes? Do they make a difference that
makes a difference? Much of the foundational empirical work on authoritarian elections has revolved around this causal question. The debate has been
guided by three divergent theoretical perspectives:
•

•

•

Elections as adornments: The so-called “new institutionalism” in the study
of authoritarian regimes (Schedler, 2013) proceeds upon the assumption
that formally democratic institutions matter, even under authoritarian
governance. Not everybody shares this causal assumption. Some hold
authoritarian elections are epiphenomenal, mere reflections of underlying power structures, without causal weight of their own (e.g., Brownlee,
2007).
Elections as tools: Others, by contrast, conceive authoritarian elections
as instruments authoritarian rulers deploy to prolong the political life
expectancy of authoritarian rulers. They are utensils in the toolbox of
dictators. They do not define authoritarian regimes, but authoritarian
strategies across regimes (e.g., Gandhi, 2008).
Elections as arenas: A third perspective emphasizes the ambiguity
of elections. It contends that multiparty elections are more than mere
instruments of dictatorship. They change the inner logic of authoritarian
politics. They open arenas of struggle that are asymmetric, as they grant
huge advantages to the incumbent, and still ambiguous, as they endow
opposition actors with novel opportunities of contestation and mobilization. Though unfree and unfair by design, authoritarian multiparty
elections are contingent in their outcomes (e.g., Schedler, 2013).

Over the past years, at least two dozens of comparative studies have
put the contrasting hypotheses about “the power of elections” to statistical testing. The preliminary balance sheet of these large-N studies is
not evident at first sight. As in other substantive areas of cross-national
statistical inquiry, results are mixed, sometimes contradictory, and not
readily reconcilable. Overall, however, they appear to confirm the idea that
authoritarian multiparty elections matter—not as reliable instruments of

Electoral Authoritarianism

5

sovereign dictators, though, but as asymmetric arenas of struggle whose
outcomes are contingent on the dynamics of conflict that unfold within its
bounds (for an overview, see Schedler, 2013, Chapter 5).
CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
Statistical research on the longevity of electoral autocracies in comparison to
closed autocracies has been largely exhausted. Even if we keep refining our
data and techniques of data analysis, we are unlikely to obtain dramatically
new insights. Research on electoral authoritarian regimes has accordingly
shifted its attention toward two new fields of inquiry: the divergent trajectories of electoral autocracies and the political dynamics within them.
EXPLAINING REGIME TRAJECTORIES
Electoral authoritarian regimes differ widely in their longevity. Some
stumble and fall after a few rounds of elections, others cling to power
for decades. What explains this wide variance in regime durability? Two
contrasting explanatory perspectives have dominated the discussion:
Generic, structural, and external explanations have been competing against
regime-specific, actor-based, and internal explanations. Two important
monographs nicely represent these contrasting perspectives: Competitive
Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War by Steven Levitsky and
Lucan Way (2010) represents the former, Defeating Authoritarian Leaders in
Postcommunist Countries by Valerie Bunce and Sharon Wolchik (2011) the
latter perspective.
When we go about to explain patterns of stability and change within one
subtype of political regime, we can either choose to mobilize general explanations that are valid for any type of political regime. Alternatively, we can craft
more specific explanations that are grounded in the institutional and strategic
dynamics that are particular to the regime type in question. In this regard,
the two monographs take contrasting routes. While methodologically similar (both are qualitative case comparisons), the two books pursue contrasting
explanatory strategies.
Levitsky and Way seek general explanations. As the authors posit, in situations of high international linkage, when societies are densely interwoven
with the external environment, competitive autocracies are likely to democratize. When regimes are more isolated, they are likely to remain stable
unless they are structurally vulnerable to democratizing pressures from
Western powers. Their argument about the primacy of international factors
is meant to be time-specific rather than regime-specific. It is applicable to
the Post-Cold-War period in general, not limited to competitive regimes in

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

particular. Bunce and Wolchik, by contrast, focus their attention on domestic
dynamics that are exclusive to electoral authoritarian regimes: the strategies
opposition actors adopt toward multiparty elections. As they argue, if and
only if opposition actors adopt the “electoral model” of transition, they can
win against powerful incumbents. If they refrain from doing so, they will
keep losing.
While the two books differ in the regime-specificity of their explanations,
they also differ in the type of explanatory theories they offer. Levitsky and
Way privilege structural factors and discard the weight of actor dynamics.
They seek to unearth the macrofoundations of regime change and stability.
Bunce and Wolchik privilege the choices of actors and hold structural factors
to be secondary. They strive to uncover the microfoundations of electoral
authoritarian regime dynamics. The former employ explanatory variables
that are distant from regime outcomes, the latter ones that are more proximate. Levitsky and Way grant primacy to external factors, Bunce and Wolchik
to domestic factors.
Structure-based approaches raise questions about the consequences of societal and institutional structures: how do they translate into actor dynamics?
Actor-based approaches raise questions about the origins of actor dynamics: if strategic choices explain regime trajectories, what explains strategic
choices? An emergent stream of empirical studies has been addressing the
latter question: how can we explain actor dynamics that unfold within electoral autocracies?
EXPLAINING DYNAMICS WITHIN REGIMES
The concept of electoral authoritarianism is election-centric. It comprehends
pluralistic elections as the defining institution of one broad category of
authoritarianism. Based by definition on elections, it assumes by implication
that elections matter: It assumes that actor choices within the authoritarian
electoral arena are autonomous—they are not predetermined by external
structures. In addition, it assumes them to be consequential—they carry causal
weight of their own. To what extent do these assumptions hold empirically?
The blossoming literature on actor dynamics within authoritarian elections
has made significant advances in conceptualizing these dynamics, gathering
systematic information about them, and explaining them across time and
space.
Conceptualization. In an early contribution to the literature, Schedler (2002a)
conceived authoritarian elections as two-level games in which the struggle
for voters at the game level goes hand in hand with the struggle over rules

Electoral Authoritarianism

7

at the meta-game level. Electoral competition is nested within institutional
battles. At the meta-game of institutional struggle, governments decide among
strategies of electoral manipulation or reform. Opposition parties resolve
whether to boycott or participate, and whether to acquiesce or contest
electoral processes and results. State agents choose their level of regime
loyalty. At the game-level of electoral competition, both governments and
opposition parties choose their strategies of electoral mobilization. Citizens
choose their level of regime loyalty. In this two-level contest, actors compete
over electoral uncertainty under conditions of informational uncertainty.
Final election results are the combined product of voter choices and state
manipulation (see also Schedler, 2013, Chapter 4).
Data Development. About a decade ago, systematic information about
the inner dynamics of authoritarian elections was almost nonexistent.
Today, thanks to the personal initiative of numerous individual researchers,
a considerable number of public datasets exist on relevant attributes
of authoritarian elections, such as institutional rules, levels of electoral
competitiveness, alternation in power, strategies of manipulation, violence, opposition boycott, and protest. Some offer global coverage, long
time series, and large sets of variables. Examples are the DPI World
Bank Dataset on Political Institutions (http://econ.worldbank.org), the
NELDA dataset on National Elections across Democracy and Autocracy
(http://hyde.research.yale.edu/nelda/), and the IAEP Institutions and Elections Project (http://www2.binghamton.edu/political-science/institutionsand-elections-project.html). Many other datasets are more limited in purpose and coverage (for an overview on cross-national data sets, see Schedler,
2013, Appendix C). Though the availability of data on authoritarian elections
has increased enormously over the past decade, their collection has evolved
in uncoordinated manner. Even when scholars intend to measure similar
concepts, it is often difficult to compare their data or even fuse them into
integrative datasets (Schedler, 2012).
Explanation. If electoral democracies are complex systems, electoral autocracies are even more complex, as the democratic game of electoral competition interacts with the authoritarian meta-game of electoral manipulation. In
modern social sciences, our usual way of coping with complex realities is to
slice them into manageable component parts. Rather than looking at everything interacting with everything else, we isolate “independent variables” (x)
we expect to have an impact on “dependent variables” (y). In the comparative
study of electoral authoritarianism, we have followed this logic by isolating
and examining specific causal relationships—both within the two-level game

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

of authoritarian elections and between the game and its social, political, and
international environments.
Most scholarly attention has focused on the analysis of meta-game strategies by government and opposition: the causes and consequences of levels
and types of manipulation and the causes and consequences of levels and
types of opposition protest (e.g., Birch, 2011; Lindberg, 2006, Robertson,
2010; Schedler, 2013; Simpser, 2013; Wilson, 2005). To a much lesser, though
increasing, extent, comparativists have been paying attention to game-level
dynamics: party building, candidate selection, electoral campaigning, and
voter behavior (e.g., Magaloni, 2006; Greene, 2007, Rose & Munro, 2002).
Too, they have started to conduct systematic research on the relations
between authoritarian election arenas and their “external environments,”
such as state structures (e.g., Snyder, 2006; Way, 2006), civil society (e.g.,
Aspinall, 2005; Weiss, 2006), and the international community (e.g., Hyde,
2011; Kelley, 2012).
Overall, the increasingly specialized stream of research on electoral
autocracies has provided manifold empirical confirmations for the theoretical intuition that motivated it in the first place: the relative autonomy
of authoritarian elections. Authoritarian multiparty elections are neither
epiphenomenal nor inconsequential, but follow causal logics of their own
and carry causal weights of their own.
KEY ISSUES FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Where is the study of electoral authoritarianism going? Where should it be
going? I will outline some substantive issues of research that in my view
deserve more scholarly attention. I will also outline two methodological
imperatives: the need for more and better cross-national data and the
need for more and better qualitative case comparisons. I will conclude by
speculating about the future of electoral authoritarianism: a continuing
trend or a fading one?
NEGLECTED AREAS
The blossoming literature on electoral authoritarianism has privileged some
aspects of authoritarian elections and neglected others.
Internal Heterogeneity. The extended family of electoral authoritarian
regimes is numerous and internally heterogeneous. The most common
internal distinction runs between competitive and hegemonic regimes. The
precise meaning of this distinction is somewhat contested, but in essence it

Electoral Authoritarianism

9

points to contrasting degrees in regime consolidation. Hegemonic regimes
are consolidated. The political dominance of the ruling party is firmly
institutionalized. It controls the constitutional rules of the game, wins
all elections it cares about by wide margins, and everybody expects it to
continue doing so well into the future. Competitive regimes, by contrast,
are nonconsolidated. The incumbent party’s grip on state power is more
contested and insecure. It wins elections by variable margins and looks
vulnerable to electoral defeat. We should expect competitive and hegemonic
regimes to work in fundamentally different ways. Yet only few empirical
studies have compared electoral authoritarian dynamics across these regime
subtypes. Those that did have found systematic differences (e.g., Schedler,
2013).
Regime Origins. A growing number of cross-national studies have documented the comparative advantages electoral autocracies possess. On
average, they live longer and die more peacefully than nonelectoral dictatorships. Just like the structural functionalism of earlier decades, the rational
functionalism of the contemporary literature has led authors to take the
effects of elections for their causes. The long-term benefits of elections are
presumed to explain why rational, utility-maximizing dictators adopt them
in the first place. The assumption of omniscient sovereign rulers who pick
the most useful devices from the toolset of political institutions possesses
theoretical elegance. However, it provides an undercomplex account of the
manifold origins of electoral authoritarian rule. Our empirical knowledge
on transitions to electoral authoritarianism, be it from closed regimes or
electoral democracies, is fragile and fragmentary.
Electoral Competition. To date, most of the empirical literature on authoritarian elections has focused on the meta-level of institutional conflict. The void
of comparative research is evident: it is very little we know about the game
level of authoritarian electoral competition. It is little we know about party
organizations, candidate selection, electoral alliances, election campaigns,
public discourse, media content, media consumption, and voter behavior.
Once we know more about these game-level structures and processes, we
will be in a position to trace their interactions with meta-game structures
and processes.
Embedded Elections. The nested game of authoritarian elections is nested in
other games. Elections are nested in national societies. Regime actors are
nested in the state, opposition actors in civil society. Local elections are nested

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

within national elections. National politics is nested in international politics.
Studying the internal interaction between the two levels of authoritarian elections may seem complex enough. Yet, if we wish to better comprehend the
dynamics of authoritarian elections, we need to study their external linkages
as well. Comparative research about them is barely commencing.
Electoral History. The remarkable rise of electoral autocracies since the end
of the Cold War often lets us overlook the fact that the use of multiparty
elections as instruments of authoritarian rule, rather than “instruments of
democracy” (Powell, 2000), is nothing new. Authoritarian multiparty elections have a long history, in particular in Europe and the Americas of the
nineteenth century. In addition to the “historical turn” in democratization
studies (Capoccia & Ziblatt, 2010), we need a historical turn in the comparative study of electoral authoritarianism.
Data Requirements. Over the past decades, we have seen an impressive
growth of cross-national quantitative data in comparative politics. In the
study of electoral authoritarianism, too, numerous scholars have engaged
in the development of cross-national dataset, above all, on electoral manipulation and electoral competitiveness. To push quantitative comparative
research on authoritarian elections on its next stage, we need both to revise,
integrate, complement, and consolidate the data we have collected so far. In
addition, we need to construct new and better data on almost all aspects of
authoritarian elections:

•

•

•

Election results: Incredible, but true. Despite countless private initiatives
of data collection, access to historical and contemporary national election
data, not to speak of subnational data, is still precarious. We still need to
institutionalize the systematic collection of data on elections and parties
across the world (Schedler, 2012: pp. 256–257 and 259).
Electoral governance: We possess certain cross-national data on rules of
electoral competition (Teorell & Lindstedt, 2010), but very few on institutions of electoral governance, such as suffrage rights, rules of voter
and party registration, and the structure of election management and
electoral dispute settlement.
Voter preferences: If we wish to apply the analytical tools of electoral studies to authoritarian contexts, we need to collect individual-level data
on voter attitudes. Though we possess rich data on individual countries, we possess few cross-national data on voters under authoritarian
conditions.

Electoral Authoritarianism

•

•

11

Election campaigns: Collecting comparative data on authoritarian
regimes is difficult. Collecting them on processes of electoral competition is difficult even in democratic contexts. Still, data projects such
as the Comparative Manifesto Project (MAPOR) that codes the content
of election platforms should in principle be adaptable to authoritarian
settings (https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu).
Electoral protest: The only available worldwide source of cross-national
longitudinal data on contentious action, the political conflict data in the
Arthur Banks Cross-National Time Series (CNTS), captures no more than
a minuscule fraction of the contentious events that actually take place in
any country in any year (Schedler, 2012: pp. 247–248).

As a matter of course, even within a quantitative framework, we need
not study everything in cross-national perspective. We also need systematic
observations on subnational elections and electoral histories in single
countries. Almost half of all quantitative comparative research (published
in top journals between 1989 and 2007) covers single countries (Schedler &
Mudde, 2010: p. 421). The quantitative study of electoral autocracies should
embrace this trend.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
While there is much insight to be gained from careful and innovative quantitative research, statistical research on electoral authoritarianism has kept
us far away from actors. There is much we lose in explanatory accuracy if
we survey the two-level game of authoritarian elections exclusively from the
bird’s perspective of cross-national quantification. To achieve methodological balances, we need more case studies that embrace and exploit the comparative advantages of qualitative research—such as the closeness to actors,
attention to history, sequence, and process, and access to empirical evidence
on public discourse or the internal dynamics of collective actors.
THE FUTURE OF ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIANISM
Even while recognizing the limits of prediction in the social sciences, it is
tempting to ponder the future of electoral authoritarianism. With the exception of Singapore, all hegemonic party regimes that predated the fall of the
Berlin Wall have disappeared, while competitive authoritarian regimes have
emerged as “the typical stepping stone to democratization” (Hadenius &
Teorell, 2007: p. 152). Should we conclude that “the era of electoral authoritarianism” (Morse 2012) is bound to end soon? Well, not quite, no yet. A fair
number of electoral autocracies have defied the laws of political mortality. In

12

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

addition, a continuous stream of new members continues to repopulate both
subtypes of electoral authoritarianism.
The Regeneration of Hegemonic Regimes. Hegemonic regimes are long-lived by
definition and inherently stable. They are not immortal, though. The disappearance of almost all of the long-lasting hegemonies of the twentieth century does not imply that electoral hegemonies are a matter of the past. Both
competitive regimes and closed autocracies may transform themselves into
hegemonic regimes. They have done so in the past and they are likely to do
so in the future.
•

•

Transitions from competitive authoritarianism: Many competitive autocrats strive to transform their precarious incumbency advantages
into solid hegemonic domination. Some have failed, at least for now.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a prominent example. Others, however,
have succeeded. In the post-Soviet space, Nursultan Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan, Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, and Ilham Aliyev of
Azerbaijan have conducted successful transitions from competitive
authoritarianism to personalist breeds of hegemonic rule.
Transitions from closed authoritarianism: When closed autocracies
introduce multiparty elections they can hope to establish instantaneous
hegemonic domination. They possess huge initial advantages over
their competitors. They have the organizational infrastructure, the
administrative capacity, the appearance of popular support, and the
military power they need to face the challenges of authoritarian electoral
competition. No doubt, the most important case of a possible future
transition from closed to hegemonic authoritarianism is China.

The Regeneration of Competitive Authoritarianism. Unlike hegemonic regimes,
competitive authoritarian regimes are not in equilibrium. They are battle
grounds. Their battles are asymmetric, between contenders of unequal
standing, yet not predetermined in their outcomes. Representing “the
most volatile regime type” (Roessler & Howard, 2009: p. 103), many have
democratized, such as Peru, Serbia, and Ghana. Others have been cut short
by military coups and political disorder, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Togo. Still,
a fair number of regimes, such as Russia, Algeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe,
are hanging on, muddling through. The family of competitive autocracies
has also been admitting new members from closed autocracies, such as
Afghanistan and Myanmar. However, more importantly, it has been admitting new members from Latin American democracies. In Venezuela, Bolivia
and Ecuador, anti-political establishment actors (Schedler, 1996) have taken

Electoral Authoritarianism

13

power through democratic means, concentrated power through dubious
means, and subverted the competition for power through authoritarian
means (Levitsky & Loxton, 2013). Today, all three arguably belong to the
category of competitive electoral autocracies. The same applies to Nicaragua
after the return of Daniel Ortega and Honduras after the 2009 military coup.
All in all, electoral authoritarianism seems more than a fleeting fad. Since
the invention of modern mass elections, their authoritarian use has been an
inherent possibility. After the end of the Cold War, this strategic possibility
reached pandemic dimensions. Today, the pathology has slowed down its
contagious spread. Yet the global virus of electoral authoritarianism has come
to stay with us for the foreseeable future.

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Lindberg, S. I. (2006). Democracy and elections in Africa. Baltimore, MD and London,
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FURTHER READING
Alvarez, R. M., Thad, E. H., & Susan, D. H. (Eds.) (2008). Election fraud: Detecting and
deterring electoral manipulation. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Gandhi, J., & Lust-Okar, E. (2009). Elections under authoritarianism. Annual Review
of Political Science, 12, 403–422.
Lehoucq, F. E. (2003). Electoral fraud: Causes, types, and consequences. Annual
Review of Political Science, 6, 233–56.
Lindberg, S. I. (Ed.) (2009). Democratization by elections: A new mode of transition. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schaffer, F. C. (Ed.) (2007). Elections for sale: The causes and consequences of vote buying.
Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Schedler, A. (Ed.) (2006). Electoral authoritarianism: The dynamics of unfree competition.
Boulder, CO and London, England: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

ANDREAS SCHEDLER SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Andreas Schedler earned his PhD from the University of Vienna. A resident
of Mexico since 1997, he is professor of political science at the Center for Economic Teaching and Research (CIDE) in Mexico City. He has done research
on anti-political-establishment parties, political accountability, democratic
consolidation and transition, elections, authoritarianism, and organized
violence. In the field of methodology, he has worked on concept analysis
and cross-national measurement. His articles have appeared in scholarly
journals such as Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics,
the Journal of Democracy, the European Journal of Political Research,
Party Politics, the Journal of Political Philosophy, and Political Research
Quarterly. He is the editor of Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of
Unfree Competition (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006)
and the author of The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting
Electoral Authoritarianism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013).
Webpage: http://works.bepress.com/andreas_schedler/
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