Building an authoritarian regime: Strategies for autocratisation and resistance in Belarus and Slovakia
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148120978964 |
| Published date | 01 February 2022 |
| Date | 01 February 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148120978964
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2022, Vol. 24(1) 113 –135
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148120978964
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Building an authoritarian
regime: Strategies for
autocratisation and resistance
in Belarus and Slovakia
Aris Trantidis
Abstract
The article explores the conditions under which incumbent leaders in initially competitive
political systems manage to offset democratic resistance and establish an authoritarian regime.
Autocratisation – the transition from a competitive political system to a regime dominated
by a single political force – is a challenging effort for an incumbent and involves interventions
in three ‘arenas’ to achieve (a) public legitimation, (b) institutional reforms increasing political
repression and (c) mass-scale co-optation. Focusing on Slovakia and Belarus in the 1990s, where
autocratisation efforts failed and succeeded respectively, the article finds that co-optation plays a
catalytic role in helping the incumbent pass institutional reforms and escalate repression without
risking de-legitimation. In Belarus, co-optation engulfed society and the economy whereas, in
Slovakia, a socioeconomic environment with greater autonomy from government limited the
scope for co-optation. The Slovak opposition was able to find the resources and supporters
necessary to fight back against the incumbent.
Keywords
Belarus, clientelism, competitive authoritarianism, democratic backsliding, electoral
authoritarianism, populism
Introduction
Autocratisation – the transition from an initially competitive system to an authoritarian
regime – is a puzzling phenomenon. Aspiring autocrats face conditions that expose them
to political competition and they must grasp any opportunities they have to limit their
exposure (Weyland, 2016). Policy divisions, ideological differences and socioeconomic
cleavages tend to generate a degree of political contestability that threatens incumbency.
This article draws on the literature on democratic backsliding that observes how populist
leaders trigger a process of democratic erosion, and builds on research on authoritarian
stability that identifies repression, legitimacy and co-optation as three pillars of
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK
Corresponding author:
Aris Trantidis, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln LN6 7TS, UK.
Email: Atrantidis@lincoln.ac.uk
978964BPI0010.1177/1369148120978964The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsTrantidis
research-article2021
Original Article
114 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 24(1)
authoritarianism (Gerschewski, 2013). My focus is on understanding the interventions
that propel a successful autocratisation effort in an initially competitive system as well as
the conditions that can halt it.
By comparing Belarus, a case of successful autocratisation, with Slovakia, where a
failed autocratisation effort occurred in the 1990s, this article expands the theoretical
framework on authoritarianism by highlighting the role of co-optation in the successful
case and by exposing the limitations for a populist agenda and repression tactics in the
unsuccessful case. During the 1990s, incumbent leaders in Slovakia and Belarus sought
to achieve a hegemonic position in politics. Vladimir Mečiar, the leader of the Movement
for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), served as the prime minister between 1992 and 1998
with a small period in opposition in 1994. Alexander Lukashenko (Aliaksandr
Lukashenka), a political outsider, was elected president of Belarus in 1994. Belarus tran-
sitioned to an electoral authoritarian regime while Slovakia developed a democratic sys-
tem and later joined the European Union (EU). Lukashenko exploited the state’s dominant
role in the economy for the purpose of widespread co-optation eliciting the loyalty or
complacency of state-dependent social and political actors. Co-optation weakened the
capacity of the opposition forces to act as an effective political contestant even when they
were united to contest his rule. By contrast, Slovakia’s socioeconomic environment gave
its citizens greater autonomy from the government and more freedom to openly demon-
strate dissent and support for the opposition. The opposition was able to recruit enough
campaign resources to run a successful campaign against the governing coalition in 1998.
The puzzle of autocratisation
Political systems can transition from initially competitive conditions to competitive
authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism (Levitsky and Way, 2002; Schedler, 2002).
The current literature on democratic backsliding focuses on consolidated democratic sys-
tems in which incumbent leaders with divisive populist agendas defy established demo-
cratic norms (Bermeo, 2016; Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018; Runciman, 2018).1 Favourable
election results serve to legitimise the incumbent’s rule and practices. Noticing that elec-
toral fraud and coup d’états have become less common in strategies for democratic back-
sliding, Bermeo (2016) observed the increasing use of institutional reforms to strengthen
executive powers together with electoral manipulation tactics to increase the incumbent’s
chance of winning elections, such as using government funds, changing electoral rules,
harassing the opposition, keeping some candidates off the ballot and hampering voter reg-
istration. These tactics create a competitive authoritarian system, with an ‘uneven playing
field’ favouring the incumbent even if governments face contestable elections and the out-
come is still uncertain (Levitsky and Way, 2010, 30). Autocratisation deepens as the regime
successfully uses these tactics to further limit its exposure to political competition.
Deepening autocratisation leads to an electoral authoritarian system, where political par-
ties participate in elections, but the governing party never loses power because it manages
to effectively manipulate the political process and the elections themselves (Schedler,
2006). At this stage, all other parties are ‘without hope of being in government’ (Ware,
1996: 159 and 165).
The end of the road can be a situation resembling what Robert Dahl described as an
inclusive hegemony (1971: 6, 8, 34), a regime with a formally open structure of political
participation but a low degree of political contestation where elections are held, formal
political rights exist, and adult citizens have the right to vote, to run for election and to
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