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Is it ever possible to reconcile clashing visions of national memory?
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Guest post by Vilde Lunnan Djuve and Carl Henrik Knutsen
In March 2020, COVID-19 generated a major emergency in countries across the world with public fear of the virus, lockdowns, and economies going into a tailspin. Yet, observers and citizens in many countries were worried about one additional thing, namely that their leaders would use the ongoing crisis as a window of opportunity for concentrating power in their own hands and thereby (further) undermine democracy. This was the case in Hungary, for example, where Viktor Orban’s government was granted the power to rule by decree. Such fears are not unfounded: History suggests that whenever leaders declare states of emergency in response to a (perceived or real) crisis, democratic decline becomes much more likely.
The COVID-19 crisis, in many ways, was unprecedented in its global scope and wide-ranging ramifications. Yet, even more conventional crises such as a “regular” economic recession with increased unemployment and reduced incomes, could have notable political consequences. From previous research, we also know that crises are related to various tumultuous political events such as civil war, coups d’état, and revolutions.
But very often regimes are changed not by some outside force such as military officers conducting coups or by revolutionaries in the streets. Instead, global data from the last two centuries show that the incumbent regime elites, including the sitting leaders themselves, are very often involved as key actors in processes of regime change. Does economic crisis increase the chances also of such incumbent-guided transitions?
In our new study, we investigate the relationship between economic crisis and regime changes driven by regime incumbents. We find that the relationship between economic crisis and incumbent-driven transitions (when treating them as one category) is very clear and at least as strong as the relationship between crisis and coups d’état. In other words, the risk of regime change driven by sitting presidents or other top leaders increases just about as much as the risk of coups, in the wake of economic crisis.
Why do we find such a robust relationship between economic crisis and incumbent-guided transitions? We propose two complementary explanations:
First, we argue that economic crises can work as windows of opportunity for incumbent leaders who are eager to expand their grip on power, make sure that they stay in power in the future, and diminish the role of the opposition. The idea is that, like during a pandemic (albeit typically on a smaller scale), citizens are more willing to accept extreme measures from their incumbents when crises loom. This gives leaders leeway to blame common enemies, ensure support where they otherwise cannot find it, and pursue regime change in a direction they inherently prefer.
Indeed, we find in our study that there is a strong and systematic relationship between economic crises and non-democratizing regime transitions driven by the regime incumbent. For examples of this unfolding in the real world, we can look to the self-coup of President Fujimori in Perú in April 1992, which took place after a long slouch in growth and the ascension of the armed group Sendero Luminoso.
In a more hopeful vein for supporters of democracy, we also have reason to believe that crises can trigger incumbent-guided liberalization. Both previous scholarship and real-world examples suggest that crises may force concessions from cornered autocrats because they ultimately would prefer gradual democratization to full-fledged revolution or armed insurgency. Since we know that crises make both coups and revolutions, perceptive autocrats should anticipate the heightened threat levels and thereby be more motivated to, e.g., hold general elections to diffuse tensions.
For a classic example of crisis driving popular discontent, rising insurgency, and mediated democratization guided by the incumbent, we can look to Zambia when the rule of the United National Independence Party (UNIP) ended in 1991. Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP had ruled Zambia for 27 years, whereof 18 under a formalized one-party state. Yet, in 1991, multi-party elections were held, followed by a relatively peaceful transfer of power to the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD). Here, the economic crisis built up substantial pressure on the regime by way of widespread protest and increasing opposition alliance building. Under such conditions, the regime ultimately opted to reform a less favorable regime type than the status quo, presumably because this outcome was preferable to them compared to forced regime change by outside actors.
We thus know that crisis can help push the needle in some instances. However, we do not find in our analyses that there exists a robust, systematic relationship between crisis and incumbent-guided democratization, more specifically. It might be that many cornered dictators, during times of crises, preempt the need for concessions by consolidating power instead of liberalizing. Or, they make policy concessions to the opposition that fall short of democratization, but still ease tensions, such as increasing pensions payments.
Overall, then, we find that crises rarely pressure incumbents to democratize. Rather, crises enable regime leaders to alter their regimes either without affecting their democracy score, or by lowering it. In the midst of a global halt in democratic progress, there is thus particularly good reason to pay close attention to the actions of incumbents in weak democracies during times of crises.
Vilde Lunnan Djuve is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. Carl Henrik Knutsen is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo and a Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
Guest post by Killian Clarke
Counterrevolutions have historically received much less attention than revolutions, but the last decade has shown that counterrevolutions remain a powerful—and insidious—force in the world.
In 2013, Egypt’s revolutionary experiment was cut short by a popular counterrevolutionary coup, which elevated General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to the presidency. In neighboring Sudan, a democratic revolution that had swept aside incumbent autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019 was similarly rolled back by a military counterrevolution in October 2021. Only three months later, soldiers in Burkina Faso ousted the civilian president Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, who had been elected following the 2014 Burkinabè uprising.
These counterrevolutions all have something in common: they all occurred in the aftermath of unarmed revolutions, in which masses of ordinary citizens used largely nonviolent tactics like protests, marches, and strikes to force a dictator from power. These similarities, it turns out, are telling.
In a recent article, I show that counterrevolutionary restorations—the return of the old regime following a successful revolution—are much more likely following unarmed revolutions than those involving armed guerilla war. Indeed, the vast majority of successful counterrevolutions in the 20th and 21st centuries have occurred following democratic uprisings like Egypt’s, Sudan’s, and Burkina Faso’s.
Why are these unarmed revolutions so vulnerable? After all, violent armed revolutions are usually deeply threatening to old regime interests, giving counterrevolutionaries plenty of motivation to try to claw back power. There are at least two possible explanations.
The first is that, even though counterrevolutionaries may be desperate to return, violent revolutions usually destroy their capacity to do so. They grind down their armies through prolonged guerilla war, whereas unarmed revolutions leave these armies largely unscathed. In the three cases above, there was minimal security reform following the ousting of the incumbent, forcing civilian revolutionaries to rule in the shadow of a powerful old regime military establishment.
A second explanation focuses on the coercive resources available to revolutionaries. During revolutions waged through insurgency or guerilla war, challengers build up powerful revolutionary armies, like Fidel Castro’s Rebel Army in Cuba or Mao’s Red Army in China. When these revolutionaries seize power, their armies serve as strong bulwarks against counterrevolutionary attacks. The Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba is a good example: even though that campaign had the backing of the CIA, it quickly ran aground in the face of Castro’s well-fortified revolutionary defenses. In contrast, unarmed revolutionaries rarely build up these types of coercive organizations, leaving them with little means to fend off counterrevolutions.
After looking at the data, I found that the second explanation has more weight than the first one. I break counterrevolution down into two parts— whether a counterrevolution is launched, and then whether it succeeds—and find that armed revolutions significantly lower the likelihood of counterrevolutionary success, but not counterrevolutionary challenges. In other words, reactionaries are just as likely to attempt a restoration following both armed and unarmed revolutions. But they are far less likely to succeed against the armed revolutions, whose loyal cadres can be reliably called up to defend the revolution’s gains.
Unarmed revolutions are increasing around the world, especially in regions like Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, violent revolutions are declining in frequency, particularly those involving long, grueling campaigns that seek transformational impacts on state and society, what some call social revolutions. In one sense, these should be welcome trends, since unarmed revolutions result in far less destruction and have a record of producing more liberal orders. But given their susceptibility to reversal, should we be concerned that we are actually at the threshold of a new era of counterrevolution?
There are certainly reasons for worry. Counterrevolutions are rare events (by my count, there have only been about 25 since 1900), and the fact that there have been so many in recent years does not augur well. Counterrevolutionaries’ prospects have also been bolstered by changes in the international system, with rising powers like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates acting as enthusiastic champions of counterrevolution, particularly against democratic revolutions in their near-abroads. Today’s unarmed revolutions, already facing uphill battles in establishing their rule, with fractious coalitions and a lack of coercive resources, must now also contend with counterrevolutionary forces drawing support from a muscular set of foreign allies.
But though they may struggle to consolidate their gains, unarmed revolutions have a record of establishing more open and democratic regimes than armed ones do. Violent revolutions too often simply replace one form of tyranny with another. The question, then, is how to bolster these fledgling revolutionary democracies and help them to fend off the shadowy forces of counterrevolution.
International support can be crucial. Strong backing from the international community can deter counterrevolutionaries and help new regimes fend off threats. Ultimately, though, much comes down to the actions of revolutionaries themselves—and whether they can keep their coalitions rallied behind the revolutionary cause. Where they can, they are typically able to defeat even powerful counterrevolutions, by relying on the very same tactics of people power and mass protest that brought them success during the revolution itself.
Killian Clarke is an assistant professor at Georgetown University.
Guest post by Marianne Dahl and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch
Some have suggested that military coups are the best hope for removing autocratic leaders and promoting democracy. Others contend that coups are more likely to spur increased repression and new autocratic regimes, undermining hopes of democratic reform. There are certainly historical examples where coups have preceded democratic reform—take for example the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal. But coup attempts have also ushered in harsher autocratic rule, such as in Equatorial Guinea after 1968. The empirical record shows no clear or consistent relationship. A look at changes in Polity democracy scores, a common comparative measure of democracy and political transitions, shows that although political change is much more likely after a coup, moves towards democracy and autocracy are about equally likely.
In a recent article in the European Journal of International Relations, we argue that what happens after a coup hinges on popular mobilization. Democratic reform is more likely when coups occur in the context of popular mobilization, and autocratic entrenchment is more likely in its absence.
Considering leader incentives after coup attempts sheds light on why coups spur democratic reforms at times and autocracy at others. Both failed and successful coups leave political rulers in a challenging position. A coup reveals divisions among elites and is likely to exacerbate competition. It is often unclear who remains loyal and how much support an incumbent can count on. There is a high likelihood of new coup attempts, and rulers challenged by a coup are more likely to be exiled, jailed, or executed.
Rulers can respond to these challenges in different ways. They can try to annihilate threats or repress opposition. Increasing control through repression and purges is often an autocrat’s preferred response. But such strategies can be fraught with risks. Potential threats can be difficult to identify, and harsh repression can backfire and fuel opposition.
An alternative strategy is to promise democratic reform. Promises of reform can help enhance a leader’s appeal, and it is difficult to claim popular consent for seizing power in a coup without promising elections. Moreover, free elections and respect for political rights are increasingly held up as conditions for avoiding economic sanctions or securing external aid. Democratic reform can also allow rulers to establish a safer exit route should things not go their way. One out of three leaders who lose power in a coup are imprisoned or killed within the next year, but only one out of fifty leaders who lose power in elections face that fate.
Whether leaders choose repression and autocracy or democracy and elections depends on the presence of popular nonviolent mobilization. Popular mobilization—public protests, sit-ins, acts of defiance to orders, and strikes—decreases the viability of repressive strategies and increases revolutionary threat.
Coups reveal cracks within a regime, which popular mobilization can leverage and deepen. Further, a fractured regime is more vulnerable to popular mobilization. Divisions among elites can increase citizens’ expectations of success and encourage wider participation, resulting in more effective threats. Popular mobilization therefore increases a coup leader’s incentives to promise democratic reforms. In the risky aftermath of a coup attempt, incumbents may try to reach out to a mobilized opposition or the general population to increase their popularity and contain threats from elites. In this context, democratic reforms can decrease the risk of a new coup, since coup attempts are more likely when incumbents are less popular.
By contrast, leaders who do not face threats from mass protests have fewer constraints to repress or selectively accommodate potential coup-makers and less need to seek broader support. Repressive strategies are especially likely after successful coups without mobilization because repression is easier to enact after a display of power in seizing control, with at least the tacit support of security forces. In contrast, failed coups leave an incumbent weakened, with worse prospects for consolidating power.
Of course, popular mobilization by itself can trigger political change, and coups and mobilization may have common causes. Our article, which provides systematic empirical analyses using data for the period 1950–2019 on coups, mass mobilization, and changes in the level of democracy, shows that popular mobilization makes changes toward democracy more likely after a coup. In the absence of mobilization, successful coups are more likely to result in changes toward greater autocracy.
Coups and political disruptions happen all over the world, and their occurrence presents an opportunity for reform—towards democracy and openness—or away from democracy and towards further repression. The transition to democracy after the coup in Portugal was not a foregone conclusion, rather, popular mobilization helped steer the country toward a political transition. Although hope for a democratic transition in Sudan after the military coup ousting Bashir in 2019 was undermined by military rulers backtracking on promises, continuing protests make it more difficult to secure autocratic rule. Popular protests helped bring down the 1991 coup attempt in the Soviet Union and preceded a period of subsequent democratic opening in Russia. And if there were to be a coup against Putin, the prospects for subsequent democratic reform seem much better with popular mobilization than without.
Marianne Dahl is a senior researcher at International Peace Research Institute Oslo. Kristian Skrede Gleditsch is the Regius Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government at the University of Essex and a research associate at the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
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