1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910879395203321

Autore

Brown Nathan J

Titolo

Autocrats can't always get what they want : state institutions and autonomy under authoritarianism / / Nathan J. Brown, Steven D. Schaaf, Samer Anabtawi & Julian G. Waller

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ann Arbor : , : University of Michigan Press, , 2024

©2024

ISBN

9780472904600

0472904604

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (318 pages)

Collana

Emerging democracies

Classificazione

POL000000POL007000POL009000

Altri autori (Persone)

SchaafSteven D

AnabtawiSamer

WallerJulian G

Disciplina

320.53

Soggetti

Authoritarianism

Dictatorship

Public institutions - Management

Autonomy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from eBook information screen..

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-293) and index.

Sommario/riassunto

Authoritarianism seems to be everywhere in the political world--even the definition of authoritarianism as any form of non-democratic governance has grown very broad. Attempts to explain authoritarian rule as a function of the interests or needs of the ruler or regime can be misleading. Autocrats Can't Always Get What They Want argues that to understand how authoritarian systems work we need to look not only at the interests and intentions of those at the top, but also at the inner workings of the various parts of the state. Courts, elections, security force structure, and intelligence gathering are seen as structured and geared toward helping maintain the regime. Yet authoritarian regimes do not all operate the same way in the day-to-day and year-to-year tumble of politics. In Autocrats Can't Always Get What They Want, the authors find that when state bodies form strong institutional patterns



and forge links with key allies both inside the state and outside of it, they can define interests and missions that are different from those at the top of the regime. By focusing on three such structures (parliaments, constitutional courts, and official religious institutions), the book shows that the degree of autonomy realized by a particular part of the state rests on how thoroughly it is institutionalized and how strong its links are with constituencies. Instead of viewing authoritarian governance as something that reduces politics to rulers' whims and opposition movements, the authors show how it operates--and how much what we call "authoritarianism" varies.