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Virtualstan: An Agent-Based Modeling Strategy for the Comparative Dynamics of Authoritarian Regimes: Bureaucratic Authoritarianism, Bureaucratic Feudalism, and Neopatrimonialism
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Virtualstan and Comparative Dynamics of Authoritarian Regimes
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Lustick and Cartrite
Introduction
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Since Plato and Aristotle political analysts have long sought to identify logics in the
operation, demise, and transformation of different types of regimes. Although western bourgeois social science has traditionally been so focused on the operation and requisites of one type—democracy, twentieth century Fascist and Communist totalitarianism demonstrated how powerful, if not permanent, that extreme form of authoritarianism could be using modern technologies of control. Breakdowns in development and democratization processes and the dogged refusal of dozens of authoritarian regimes to be transformed by the putatively powerful waves of liberating change celebrated as washing over the planet in recent decades, have demonstrated the general tenacity of authoritarianism and have led scholars back to take its institutional realizations seriously.
A considerable part of this interest has to do with the problem of succession in such
institutions. Many often consider authoritarian states “one-bullet regimes.” However, since authoritarian regimes can reproduce themselves despite the sudden disappearance of the dictator or “Great Leader (GL)” (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Soviet Union, China, etc.), their bona fides as sophisticated examples of institutionalized power have been firmly established. Still the relative unimportance of formal procedures for guiding or anticipating political successions opens a distinctive set of questions about determinants of patterns of outcomes associated with political successions within authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes.
Addressing this problem requires a broader theory of authoritarianism. Toward this end
scholars of authoritarianism must move, and increasingly have moved, well beyond the hoary distinction between “authoritarianism” and “totalitarianism” toward a recognition that there may be interesting variants of authoritarian regimes, with different dynamics and different institutional characteristics. In line with this recognition, we expect that simply knowing a regime is authoritarian tells us very little about its future once hit by a succession crisis. Our overall hypothesis is that although chaos may result from a succession crisis in an authoritarian state, and although the exact script for what will unfold in any particular country by the death or disappearance of a dominant leader cannot be written ahead of his/her demise, the conditions likely to produce different kinds of outcomes can be systematically explored. To think in this
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For their assistance over the various stages of this project, we would like to thank: Roy Eidelson of the Solomon
Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania; Dan Miodownik, University of
Pennsylvania, Kaija Schilde, University of Pennsylvania; and Ben Eidelson, Yale University.
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| | Authors: Lustick, Ian. and Cartrite, Britt. |
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Virtualstan and Comparative Dynamics of Authoritarian Regimes
1
Lustick and Cartrite
Introduction
1
Since Plato and Aristotle political analysts have long sought to identify logics in the
operation, demise, and transformation of different types of regimes. Although western bourgeois
social science has traditionally been so focused on the operation and requisites of one type—
democracy, twentieth century Fascist and Communist totalitarianism demonstrated how
powerful, if not permanent, that extreme form of authoritarianism could be using modern
technologies of control. Breakdowns in development and democratization processes and the
dogged refusal of dozens of authoritarian regimes to be transformed by the putatively powerful
waves of liberating change celebrated as washing over the planet in recent decades, have
demonstrated the general tenacity of authoritarianism and have led scholars back to take its
institutional realizations seriously.
A considerable part of this interest has to do with the problem of succession in such
institutions. Many often consider authoritarian states “one-bullet regimes.” However, since
authoritarian regimes can reproduce themselves despite the sudden disappearance of the dictator
or “Great Leader (GL)” (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Soviet Union, China, etc.), their bona fides
as sophisticated examples of institutionalized power have been firmly established. Still the
relative unimportance of formal procedures for guiding or anticipating political successions
opens a distinctive set of questions about determinants of patterns of outcomes associated with
political successions within authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes.
Addressing this problem requires a broader theory of authoritarianism. Toward this end
scholars of authoritarianism must move, and increasingly have moved, well beyond the hoary
distinction between “authoritarianism” and “totalitarianism” toward a recognition that there may
be interesting variants of authoritarian regimes, with different dynamics and different
institutional characteristics. In line with this recognition, we expect that simply knowing a
regime is authoritarian tells us very little about its future once hit by a succession crisis. Our
overall hypothesis is that although chaos may result from a succession crisis in an authoritarian
state, and although the exact script for what will unfold in any particular country by the death or
disappearance of a dominant leader cannot be written ahead of his/her demise, the conditions
likely to produce different kinds of outcomes can be systematically explored. To think in this
1
For their assistance over the various stages of this project, we would like to thank: Roy Eidelson of the Solomon
Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, University of Pennsylvania; Dan Miodownik, University of
Pennsylvania, Kaija Schilde, University of Pennsylvania; and Ben Eidelson, Yale University.
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