1. Introduction: how do autocracies legitimate their rule?
Can an autocratic regime be called legitimate? Does it make sense to use the concept of legitimacy to describe a feature of non-democratic rule? Under what conditions does the concept apply? What are the constituent elements of the concept? And, how do autocracies legitimate their rule more concretely? These questions guide the research articles in this special issue. The contributions are dedicated to studying the concept of legitimacy in an unlikely context. The overarching thesis of this special issue is that autocratic legitimation has causal influence on numerous outcomes of interest in authoritarian politics. These outcomes include regime resilience, challenger-state interactions, the procedures and operations of elections, and the texture of everyday life in autocracies.
This introductory essay aims to map the conceptual terrain on which the articles operate by outlining the foundations and major turning points in the study of legitimation in autocracies. In doing so it will not only argue that studying autocratic legitimation is important, but also will propose contexts, concepts, and distinctions for doing so. More specifically, it proposes four mechanisms of autocratic legitimation that can organize research in this area: indoctrination, passivity, performance, and democratic-procedural. These mechanisms capture the conceptual content of a variety of legitimation claims across different regime types.
At the outset it is necessary to establish that it is acceptable to talk about autocratic legitimacy and legitimation. Etymologically, legitimacy referred to a form of political rule that was justified by the absence of despotism and tyranny and was, instead, characterized by the rule of law (Würtenberger, 1982, pp. 680–81). From its inception the term legitimacy referred therefore to just and right rule. In common language, it still describes a form of rule that is seen in the eyes of the observer as fair and good. These normative connotations make it understandable that the term has been used mainly to describe democratic regime forms. Legitimacy provides a vision for how rule should look and this normative question is most often linked to democratic polities. With the ostensible triumph of democracy after World War II and the renaissance of democratic ideals and institutions (Keane, 2009, p. 648), legitimate rule was often equated with democratic rule such that even non-democracies felt they had to make some pretense of being democratic (Dahl, 1971, p. 5).
The conceptual foundation provided by Max Weber is useful for constructing analysis on comparative authoritarianism. His main idea was to ‘emancipate’ the social sciences from the study of what should be to the study of what is, of what we actually observe (Weber, [1922] 1978). With such an empirical view on social phenomenon, it is possible to use the term ‘legitimacy belief' even in non-democratic contexts. And indeed, for Weber, the legal-rational type of rule was only one of three types of legitimate rule. Charisma and tradition as the two other forms usually lack democratic foundations. On the contrary, the exceptionalism of a person or the rightfulness of tradition is not based on a democratic procedural understanding of legitimacy in which elections are the minimal core of the concept (Przeworski, 1999).
Systems theories in the social sciences also provide useful anchors for the current discussion on comparative authoritarianism. The distinction between ‘diffuse’ and ‘specific’ support (Easton, 1965) is open to all types of political systems, be they democratic or autocratic in nature. Systems theory also points to an important dimension, namely the effect of legitimacy – or the ‘support’ for legitimacy claims. Beetham has distilled three positive effects that legitimate rule brings about: enhanced order, stability, and effectiveness (Beetham, 1991, pp. 25–37). This holds true for both regime types. From an empirical standpoint all types of regimes, be they autocratic or democratic, need to justify their rule in order to maintain longevity (see Kailitz & Stockemer, 2015). No political regime can endure only on repression and co-optation. Legitimation is a third complementary ‘pillar’ that also sustains autocratic rule (Gerschewski, 2013). A leader can gain access to power by using repression, but in the long run, all types of political regimes need to legitimate their rule. Key empirical questions thus become not whether but rather how, to what extent, and with what effects any given regime has been successful in procuring legitimacy (see also Beetham, 1991).
Normatively, it is understandable that there are objections and reservations about the usage of the term legitimacy in non-democratic contexts. ‘Legitimate authoritarianism’ might open avenues for politicized and relativist statements of any sort that might even go so far to defend and excuse the normative foundation of autocratic rule. Empirically, it is indeed debatable as to whether voluntary consent is an integral part of the definition of legitimacy. Do people need to be capable to choose freely between alternatives and explicitly approve principles in order to view a regime as legitimate? If the answer is yes, then legitimacy may be the wrong concept to use for autocratic settings, and perhaps even for entrenched democratic systems. Alternative concepts like political culture, loyalty, or support might be more fitting if such a view is endorsed. However, we propose to follow a Weberian perspective and ask how regimes legitimate their rule and what people believe (for whatever reason) about those claims. In so doing, we assume that the concepts of the legitimacy claim of the rulers and the legitimacy belief of the people are the proper concepts for understanding autocratic legitimation. In this sense legitimacy is something that autocracies attempt to acquire or cultivate through their legitimation claims, symbols, narratives, and/or procedures. Whether, how, and to what extent the legitimation efforts of a given autocracy results in legitimacy is an empirical question that can (and should) be researched by political scientists. The remainder of this essay traces the intellectual history of these concepts, proposes a categorization of autocratic legitimation mechanisms, identifies potentially fruitful lines of research inquiry and suggestions for approaching them, and briefly introduces the articles that comprise the rest of this special issue.
2. Distilling four legitimation mechanisms
A recurring question of comparative autocracy research is: how do non-democratic leaders gain followings among their people? In this section, we outline the career of ‘autocratic legitimacy’ in modern political science and – based on the conceptual discussion – distil four different mechanisms on how autocracies legitimate their rule: indoctrination, performance, passivity, and democratic-procedural.1 From the 1940s to the 1960s, research on autocracies was dominated by the debate about totalitarianism. From this perspective, the ideological indoctrination of the people was the focus of scholarly debate. How could the Nazi regime in Germany, Stalinist Soviet Union, or Maoist China be so successful and why could they seemingly anchor their legitimacy so broadly in society? The research in the 1970s and 1980s then shifted its focus more on socio-economic conditions in (mostly) military regimes. Scholars emphasized the performance of autocratic regimes and how this performance induced quiescence in the population. Today’s research aims to understand how autocracies have sought new, much more subtle ways in securing their legitimacy vis-à-vis the ruled. By using elections and the image of responsiveness to the demands of the people they give themselves the pretense of a democratic-procedural legitimacy (see more detail in Gerschewski, 2014).
2.1. Totalitarianism, the role of political ideologies, and the indoctrination mechanism
Major works during the first phase of modern research on autocratic regimes are the classic writings of eminent scholars like Hannah Arendt, Carl Joachim Friedrich, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Raymond Aron. From different perspectives, they sought to understand the nature and the rise of totalitarianism. While they differ in their approaches, they converge on the importance of political ideologies in consolidating and sustaining non-democratic rule. Arendt formulated a socio-philosophical attempt to understand the emergence and the essence of totalitarian rule. She argued that ideology and terror are the two essential features of these regimes (Arendt, [1951] 1966). For her, totalitarian ideologies have three distinct features. Firstly, they aim at ‘total explanation of the past, the total knowledge of the present, and the reliable prediction of the future’ (Arendt, [1951] 1966, p. 470). Secondly, in addition to the omnipotence of totalitarian ideologies they become independent from empirical reality. Totalitarian ideologies develop a utopian millenarian promise that immunizes itself from any type of anchoring in empirical reality. Thirdly, Arendt argues that totalitarian ideologies present themselves as logical entities. Based on axiomatic premises, all else, including the course of history, can be logically deduced.
From a different viewpoint, Friedrich and Brzezinski also placed ideology as among the most important characteristics of totalitarianism. They aimed at explaining the inner stability and working mechanisms of totalitarian regimes and in their famous six-point catalogue, ideology is omnipresent in political and daily life (Friedrich & Brzezinski, 1956). The indoctrination and propaganda machines along with the supporting organizational structures might have been unparalleled in totalitarian regimes. They aimed at creating a homo novus, a new man. This type of all-encompassing exposure to political ideologies is indeed a very rare phenomenon. The open research question is, even today, to what extent the German, the Soviet, or the Chinese population were true believers, passive followers, opportunists, or just ordinary people trying minimize catastrophe for themselves and their loved ones during the high tide of totalitarianism in those states (for historical work that addresses these themes in each case see, respectively, Browning, 1993; Fitzpatrick, 1999; Dikötter, 2016).
Today, only North Korea comes close to this totalitarian type (Armstrong, 2005; Dukalskis & Hooker, 2011; Scobell, 2005). It exemplifies what we call the ‘indoctrination’ mechanism insofar as the North Korean government goes to great lengths to ensure that its citizens believe its legitimation claims (see, e.g. Hassig & Oh, 2009, pp. 133–170). The state attempts to thoroughly control the media, school curricula, public visual space, and the private time of citizens to create what a United Nations Commission of Inquiry called an ‘all-encompassing indoctrination machine that takes root from childhood to propagate an official personality cult and to manufacture absolute obedience … effectively to the exclusion of any thought independent of official ideology and State propaganda’ (United Nations, 2014, para. 27).
Even so, North Korea has undergone significant social change since the mid-1990s that complicates its image as a totalitarian state (Armstrong, 2016; Armstrong, 2011; Choi, 2013; Lankov, 2013). Recent survey research shows that the North Korean people have become increasingly aware of how to critically evaluate their leadership (Haggard & Noland, 2011). Potentially oppositional spheres like shadow markets have emerged that can under some circumstances challenge totalitarian control (Dukalskis, 2016; Joo, 2014). There are still many unknowns in the case of North Korea and the thrust of recent research suggests that while the totalitarian model may have some analytic utility, the reality is more complex than some classic formulations suggest. However if one understands the totalitarian ideal in Mussolini’s sense of ‘everything within the state, nothing outside the state, and nothing against the state’ as a goal of the North Korean state and not an achieved reality, then the category is more straightforwardly applicable.
Even if this form of autocratic rule is extreme and relatively rare in today’s world, it marks one important pole in the spectrum. It shows that a political ideology imposed from above can influence the population with the aim to create a feeling of belonging among the ruled. Manichaeism, quasi-religious millenarian promises, revolutionary appeal, maybe even seemingly scientific accuracy, and interpretive autonomy can produce a behavioural following – and a cognitive legitimacy belief among the indoctrinated people. Given that autocratic regimes which emerge out of a revolutionary struggle and emphasize revolutionary totalitarian ideologies that are often reinforced by external enemy-at-the-gates and external scapegoat rhetoric tend to have long life-spans (Levitsky & Way, 2013), it is important to retain this sort of ‘indoctrination’ mechanism in analysis of contemporary autocratic legitimation.
2.2. Shifting to authoritarianism: performance and passivity mechanisms
However, most contemporary autocracies do not work like this any longer. The era of almost exclusive and comprehensive ideological mass indoctrination seems to be by and large gone. Ideocratic regimes that posit a utopian ideology still do exist, but have become rarer (Backes & Kailitz, 2016). But modern autocratic regimes still contain traces of these extremes so that it is helpful to keep in mind the historical experiences to understand the inner working mechanisms of contemporary regimes. The scope and force of indoctrination is limited and the legitimation methods and instruments appear to be much more subtle and are exercised with more finesse.
By the 1960s one could observe a tendency to shift attention away from the overly ideological regimes to a stronger emphasis on socio-economic conditions. This had much to do with the changing empirical reality in which totalitarian regimes became increasingly crowded out and replaced by what Linz termed...
