Geddes Analyzes Dictatorships

In light of the recent revolutions in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles Barbara Geddes analyzed military dictatorships and coups yesterday, claiming that authoritarian governments with party systems in place create the most stable dictatorships and are least likely to become democratic.

The speech, entitled “How the Military Shapes ‘Democratic’ Institutions,” was given for a small gathering at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation’s Democracy Seminar Series.

The best strategy for a dictator to avoid a coup is to create a civilian regime supporting the government, Geddes said. While maintaining a political party is often costly as the government must invest resources in citizens, it yields positive results as people develop vested interests in the regime, Geddes said.

But she stressed that the presence of parties says nothing about the democratization of the country.

“The idea that dictators that have the trappings of democracy are closer to real democracy is not what we see in the real world,” she said.

Geddes used a wealth of statistical data to examine the stability of authoritarian regimes, contrasting dictatorships with pure military support to those with a party system in place.

She explained that the military can be the biggest threat or the biggest support to dictators as they attempt to stave off coups.

“If the dictator’s military support base is unified and disciplined, he should agree to share spoils and policy influence with the rest of the military,” said Geddes. “If the military is factionalized and undisciplined, there is no point in sharing. The dictator must try to find other strategies to protect himself from coups.”

Tarek Masoud, an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School who organized the event, said that although he scheduled the seminar last spring, the choice turned out to be very timely.

“Professor Geddes is a leading theorist of authoritarianism and democracy and how you get from one to the other,” Masoud said. “No one else has thought so strongly about the structure of autocratic regimes.”

The audience’s response to the seminar was generally positive.

“I think this is a very timely subject on dictatorships and military coups that are developing in the Middle East at this time,” said Michael Tai, a visiting fellow from Cambridge University.

“It was really enlightening,” said Kennedy School student Sarah B. Bouchat.  “Barbara does a good job with illuminating the concept of how a military can play an active role in an authoritarian regime that a lot of political scientists either ignore or don’t know how to fully specify.”