SISP Conference 2022

This paper will address the conceptual terrain of non-democratic regimes. It starts from the observation that we should mark a difference between concepts of “non-democracy”, “authoritarianism”, “autocracy”, “despotism” and “dictatorship”. The paper seeks to engage in conceptual boundary work and attempts to carve out the differences and commonalities between these terms. In so doing, the paper pursues four goals: First, the paper constructively reviews important contributions in the field, drawing main lessons from previous work. Second, it addresses the direct substantial consequences that the usage of specific concepts has. It will be argued that we should be aware that different concepts emphasize different aspects of non-democratic rule. Third, the connectivity of these concepts will be analyzed, both in terms of their usage as adjective attribute (e.g. “authoritarian populism”) and in terms of creating subtypes (e.g. “soft authoritarianism”). Fourth, the paper seeks to arrive at a taxonomy of non-democratic rule and proposes a new definition of non-democratic rule. Building upon the elegant definition by Przeworski of democracies as “organized uncertainties,” the paper suggests a conception of non-democratic rule as attempts to “organize certainty.”

During the third wave of democratization, the international dimension attracted the attention of democracy scholars, becoming one of the key factors explaining democratization processes around the world. Since the second half of the 2000s, the third wave has started to fade away, being substituted by the opposite phenomenon of countries backsliding into less democratic or even autocratic forms of regime through processes of autocratization. The need to explain these phenomena has led the literature to investigate the possible impact of international factors, and a new filed of research focusing on “the international dimensions of autocratization” has emerged and is currently attracting the attention of a large number of scholars. Despite being already of burgeoning dimensions, this literature is still far from the consolidation reached by the international dimensions of democratization. As stressed by Tansey (2016), for example, most of the works focusing on this topic are still marred with conceptual and methodological issues that hinder the accumulation of knowledge. Moreover, this literature seems to concentrate only on empirical cases where the target is an authoritarian regime, overlooking the possible impact of the international dimensions of autocratization on democratic countries. To deal with these problems, we propose a comprehensive branching tree typology with the aim of providing a useful tool able to map the conceptual space regarding the influence of the international dimension on autocratization processes.

In the aftermath of the 2011 uprising in Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) stepped in for a brief period of time, 2011-12 before elections brought forth Islamist candidate, Mohamed Morsi to power in 2012, only to be overthrown in 2013 by a coup d'état by current Egyptian president, and at the time General, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Today after almost ten years of rule by the army, the discourse around the events that took place since 2011 is being normalized and unified by the state. Through various means - state news agencies, television shows and series - the current regime is re-writing the discourse and is providing a narration of the events that took place since 2011. How is the current state narrative and/ or discourse being formulated in Egypt? What effects does this have on the legitimization of the state's actions? The current regime in Egypt has realized the importance of providing a public discourse that supports the authoritarian practices and enables a legitimacy to the state's further grasp for power in all spaces. In attempting to provide a unified discourse the state aims to validate its actions towards civilian actors, and the repressive measures taken against them, which includes their incarceration. Finally, on various occasions, the idea of delegation by the people to the army has been raised as a decisive point in reaching the outcome that is the arrival of the current regime to power. A delegation from the people is represented as a form of consent to the repressive actions that followed, thus, making the consenting people accomplice and responsible for the outcome. The analysis and answer to these questions are supported by field research and a review of the state discourse during the period since the arrival of the current regime to power.

What explains the choice of leaders to use populism as a legitimation strategy in competitive authoritarian regimes? We start with an exploratory descriptive analysis using pre-pandemic (2018) data from V-Dem and other sources which show that populism occurs as a legitimation strategy in some but not all competitive authoritarian regimes. We identify four regimes that unambiguously qualify as both competitive authoritarian and populist, namely Turkey, Hungary, Philippines, and Venezuela. Consequently, we develop a theoretical argument which would explain this variation in the use of populism for authoritarian legitimation. These four cases share the common experience of having once been electoral democracies before undergoing autocratization and transition to competitive authoritarianism. We hypothesize that the choice of using populism as a legitimation strategy hinges upon a regime’s longevity and the prior electoral strategy of the populist leaders. A leader who came to power in an electoral democracy using populist rhetoric has already established their ideological profile which they can retain with minimal changes after transitioning to competitive authoritarianism. Thus, populism is path dependent as it outlasts the regime’s initial transformation and relates to the regime’s continued political survival. In contrast, long-established authoritarian leaders can be expected to avoid the populist legitimation strategy because its anti-elitist elements contradict their position of power. We probe the plausibility of this explanation in case studies on Hungary, Venezuela, and a possible deviant case on Tanzania. This study has relevance for the literature on autocratization as well as for the recently growing literature on authoritarian legitimation.

Authoritarian and hybrid regimes use various legitimation claims to convince the population why they are entitled to rule. These include performance-based claims that include topics related to stability and economic prosperity in the country; ideological claims that include a set of ideas such as religion or nationalism; and procedural claims that include the legality of the regime through allegedly fair elections and quality of institutions. Existing studies show that the use of all these legitimation claims by the regime elite could contribute to the stability of regime survival by convincing different segments of the population. What is examined less is how the intensity of these claims changes vis-à-vis external shocks in hybrid and authoritarian regimes. Although some evidence shows that autocrats change and adopt legitimation narratives after external shocks, most of these studies are based on expert surveys, and human coded text analysis approaches with limitations. In this paper, I aim to overcome these limitations by using dictionary-based and topic modeling text-as-data approaches. Empirically, I focus on the speeches of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Erdogan), president of the competitive authoritarian regime of Turkey. I analyze the speeches vis-à-vis one political crisis, the coup attempt on the 15th of July 2016, and an economic crisis that started in August 2018. I analyze how the intensity of performance-based, ideological, and procedural-legal claims changed after these crises, using a scrapped corpus of Erdogan speeches (2014-2022, n=1079). Firstly, I utilize several regression discontinuity designs where I take the dates of speeches as an independent variable and the intensity of performance-based, procedural and ideological claims as measured by the dictionary-based approach as different dependent variables. The results show that the intensity of performance-based claims is not affected by external shocks. However, ideological claims and procedural claims become significantly more frequent after both crises, especially in the short-run period of two months. These results suggest that both liberal claims that include procedural terms such as courts, democracy, and elections; and illiberal claims that include ideological terms such as god, nation, and terror are reactionary discourses that hybrid regimes might use. Secondly, as a validity check, I utilize topic models to see if performance-based, ideological, and procedural claims are prevalent, even if I do not seek these topics in the text. The results of topic models suggest that all three types of claims are indeed prevalent. However, each has its subcategories: performance-based claims occur as two topics, one with an emphasis on services such as welfare and healthcare, and another one with an emphasis on mega projects such as bridges, defense, and energy industry developments. Ideological claims occur as two topics as well: one with nationalist terms such as nation, state, war, martyr, and another one with paternalist religious terms such as god, prophet, woman, and justice. This set of results suggests that while ideological, procedural, and performance-based claims could be relevant in hybrid regimes' legitimation rhetoric, these topics are diverse within themselves. Overall, the results suggest that 1) hybrid regime elite are adaptive to exogenous shocks, 2) hybrid regime elite could be using a diverse set of narratives instead of capitalizing only on one topic. I aim to show that text-as-data approaches could sophisticate the way we understand authoritarian and hybrid regimes' legitimation claims. Furthermore, I aim to show that hybrid regimes are adaptive, so it would be wrong to assume that they are likely to get weaker if their primary source of legitimation, such as the economy, gets weaker. Keywords: Hybrid Regimes, Turkey, Legitimation Claims, Text-as-data, Regression Discontinuity Design

Similar to other world regions, Latin America has been reached by a new wave of autocratization. Scholars interested in Latin American politics have highlighted the role of incumbents’ popularity as a factor that could ease autocratization and be exploited by would-be autocrats to pursue reforms aimed to expand and extend their power. But what are the consequences, if any, of a loss of popularity? Variations in popularity throughout an incumbent’s term are routine: incumbents gain and lose popularity depending on a plurality of factors, and this in turn influences their chances of political survival. However, in an age of autocratization, losses in an incumbent’s popularity may also affect his/her propensity to comply with the rules and the principles of democratic politics. More specifically, leaders whose popularity decreases may react by attacking those actors that play a major role in influencing their popularity, such as the media and civil society organizations. We test this argument using time-series cross-sectional regression on a sample of Latin American countries observed from 1990 to 2019. We find that a decline in the popularity of incumbent leaders correlates with an increase in journalist harassment. On the contrary, no statistically significant effect was detected on the repression of civil society organizations, as well as on other accountability agents.

The emergence of Eritrea as an independent state in 1993 attracted attention of both scholars and policymakers, as it presented a unique real-time opportunity to monitor the initial formation of a State in the 21st century. It was especially vital to observe this case of ongoing creation and development of new state institutions with a view to the worldwide debate on strengths and weaknesses of authoritarian rule in a post-Cold War rule and its prospects. The once-democratically elected and internationally monitored regime of Isaias Afeworki – the current President of Eritrea – remains diplomatically and broadly recognized as a legitimate one, however the grievances of its people. Even the influx of Eritrean refugees to Europe and a catastrophy near Lampeduza island of Italy in 2015 did not help to attract attention to the case of illegitimacy of the incumbent government of Eritrea and its regime overall. For many researchers, the issue of a political regime type in this newly formed state became a point of divergence. Within first years after gaining independence it became clear that Eritrea’s choice was for authoritarianism, and not any other type. In 2016, after 23 years of statebuilding (including 1998-2000 war with Ethiopia), Eritrea remains stable and\yet authoritarian. Thus, a question rises on how and if Eritrea still maintains its consistency – both internally and externally – and whether there are any risks rooted in it. Focus of this paper is on the type of presidential leadership and power that the incumbent Eritrea' President Afeworki exploits and its discontents. Also, the efficacies and disruptions of this type of leadership in Eritrean context are assessed, as well as the evolution of the regime and ways Afeworki has amended his presidential leadership type from democratic in 1993 to authoritarian and almost dictatorial today. This paper overlooks the 23 years’ period of developments in domestic policies in Eritrea and aims to overview the main pillars, as well as discontents and perspectives, of upholding authoritarian rule in this country with almost absolute power vested in the office of the President with a view to implications for regional security in North-East Africa.

Corruption is traditionally associated with undermining political regimes and institutions. Yet, contrary to this conventional wisdom, I theorize that corruption is a key factor associated with the strengthening of legislatures in authoritarian regimes. Through engaging in corruption, authoritarian elites including legislators can build up networks of support and influence and ultimately, use their elevated position to impel more legislative powers vis-à-vis the executive. Examining panel data on the strength of legislatures in authoritarian regimes between 1946 and 2010, I show that authoritarian parliaments become stronger when levels of corruption in a given regime increase, especially in party-based regimes. Holding more competitive elections, however, only has a very limited impact on parliaments’ strength. These findings contribute to our understanding of institutional changes in autocracies and highlight the centrality of elite contestations in determining institutional trajectories.

In the past decades, political scientists developed theories on political personalism and political personalization. Personalization of politics describes a change or a process during which political individuals become more important relative to political groups (including institutions, political parties, bureaucracy, civil societies and etc.). Personalized politics (personalism) represents a specific point in time, a situation where political individuals are more important relative to political groups (Rahat and Sheafer, 2007; Pruysers et al., 2018; Rahat and Kenig, 2018; Pederson and Rahat, 2021). Those theories and research can be applied well to interpret recent changes and developments in established democracies, such as Trumpism, presidentialized prime ministers, weakening of party government, decline of partisanship, more fragmented party systems, and developments of electoral systems (Renwik and Pilet, 2016; Katz, 2018, 2019; Poguntke and Webb, 2018; Pruysers et al., 2018; Rahat and Kenig, 2018; Stewart, 2018). However, their findings and theories are mainly based on studies of established democracies (for a comprehensive updated review, see: Garzia and da Silva, 2019). For a large number of non-democratic countries of the world, personal rule or personalist regime has always been relevant. Moreover, at present, in many countries that experienced the collapse of old-generation authoritarianism, there are signs for an increased tendency toward personal rule. For instance, in post-communist regimes like Russia and Belarus, Putin (Kendall-Taylor et al., 2017; Baturo and Elkink, 2021) and Lukashenko (Brooker, 2014: 239) have subtly disrupted the limited presidential tenure and reestablished their personal rule. In Tunisia, president Kais Saied suspended the parliament, dismissed the government, and ruled by presidential decrees. This was perceived as moves that degenerated Tunisia's politics to one man's rule even further than Ben Ali's era (Masmoudi, 2021). Another conspicuous example represents the resurgence of personal rule is Egypt. Observers and researchers have pointed out plenty of salient indications of personalism, including that president Sisi extended his presidency tenure, expanded his executive power, constrained the power of the parliament (Rutherford, 2018; Miehe and Roll, 2019), abandoned the established political party (Rutherford, 2018), and declared a state of emergency, which enables him to utilize constitutional prerogatives of the president (Ardovini and Madon, 2020). According to the theories and definition noted above, the identification and measurement of personalized politics should be conducted by comparing the weight of the individual(s) and the collective (i.e. political groups). Identifying powerful individuals in non-democratic regimes is usually straightforward, while identifying collectives is a more challenging task. Definitely, formal institutions and visible political organizations can be used to indicate the weight of the collective. Nevertheless, Weberian theories also noted that even in traditional patrimonialism, the leader could not control everything. Informal political conventions and religious doctrines accepted by the collective are confining his arbitrary personal wills (Murvar, 1985a, 1985b; Croutwater, 1985). Thus, I will interpret the political collective on two dimensions. The vertical dimension presents the modern-traditional dichotomy, and the horizontal dimension divides the collective into three aspects – institutions, political bodies, and the collective consensus, i.e., informal norms. On the modern level, the institutions include parliament, bureaucracy, politburo, etc; the political bodies include parties, military junta, civil societies, etc; and the informal norms include revolutionary legitimacy, progressive ideologies; to respect the status quo, etc. On the traditional level, the institutions include royal court, council nobles, familial or tribal committee, etc; the political bodies include tribes, families, religious authorities, Ulama, etc; the informal norms include tribal traditions, religious doctrines and etc. Political personalism is expressed when the individuals' influence overrides institutions and political bodies. Additionally, when individuals violate the collective consensus and apply their personal wills, it also indicates personalized politics. On the contrary, if the collective is more powerful than individuals, it signals de-personalized politics. This article will take Egypt as a case study to measure the personal-institutional dynamics. It argues that under Sisi, Egypt is undergoing a new tendency of personalization at the expenses of political institutions. It has a profound connection with Egypt’s old personalized regime, but it also represents its own new features. Scholars have demonstrated that in authoritarian regimes, a high degree of centralized personalism is harmful to the regime’s survival particularly when the rule of the power-concentrated leader was ended (Geddes et al. 2018: 192, 202; Grundholm, 2020). Because the entire ruling structure has been tamed loyal and obedient to the leader personally, it is hard for potential competitors to challenge the leader himself and his rule. However, the strategies of personal rein will render the regime rigid and corrupt. In the long term, the revolt from the mass will eventually be aroused to overthrow the regime (Grundholm, 2020). Another scenario is when the personalized leader is losing power, his control is removed, and consequently, the ruling group falls into internal dissensions, and the regime becomes precarious (Ezrow and Frantz, 2011; Geddes et al., 2018). This explains the domino-effect collapse of personalized dictatorships in the Middle East that we witnessed during the Arab Spring (e.g., Mubarak in Egypt). On the other hand, substantial institutionalization, or in other words de-personalization, which refers to constrain the chief leader’s power by establishing professional formal institutions and informal rules can stabilize the power transition processes and make the regime more durable (Geddes et al., 2018; Meng, 2020.). The institutionalization strategy is also accepted by elites in some Middle Eastern countries such as Tunisia and Iraq after the demise of personalized leaders to protect the regime (Masoud, 2021). Nevertheless, it seems that Sisi despised lessons from the collapse of personalized leaders in the Middle East, but re-personalized Egypt. This is firstly because Sisi took power through a military coup. In military-controlled or military-interfered governments, coups and proof-coup strategies and the pursuit of loyalty within the military junta can enhance personalization and hinder substantial institutionalization (Roth, 1968; Brooker, 2014; Geddes et al., 2018). Second, some historians of Middle Eastern studies stated that a personalized “benevolent autocrat” in Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes could win popularity and adherence, and then sustain the regime’s legitimacy and survival (Yapp, 1996; Osman, 2013; Masoud, 2021). That is, in a personalized regime, the leader is more accessible to the people both psychologically and visually. The mass feels that their distance from the authority has been narrowed. In a non-democratic regime, the people know that the established institutions such as the parliament and political parties are incompetent to represent them, while their concerns can be easier heard and represented by a benevolent powerful leader. Moreover, under a "benevolent autocracy," even though the institutions are designed and established for the sake of consolidating the autocracy, but after all, governmental administration is professionalized, then social orders are established, and finally economic growth is increased.

How do authoritarian states manage their sovereign wealth? Over the past 25 years, many authoritarian states in the Middle East, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have set up Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) to grow and invest the significant amounts of financial capital they have accrued from natural resource profits and trade surpluses. By creating SWFs, authoritarian leaders delegate the management of sovereign financial assets to agents who will invest such funds with an, at least in part, commercially oriented, profit-driven objective. This paper investigates the institutional design choices authoritarian countries make in setting up a framework for delegation and oversight over the investment of sovereign assets via a SWFs. Presenting a novel dataset on the corporate governance structures of SWFs in more than 25 authoritarian countries, I show that the institutional structures of various authoritarian regimes create incentives for leaders to delegate the management of sovereign investments to these specialised bodies. However, authoritarian regimes still make vastly different choices in the level of political control over the investment choices of SWFs. In this paper, I put forward the argument that differences in the institutional systems of authoritarian states, lead to varying preferences for specific models for delegation and oversight. To empirically investigate this argument, I explore 4 case studies of SWF governance structures in different countries in more detail. By studying the corporate governance of SWFs, the paper addressed the broader question of how authoritarian leaders design mechanisms for delegation and accountability and how such choices are influenced by differences in their political institutional structures.

Personalist rulers in dictatorships are more likely to engage and initiate international conflict, but we do not know if this has further implications: if conflict helps dictators to accumulate more power. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature, both theoretically and empirically. I ask if international and civil wars help dictators to concentrate more personal power. I argue that dictators use conflict to increase their levels of personalism: the explanation can be found in the struggles over power of dictators vis-à-vis the elites, this is, in the domestic political environment. When dictators engage in international conflicts, they fight for survival, specifically, they fight to personalise. Thus, international conflict is understood as a coup-proofing strategy and is a solution for the guardianship dilemma. When dictators engage in civil conflicts, they still fight for survival, but the dynamics are different. When there is a rebellion against the regime, the dictator will try to concentrate power emerging as the only sovereign in the time of exception. Under these conditions, the elites will face a trade-off: either choose to continue being part of the inner circle with a smaller share of power or to continue being part of the inner circle with the same share of power but being at risk of exclusion, either if the regime loses the war or provided the leader decides to personalise by harder means (e.g., purges). This, again, is a solution for the guardianship dilemma. I test the arguments conducting a synthetic control method using novel data on personalism, of a sample of autocratic regimes in the period 1946-2010. I find that dictators concentrate power after the onset of international and civil wars. Key words: Autocratic Regimes; Personalism; International Conflict; Civil War; Guardianship Dilemma; Synthetic Control Method.

Since 2015, when the right-wing party Law and Justice (in coalition with other right-wing parties) won democratic elections in Poland, the government has begun to undermine the rule of law and limit the range of public authorities’ accountability to the opposition and citizens. One of the most significant changes was the merger of the positions of the minister of justice and the prosecutor general, and the allocation of control over the prosecution and the judiciary to a single politician. Although the government's efforts to subjugate the judiciary have not been successful, full control over the prosecutor's office makes it possible to decide whether or not to initiate an investigation in cases of suspected violations of the law. In this plight, the investigative activity of the parliamentary opposition, free media, and NGOs seems to be particularly important in holding authorities accountable. The aim of this paper is to present the means of political accountability (PA), the ways of limiting the PA by the present authorities, and the ways of counteracting these limitations by the opposition and civil society. Accountability is here defined as a democratic mechanism that provides the forum (citizens and their representatives, e.g. MPs) with the information necessary to assess what and how government and administration have done, and enables them to hold public officials accountable for their decisions and conduct. Thus, institutions of accountability are understood here not as organizational structures, but as processes that are either anchored in law and/or result from democratic principles. The author analyses PA in Poland according to three dimensions of ‘accountability cube’ presented by Brandsma and Schillemans (2013): a) information, b) discussion, and c) consequences. In particular, the following topics will be elaborated: 1) the right of access to public information and ways of violating this right by public authorities: the author will address the protection of the right of access to public information and its enforcement, i.a. the implementation of the Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law; cases in which the politicized Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court counteract the right to public information. 2) the civil society engagement in accountability process: the author will address the ways of publicizing issues under scrutiny and conducting discussions with participation of public actors, media and citizens, i.a. the steps taken by public authorities aimed at subordinating public and non-public media to the expectations of the ruling party, and Poles’ attitudes towards public affairs. 3) possible sanctions on public authorities in the event of violation of the law and ways of avoiding them: the author will address the cases of broken chain of accountability when the information on public authorities' deeds is accessible and it is widely discussed but investigations into misconducts are either not undertaken or are discontinued at the request of politicians. The currently ruling coalition also tries to use accountability mechanisms for its own sake introducing brand new procedures to fight opposition parties where they still exercise power, i.e., in local governments. The author will address one of these mechanisms, which is the vote of confidence in the local executive. The author concludes with the statement that new accountability mechanisms, new tools for fighting corruption, expanding the state supervision, and tightening penalties will be of no use if the institutions whose task is to hold public authorities accountable will be subordinated to these authorities, if the independence of the judiciary is violated, and the law is uncertain. Finally, without the participation of civil society, holding of public authorities accountable will not lead to its ultimate goal of restoring confidence in democracy. Brandsma, G. J., & Schillemans, T. (2013). The Accountability Cube: Measuring Accountability. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23(4), 953–975.

The paradoxical role of Legislature in authoritarian regimes has attracted a lot of attention from scholars. As a mediator of social demands, as a “rubber stamp” or to assimilate social elites by co-opting them, the existence of parliamentary assemblies in such configurations has been well described. Though, the very way by which such delegitimated assemblies participate in the legitimation of such regimes remains a paradox to unveil. The Conservative Senate (“Sénat-conservateur”) is at the top of the parliamentary institutions of the Consulate and the Empire and is usually considered secondary in the political system from 1799 to 1814. It is indeed presented as increasingly subject to the will of Napoleon Bonaparte who denies any representativeness to the senator in favor of his own using plebiscites and an intense display of his power. However, this High Chamber proved to be durable and some of its powers were even strengthened while others disappeared. It was essential, for example, to mobilize additional troops for the prosecution of wars or to maintain a network of clients by granting prestigious and profitable positions, or even to abolish another assembly, the Tribunate, or to proclaim (and end) the Empire. However, the importance of this institution is underestimated by an anachronistic effect that invites us to think that a parliament would be made to legislate or control governmental activity. But its main function is to be found elsewhere: in the division of labor of domination set up after the coup d'Etat of Brumaire. Since the Consulate, the function of the Senate consists above all in controlling the popular masses and in legitimizing a regime that moderates political freedoms, and this, was well before Napoleon appears as an all-powerful imperator. The “fundamental law of legitimization economy” (Bourdieu, 1996) draws a path to understanding how other institutions of the First Empire, without Napoleon's systematic consideration or intervention, contribute to the legitimization of a regime and in a more effective way that they are autonomous, and then, can do it with the sentiment of being free to do so and being seen like it by popular masses – by far not all seduced by the new regime but living in it anyway. This communication aims to stress the evolution of the unequal co-legitimating interplay between the head of the Legislative body and Napoleon from the beginning to the fall of their regime. This case is paradigmatic as the Senate played a significant role in the creation and the fall of the regime while its decisional power and the representativeness of all the three assemblies were always denied by the emperor. The role of the Parliament in the so-called “Napoleonic regime” was subsequently denied by scholars, who are not able to explain, for example, the role of this assembly in the fall of the regime in other words than from a personal perspective (i.e. treason or ungratefulness). One of the roots of this incomprehension lies in the definition of a “regime”. Beyond the goal of typologies, authoritarianism must be taken – methodologically speaking – as a mere result of a complex process of “categorization conflict” by opponents and supporters of one given political order (Bourdieu, 1981). One cannot seek to prove the essentiality of a democracy or an authoritarian state without including normative biases as a reference to classify them; by seeking instead not to define but to determine what is called democratic or authoritarian in one given political order, the reference taken into account has to be the ones legitimatizing a peculiar political order and defining it (Lagroye 1985). Drawing upon this scientific and historiographical debate, this communication tries to provide a way to address the problem of the concept of the “foundational law of legitimization economy” by both the neo-institutionalism in its French development (Dulong, 2012) and a Weberian standpoint on domination as legitimated power (Hibou, 2017). These traditions recall us that every state practice is subject to a work of legitimation by plural agents embodying a vast plurality of motivation and interests. Even an actor as omnipotent and omniscient as the First Consul Napoleon, is as much a concurrent as dependent on the peculiar acts accomplished by different institutions. The so-called law predicts that the chances of success of the work of legitimization of the regime (i.e. here, the Senate, which is both courted and challenged by Napoleon Bonaparte) are conditioned by its autonomy (or the appearance of it) vis-à-vis what it legitimizes. Our approach to understanding this process consists first in studying the practices of legitimization (Lagroye, 1985) of the new power by this institution (part 2) – besides this role is not explicit and objective to the senators – and making them correspond to the evolution of its interdependence links (Elias, 1969) in the power field (part 1). 1. The creation and trajectory of this assembly will be analyzed using a prosopography of its members to position them with their social characteristics. This demonstrates that despite Napoleon’s agency, the tendency towards strict control of the field of politics is inscribed even before the Coup d'état and at the beginning of the Consulate (1799). Like other fractions of the power space, the senators, organizers, or supporters of the Brumaire Coup, shared representations particularly favorable to a frank restriction of access to public offices by introducing co-optation instead of election. Interdependent and supportive of the interests of the government and, more broadly, of the state, these agents dominated the social space in Paris and the provinces, along with other competing agents (generals, state councilors, ministers, etc.) and participated in its naturalization. The systematic analysis of the organization and everyday work of this assembly shows, for example, a large number of holidays they get. But this might be less indicative of phlegm or apathy than of an assembly practice whose function of integrating the elites was played out outside the sessions. The participation of senators in the establishment of the Consulate and the Empire was achieved through other interactions, for example in their regiments, salons, or localities. However, the legitimization of the regime is also achieved through the satisfaction of the material expectations of the groups to which it claims consent. In the practice of power, authority is inseparable from the management of competing for social expectations. In this struggle, senators are well placed to distribute places and honors in the political economy of the state. This practice is constitutionally vested in them but is also a common practice. Letters of request for places and other solicitations (found in the minister of police archives) are common for senators, ministers, or even lesser officials. Senators, together with members of the legislature and tribunes of their department, signed letters of recommendation to the Minister of the Interior for the position of sub-prefect. 2. This quantitative and network data will guide us to the characteristic of the role played by the Senate in the post-revolutionary France in its relation to the Executive power that will gradually organize the imposition of a centralized, police (interventionist and informational) and hierarchical authority. The method moves then from the previous statistical and systematic ones to a micro-historical way; by privileging private and local archives and biographies and autobiographies some cases emerge, showing interplays between local groups and senators and resulting in processes of valuation of Napoleon himself despite any order from him. From a symbolic point of view, using private and local archives, the forms of legitimization are multiple and intertwined – and evolved from the Coup d'Etat to the last days of the Empire – borrowing from historical registers (Roman antiquity, the ermine of the Ancient Regime), charismatic (the exceptional abilities of Napoleon Bonaparte and his soldiers, certain figures of the Revolution), traditional (the clergy, local notables), legal (Senatus consult of requisitions, constitutions, plebiscites), tribal (oaths, local loyalties, promises). The senators are found at the crossroads of these themes and use the different registers (Hibou & Tozy, 2020) in a rather undifferentiated way in their interactions at several levels of geographical and social space and rather towards the elites of large or intermediate cities. Placed at the top of a clientelist network institutionalized by the distribution of places and economic opportunities and local prestige, the expectations of local notables towards senators likely to interfere or intercede in the closest to power are great. The senator placed in these local situations is an important cog in the material and ideal legitimation of the new regime; because no plan in this direction was explicitly made, the act of conferring symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 2013) by the act of legitimation seems as greater as it appears more disinterested. The senators are not alone, of course (there are also prefects and sub-prefects, priests and bishops under the Concordat, members of the other assemblies, State Councilors, and ministers, for example). But the senators’ function and their place in the field of power make it easier for them to remain multi-positioned to accumulate other resources simultaneously (military, academic, social...). This capacity does not make them “fat calves” (as historiography tends to treat them) but allows them to participate in the integration of elites and the legitimization of the regime… and the next one. The belief in the effectiveness of the state itself seems thus maintained by this distinguished institution (a "censor", Benveniste, 1969) from the beginning of the regime to its fall and its transition to anot

Over the last decades, judicial institutions in Central and Eastern Europe have made the headlines in different parts of the world following governmental measures limiting their independence. This topic has been examined in different ways both in political science, law and in EU studies (Von Bogdandy 2014; Muller 2015; Pech and Scheppele 2017; Blokker 2019; Czarnota 2018; Bodnar 2021; Kelemen 2017; 2020; Closa 2018) as an illustration of autocratic legalism (Schepele 2018) or democratic backsliding (Bugaric and Ginsburg 2016), as an expression of the populist uprising (Bugaric and Kuhelj 2018; Sadurski 2019) or a counter-revolution (Zielonka 2018; 2019; Holmes and Krastev 2019). While this important body of research mainly focuses on governmental motivations and the role of party politics, little attention has been paid to forms of resistance(s) within the judiciary, when judicial independence is either under strain or undermined. Against this backdrop, we aim to contribute to this debate by addressing the following questions: how do judges resist reforms when not only their independence is undermined but also the democratic values of the political regimes are under strain? How do they defend judicial independence? To address this facet still underexplored in the literature, the paper examines judicial actors’ attitudes towards changes related to judicial independence in Poland, Hungary and Romania. We argue that the forms of resistance taken by the judiciary might be driven by ideological, self-interest and professional concerns. In other words, we argue that judges’ mobilization can be expressed as a function of the threat that reforms entail for: i) their ideational beliefs on liberal democracy, ii) judges’ professional/corporatists interests and patterns of career, iii) the professional ethos (e.g. tension with the judges’ role as “bouche de la loi”). To do so the paper investigates three national contexts, arguing that while the adoption of measures limiting the independence of the judiciary in Poland by the PiS government has “unified” judges in defending their cause and led to the emergence of a diffuse pan-European network, in the case of Romania the debate has polarized the field for reasons that the papers seek to elucidate. While in contrast, the degree of mobilisation has been lower in Hungary. To explain the motivations inspiring judges’ forms of resistance, the paper builds on an original survey on judicial independence distributed among Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian judges. The survey allows disentangling the ideological, self-interest and professional (ethos) drivers of judge’s resistance. Furthermore, the analysis is enriched by the use of social media and semi-structured interviews with judges from the three national contexts focusing on the timing of the mobilization and the patterns of the coalitions formed within and beyond the judiciary. Drawing theoretically on the concept of resistance (Madsen, Cebulak and Wiebusch 2018; Blokker 2020; Coman and Lacroiw 2007; Crespy and Verschueren 2009; Della Porta 2001) and an original set of data, this paper contributes to the literature on democratic backsliding in CEE by showing how one of the state’s power - the judiciary - resists the capturing strategies addressed by political elites.

Italy was the first European country to be hit by the Coronavirus Pandemic and Lombardy – by far its biggest region – was the hardest-hit area in Europe. While the first two waves of the pandemic were managed by the (second) government led by Giuseppe Conte, a new technocratic-led executive, led by Mario Draghi, was formed in February 2021, with the key aim of implementing the vaccination campaign (as well as the management of the EU Recovery Funds destined to Italy). As several scholars have shown (E.G. Flinders, Hinterleitner, etc,), the Covid crisis is a peculiar prysm through which to analyze how governments adopt blame avoidance techniques, shifting responsibilities towards other actors, such as sub-state governments, experts, and citizens. This paper compares the strategies adopted by the two governments in facing these two - admittedly rather different - phases of the Covid crisis. Through a careful investigation of the communication strategies adopted by the two Prime ministers in their press conferences, we identify two main dimensions of blame avoidance: a ‘vertical line’ of confrontation between the government, on the one hand, and regional Presidents as well as citizens, on the other hand; and an ‘horizontal line’, with governments interacting with advisory bodies and experts. The analysis allows to trace the blame games that have been played among the main institutional actors responsible for managing the pandemic, providing key insights on the changing relations between politics, technocracy and expertise in Italy, also reflecting on a comparative perspective in dialogue with similar research conducted abroad.

Alla luce del suo carattere multiforme e trasversale, il ruolo dei “tecnici” in politica è stato indagato da numerose prospettive disciplinari, quali, tra le altre, la sociologia (in particolare il background “sociale” dei tecnici, dentro e fuori le alte burocrazie di Stato), le relazioni internazionali (si pensi al ruolo dei tecnici nelle organizzazioni internazionali quali Fondo Monetario Internazionale e Banca Mondiale), e naturalmente la scienza politica, con riguardo ad esempio ai processi di trasformazione dei sistemi politici e della rappresentanza. In particolare il caso italiano, cioè una punta particolarmente avanzata (in Europa e più in generale nelle democrazie a capitalismo avanzato) nella casistica dei governi tecnici, ricopre – per il ricorrere di questa formula di governo in alcune fondamentali congiunture nazionali – un interesse analitico peculiare sotto diverse prospettive: (i) la formazione e la composizione degli esecutivi tecnici in periodi di crisi nazionale; (ii) lo stato dei partiti e delle classi politiche; (iii) il rapporto con l'Unione Europea; (iv) il ruolo dei tecnici nei processi di trasformazione dei rapporti istituzionali nello Stato, in particolare il lungo e ormai consolidato processo di rafforzamento degli apparati esecutivi di governo. Più in generale, una delle principali fonti di legittimazione dei “tecnici” è, naturalmente, la loro expertise, che si presenta come un set di conoscenze consolidate e neutrali capaci di traghettare il Paese fuori da una congiuntura critica. In questo quadro, il presente lavoro si propone di inquadrare il fenomeno dei tecnici al governo da una prospettiva di “political economy”. In altre parole, il paper intende indagare empiricamente le politiche dei governi tecnici in Italia, dagli anni Novanta al presente governo Draghi. Attraverso una ricognizione empirica, l'analisi aspira a chiarire in dettaglio: (i) quali tipologie di politiche economiche (in materia di lavoro, imprese, bilancio etc.) vengono introdotte e implementate dai tecnici; (ii) attraverso quali strumenti legislativi (leggi ordinarie, decretazione d'urgenza, leggi costituzionali etc.). In questo modo, sarà possibile ricostruire non solo i principali orientamenti di politica economica, “de-tecnocratizzando” l'aura di neutralità di questi governi e mostrandone il carattere (appunto) politico e di parte, ma al contempo sarà anche chiarito in che modo, in posizioni di governo, i tecnici interpretino il rapporto con il parlamento e l’uso degli strumenti legislativi.

Nel corso degli ultimi trent’anni (1993-2022), una fase storica non a caso coincidente con il definitivo declino della formula del “governo di partito”, l’Italia ha visto avvicendarsi alla Presidenza del Consiglio 4 personalità “tecniche”: Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1993-94), Lamberto Dini (1995-96), Mario Monti (2011-13) e Mario Draghi (2021-). Si tratta, come dimostrato da un recente studio comparato, di un caso praticamente unico nell’ambito delle principali democrazie parlamentari europee e già per questo meritevole di essere attentamente analizzato. Il tema dei governi “tecnici”, o meglio, come argomenteremo in questo saggio, “tecnocratici”, può essere affrontato da diversi punti di vista. Può essere interessante, ad esempio, interrogarsi sulle condizioni storico-politiche che hanno favorito la genesi di questi quattro governi, oppure studiare il profilo biografico-curriculare delle personalità chiamate alla guida del Paese; o ancora, sul versante più empirico, può certamente essere importante analizzare le dinamiche di legittimazione dei governi tecnocratici e le politiche da essi attuate nel corso degli anni trascorsi a Palazzo Chigi. Pur essendo, quelle appena illustrate, tutte linee di ricerca meritevoli di essere sviluppate, questo saggio si concentrerà su uno specifico aspetto dei governi tecnocratici: quello relativo alla definizione delle linee programmatiche, come emerse dalle dichiarazioni rese al Parlamento dai leader di governo in occasione del conferimento della fiducia. L’analisi delle dichiarazioni programmatiche costituisce un utile strumento sia per comprendere “l’agenda politica” del governo tecnocratico, sia per verificare sul piano discorsivo l’analisi del contesto e gli eventuali limiti e/o potenzialità che i tecnocrati al governo individuano nell’assumere la carica. Nel primo caso, si tratta di individuare quali sono le principali tematiche, le problematiche, le proposte di policies che emergono dai discorsi programmatici; nel secondo, è importante capire se e come essi si legittimino discorsivamente, attraverso il richiamo a quali fattori e/o cause (per esempio la crisi, l’emergenza, le richieste dell’Unione Europea, ecc.), e se vi sia o meno una auto-percezione circa l’eccezionalità della formula tecnocratica. Una analisi di questo tipo, che attraversa l’ultimo trentennio della storia repubblicana, può consentire anche una comparazione tra esperienze di governo che, svoltesi in contesti politici assai differenti, presentano alcuni tratti di continuità, relativamente all’implementazione di specifiche policies e al ruolo ricoperto da fattori esterni – l’UE e le richieste derivate dal processo di integrazione – e interni – l’azione determinante dei vari Presidenti della Repubblica, la crisi della politica partitica. A fare da sfondo la doppia crisi, economico-finanziaria e politico-istituzionale, che accompagna e alimenta la genesi di questi governi.

Recently, political science has been devoting a growing attention towards technocracy and the enhanced involvement of technocratic personnel in European cabinets has further contributed to fuel scholarly interest on this matter. However, while scholars have investigated the drivers of technocratic appointments and citizens' preferences regarding competence and expertise in government, little is known about the consequences technocracy has on relevant components of political systems' proper functioning. This article sheds light on this unchartered area by investigating the effect of technocratic presence in government on electoral participation. It does so by relying on an original multilevel dataset comprised of almost 700 cabinets and 400 elections held in Western Europe from 1945 to 2021. The empirical analysis shows that technocratic presence in government significantly decreases turnout. The article discusses the implications of this finding for the functioning of the political system and the quality of democracy.

Lo scopo di questo lavoro è analizzare gli effetti della guerra in Ucraina nei Balcani Occidentali e il ruolo dell'Albania nel Consiglio di Sicurezza, il suo impatto sulla stabilità della regione e il riconoscimento del Kosovo. L’Albania è stata eletta per la prima volta, come membro non permanente del Consiglio di sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite per il periodo 2022-2023 L’Albania è stata presentata come candidato consensuale del Gruppo dei Paesi dell’Est Europa. L’Albania è diventata membro delle Nazioni Unite il 14 dicembre 1955 e, dopo 66 anni di adesione, è stata votata per la prima volta come membro temporaneo del Consiglio di sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite per un mandato di 2 anni. Albania, Brasile, Gabon, Ghana ed Emirati Arabi Uniti sono stati eletti oggi membri non permanenti del Consiglio di Sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite, per un mandato di due anni. I nuovi membri assumeranno le loro nuove responsabilità all’inizio del 2022 e lasceranno il Consiglio il 31 dicembre 2023. Il Consiglio di Sicurezza ha 15 membri, di cui cinque permanenti: Gran Bretagna, Cina, Francia, Russia e Stati Uniti. I dieci seggi non permanenti del Consiglio sono assegnati per regione geografica, con cinque sostituzioni ogni anno. Ma anche se i candidati corrono senza opposizione nella loro regione, devono comunque ottenere il sostegno di oltre i due terzi dell'Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite. L'Albania mira durante il suo mandato biennale a lavorare per la stabilità e la pace nella regione, per consolidare i risultati dell'ultimo decennio e non lasciarlo scivolare verso la destabilizzazione e le tensioni.

Il Regno Unito ha una forma di Stato sui generis che, secondo una vasta dottrina, lo caratterizza intrinsecamente come union state e non unitary state, poiché nato grazie agli atti di unione tra regni – di Inghilterra e di Scozia nel 1707, e di Gran Bretagna e d’Irlanda nel 1800 – che ne segnalano la natura plurinazionale e predisposta alla devoluzione asimmetrica di potere tra il centro e la periferia. La sua struttura ordinamentale, priva tra l’altro di una costituzione scritta, basata sulla common law e molta legata, anche simbolicamente, alla tradizione formale, gli fornisce una particolare flessibilità e una adattabilità all’evolvere degli eventi senza che ciò ne pregiudichi il funzionamento o la stabilità. Volendo utilizzare una metafora, si potrebbe dire che l’ordinamento britannico assomigli, piuttosto che alla piramide kelseniana, a un campo gravitazionale con al centro l’Inghilterra: più la sua massa di potere politico cresce più deforma lo spazio giuridico circostante attraendo a sé gli altri satelliti del Regno; più diminuisce e più essi possono allontanarsi, ma senza mai uscire, finora, dall’orbita delimitata. Le varie crisi politiche attraversate in questi ultimi anni, per non dire decenni, hanno però deteriorato la massa inglese, concedendo maggiore spinta ai due principali vettori centrifughi, che corrono rispettivamente, il più antico, sul confine nordirlandese, e il più recente, su quello scozzese. Se dopo i Troubles degli anni 1969-1998 infatti, seppur con molte difficoltà, il Good Friday Agreement è riuscito a garantire un pacifico equilibrio in Irlanda del Nord tra forze unioniste e nazionaliste, in Scozia, dove per fortuna non si è mai giunti a scontri violenti, la spinta indipendentista è diventata quanto mai forte. Dal dopo Blair in poi si è andato consolidando infatti un movimento indipendentista, guidato dallo Scottish National Party, sempre più protagonista della scena politica britannica, tanto che nel 2014 è riuscito a ottenere da Westminster il permesso per celebrare un referendum sull’indipendenza. Quest’ultimo, benché conclusosi con la vittoria del No, ha segnato un cambiamento fondamentale nella storia costituzionale del paese e ha posto le premesse perché la Scozia ottenesse, in un trattativa col Governo centrale, un sostanziale aumento della sua autonomia, attraverso l’approvazione dello Scotland Act 2016. Con l’avvento della Brexit, prima il Governo May poi quello Johnson hanno cercato di guidare autonomamente le trattative di uscita dall’UE, spesso tentando di scavalcare non solo i parlamenti dei territori devoluti, ma anche quello di Westminster. Questo oltre a generare numerose fibrillazioni istituzionali ha complicato i rapporti con le amministrazioni devolute. Gli unionisti in Irlanda del Nord sono stati particolarmente critici verso il Protocollo sul confine irlandese – atto a normare il rapporto, in tema di diritti e commercio, tra la Repubblica d’Irlanda, rimasta all’interno dell’Unione, e l’Irlanda del Nord – accusato di creare le condizioni favorevoli a un ricongiungimento delle due parti dell’isola verde. In Scozia invece hanno continuato a prendere forza le istanze indipendentiste, tanto che la First Minister scozzese Sturgeon ha prima annunciato e poi inserito nel programma del suo partito per le elezioni del 2021 la volontà di richiedere un altro referendum, ottenendo ottimi risultati alle urne e riconfermandosi alla guida dell’esecutivo. Il Governo Johnson, dal canto suo, è riuscito nell’intento di fare approvare alcune leggi che da un lato hanno riportato nelle mani dell’Esecutivo alcuni poteri, come quello di sciogliere il Parlamento (Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022), dall’altro, hanno sottratto alle amministrazioni devolute la potestà sul riallineamento normativo interno necessario dopo l’uscita dall’ordinamento eurounitaro (European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020). Ma, forse proprio in virtù di una Brexit che non ha soddisfatto molti dei suoi sostenitori (pur scontentando i suoi oppositori), e che, una volta realizzata, ha smesso di polarizzare intorno a se l’elettorato, congiuntamente alle critiche sulla gestione sanitaria e agli scandali che hanno riguardato direttamente il Primo ministro, il Partito Conservatore, che guida il Governo, ha perso molto consenso. Esso è dato infatti da circa un anno mediamente sotto di 7 punti percentuali al Partito Laburista nelle intenzioni di voto per le prossime elezioni generali e nelle ultime amministrative si è dimostrato in forte calo, perdendo alcuni seggi storici come quello di Westminster, a vantaggio di laburisti, verdi e liberaldemocratici. Lo scoppio della guerra in Ucraina sembra poter cambiare però cambiare il destino del Governo Johnson e delle vicende indipendentiste. Le priorità generate dal conflitto hanno infatti in primo luogo sopito i dissidi interni, anche nella maggioranza, e rafforzato la figura di Johnson, che si è esposto come uno dei leader più attivi e assertivi sul panorama internazionale, allontanando con decisione lo spettro di un possibile cambio alla guida dei Tories. Il Governo britannico parrebbe voler sfruttare questo nuovo protagonismo per accelerare la tessitura di rapporti bilaterali – in particolare sul lato della sicurezza e della cooperazione commerciale – in sostituzione ai legami eurounitari venuti meno con la Brexit, e forse addirittura in concorrenza con i partner europei. Le problematiche internazionali, inoltre, potrebbero rendere più difficili i percorsi di secessione interna, considerata perdipiù l’importanza strategica dei territori direttamente interessati. La Scozia rappresenta infatti per il Regno Unito la proiezione verso l’Artico, dove, complice il disastroso scioglimento dei ghiacciai generato dal cambiamento climatico, si prevede potranno in un prossimo futuro correre nuove rotte commerciali ed esplorative, aumentando il traffico e la competizione tra gli Stati nell’area. Inoltre, sul territorio scozzese sono presenti molte basi militari britanniche, in particolare la base navale della baia di Faslane, a pochi chilometri da Glasgow, dove sono locati il deposito d’armi nucleari con i sottomarini del programma Trident e, poco distante, i principali cantieri navali della marina militare britannica (Govan, Rosyth, Scostoun), con un indotto che vale circa 12.000 posti di lavoro. In un Regno Unito che dichiara di voler riaffermare la sua proiezione globale (Global Britain in a competitive age. The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, HM Government, CP 403, March 2021), anche attraverso l’incremento della spesa militare di 24 miliardi di sterline nei prossimi 4 anni e il rilancio della Royal Navy, sarebbe paradossale la perdita di metà del suo territorio insulare. Inoltre una Scozia indipendente, pur rimanendo nell’area delle alleanze occidentali e presumibilmente nella NATO, potrebbe non essere ben vista dagli USA, che dovrebbero, in un panorama di crescente tensione internazionale, prendere atto dell’indebolimento del suo principale alleato, distratto da questioni interne capaci di minarne l’efficacia e la capacità collaborativa. Per la stessa ragione, sempre gli USA, che hanno storicamente guardato con favore a un’unificazione dell’Irlanda – principalmente in ragione del fatto che il 9,7% della sua popolazione ha origini irlandesi (il secondo gruppo etnico di ascendenza europea dopo i circa 43 milioni di tedeschi), compresi alcuni presidenti tra cui Biden – in questo momento potrebbero essere più cauti nell’appoggiare questa opzione, seppur oggi più vivida, considerate le ultime elezioni parlamentari nordirlandesi che hanno visto l’indipendentista Sinn Féin imporsi per la prima volta come partito principale e quindi incaricato di esprime il Primo ministro. Ci si prefigge allora di operare in prima istanza la validazione delle ipotesi sopra esposte circa gli effetti prodotti e le possibili trasformazioni indotte dalla guerra in Ucraina nella politica interna del Regno Unito, nell’ordine: recuperata stabilità del Governo Johnson; maggiore protagonismo sul panorama internazionale in concorrenza con gli Stati europei e in avvicinamento agli USA; aumentata difficoltà per i percorsi secessionisti di avere buon esito. Tramite lo studio delle analisi economiche e geopolitiche, la lettura delle fonti normative, l’interpretazione dei provvedimenti governativi e degli equilibri partitici, nonché degli orientamenti dell’elettorato, si vuole disegnare un quadro del contesto politico britannico che individui il punto di equilibrio, o di rottura, tra la sua proiezione globale e la sua disgregazione nazionale.

Obiettivo del contributo proposto è quello di tenere assieme le analisi di quattro ex uomini di Stato italiani (tre ex ministri e presidenti del Consiglio e un ex ambasciatore) sulla Russia degli ultimi anni e sul mondo multipolare nel quale essi delineano anche un nuovo ruolo per l'Unione Europea. I diversi orientamenti politici e culturali e i ruoli di primo piano rivestiti nel recente passato dalle personalità individuate possono fornire un panorama interessante di come parte significativa delle classi dirigenti italiane abbia guardato all’evolversi della Russia di Putin nel quadro degli scenari globali nel corso degli ultimi vent’anni.

Recently, autocratization processes have increasingly attracted scholarly attention. Although researchers have chosen countries as units of analysis, the literature on regime internal variations demonstrates that autocratization can develop at subnational levels. Accordingly, we claim that autocratization can be successfully opposed at the local level. The article shall thus focus on the role of capital cities in autocratizing countries. We argue that this perspective can help shed light on overlooked aspects of regime developments. In fact, we will look at how urban spaces can constitute ‘democratic enclaves’ which may reverse autocratization. Grassroot participatory initiatives on the use of urban public space or open assemblies on budget spending are among the examples of these localized practices of re-democratization. After introducing the theoretical framework, the paper will map divergent regime developments at the subnational and national level in Southeast Europe (SEE), i.e. the trajectories of hegemonic and opposition forces in the national and city-level executives. Then, it will explore three case-studies: Budapest, Banja Luka, and Zagreb. They have been chosen as capitals of SEE countries experiencing recent autocratization or democratic backsliding. In fact, under the longstanding leadership of, respectively, Viktor Orbán and Milorad Dodik, Hungary and Republika Srpska have embarked upon an autocratization path over the past decade, whereas Croatia has been marked by a less severe, albeit noticeable, democratic backsliding. Nonetheless, these cities also represent typical cases of opposition’s victory in the capital, against the dominant parties at the central government: Gergely Karácsony’s broad anti-Fidesz coalition in 2019 in Hungary, Draško Stanivukovi?’s Party of Democratic Progress and its allies against Milorad Dodik’s forces in 2020 in Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, and finally Tomislav Tomaševi?’s Yes, We Can! movement, which surprisingly defeated the Croatian Democratic Union at the 2021 Zagreb local elections. With insights from case-specific literature, and interviews with experts, the paper aims to answer two research questions: which were the drivers of the opposition victory in Budapest, Banja Luka, and Zagreb? More generally, which conditions can enable the opposition to turn an electoral victory in the capital into a wedge to effectively resist and reverse statewide autocratization? We shall test the hypothesis that the opposition’s strategies for winning elections in multilevel polities are shaped by what we label as the ‘nationalization-insulation’ dilemma: at the urban level, the opposition might decide to ‘nationalize’ the political contestation and present itself as the anti-establishment alternative, to win mayoral elections by rallying ’round the flag’ in a larger front against the authoritarian incumbent. However, this strategy might equally penalize the opposition in future national contests, since the incumbent party often relies on strong rural basis and statewide support, while the opposition’s legitimacy mainly derives from being entrenched in the capital. Overcoming this dilemma, namely being able to both ‘nationalize and insulate’, is pivotal to win elections in multiple layers, and thus oust autocratic actors. The relevance of this topic is evident for advancing research on autocratization, understanding the prospects of re-democratization in Hungary and Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, and avoiding further democratic decay in Croatia.

The paper intends to investigate the role of cities as a fruitful lens to assess processes of authoritarian consolidation in China. Aspiring to maintain its role as the country’s window to the outside world, Shanghai’s municipal government often institutes major institutional and political reforms at a local municipal level. As the country’s most developed city sought to manage unsustainable levels of waste and attendant citizens’ discontent, for instance, a gradual institutionalization of waste management emerged through increased surveillance and centralized authority. Such processes are characteristic of what scholars refer as “environmentalism authoritarianism” or “authoritarian environmentalism”, which largely conceptualizes the use of environmental narratives to pursue a highly centralized environmental governance system in the first case, or the use of authoritarian mechanisms in the later. Likely, as Shanghai’s municipal government struggled to respond to the country’s worst COVID-19 outbreak at the beginning of 2022, it pursed increases in centralized authority. The following paper argues such processes at a city level act as a general tactic by subnational leaders to practice state power and, ultimately, enhance authoritarian consolidation. Building on both online and offline ethnographies, the article lays out connections between environmental governance practices and Shanghai’s Draconian lockdown, both used as pretext or opportunity for undermining spaces for contestation and (re)centralizing political authority and surveillance. Consequently, I argue, literature on authoritarian consolidation in authoritarian settings may require more attention at the urban level. For if we wish to understand the legitimation of authoritarian power, we must further explore the critical role of the city in the development of quotidian state authority. A close study of environmental and COVID-19 governance practices in Shanghai will (1) provide stronger clues into the role of cities in trends of autocratization and (2) highlight the different ways in which environmental or health “crisis” are appropriated, calibrated, and legitimated at a subnational level to explore and characterize processes of authoritarian consolidation in authoritarian regimes.

The question of ‘democratic enclaves’ in otherwise authoritarian polities has recently received increased attention. Particularly in ‘former" it 'heavily comprised' democracies’ with a legacy of multi-party elections and peaceful transfer of power, ‘democratic resilience’ can be observed in collective discourses on sovereignty based on fair elections as well as in pockets of government, and particularly on the level of local administration. Local administrations can serve as power bases for rookie politicians and become locales of ‘springboard politics’, contributing to the gradual empowerment of opposition politics, while at the same time having to avert the national-level incumbents’ assaults on local autonomy. Yet, how can opposition local governments counter the politics of autocratizing governments, which forcefully enforce their vision of personalized rule as an alternative to rule- and value-based democratic politics? Based on expert interviews, textual analysis of municipality publications and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2020 and 2021, this paper examines the case of the Metropolitan Municipality of Istanbul. Governed by a series of mayors associated with Islamist parties (Welfare Party and Justice and Development Party, AKP) since 1994 and thanks to a large coalition of otherwise ideologically distant political blocs, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won the local elections of 2019 despite concerted attempts at manipulation and vote-rigging by the incumbent. The Metropolitan Municipality, as well as several district administrations, indeed became local power bases and laboratories for oppositional politics, significantly extending the understanding and practice of democratic politics prevalent in the less than liberal national party organization of CHP. I am particularly interested here in the municipality’s ‘counter-politics’ under the current metropolitan mayor Ekrem Imamo?lu and the question how opposition politicians in subnational administrations counter the logic of personalization of autocratizing regimes. What kind of alternatives -political, social, cultural and gender-based- does the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality project discursively and materially? To what extent can it escape public desires for a ‘strong leader’-based municipality? And finally, what does the example of opposition politics in Istanbul tell us about the prospects for democratization in the case of regime change?

There is a general assumption that results of elections in large cities cannot be translated into the electoral outcome on the national level and, as a result, on the general political situation in a state. This assumption is correct when it comes to the direct relationship. Obviously, a city is different than a country as a whole in terms of the demographic structure and, in consequence, the electoral preferences even if in exceptional cases a city can reflect to large extent the demographic structure of a country. However, winning elections in cities by opposition may have the impact on the gradual change of the political situation on the national level, leading sometimes in the long run to the victory in national elections. It depends on presence of particular factors, such as performance of new city authorities, possibility of increasing their popularity and the ability of oppositional forces to use the local electoral success to strengthen the overall position of the party/parties at the cost of the incumbents on the national level. It is worth posing a question if taking over the power by new political forces in large cities can generate in the long run also the change in the political regime. The proposed paper is aimed at investigating this important question. Its author argues that this change is possible - both in the form of democratization and autocratization. Large cities can be incubators of de-democratization tendencies – even in the democratic countries but also a spark of hope for re-democratization – in non-democratic states. In order to prove this thesis, the author will analyse, taking a long-term perspective, the cases of Istanbul and Warsaw, witnessing in recent years a victory of the opposition forces over the incumbents. This cross-country and cross-temporal analysis will be conducted with a use of the process tracing method to identify the factors behind the gradual democratization or autocratization.

It is widely accepted that state capacity plays a key role in creating social and economic wellbeing in the long run. In particular, well-functioning states have the ability to provide a fairer redistribution of economic gains and social benefits. Empirical evidence shows that stronger states tend to reduce income inequalities as they have the ability to successfully face social and economic challenges. Nevertheless, while democracies provide more fertile ground to fight inequality, because they are characterized by a more participatory political environment and allow the poor to get their voice heard, leaders in dictatorships have less carrots at their disposal to fight inequalities. Many autocracies thus are characterized by higher levels of inequalities compared to democratic regimes. Despite the differences between democratic and autocratic regimes in terms of social inequalities, autocrats are not immune from societal pressures and face incentives to redistribute. In this study, we examine the relationship between state capacity and social inequality in education and health care, both across countries and over time. In general, we expect state capacity, understood as the ability of the state to reach its policy objectives, to impinge on social inequalities. Our empirical analysis rests upon different components of capable states and disentangles some of the more precise mechanisms of the state-inequality relationship in autocracies. The results show that there is a positive relationship between state capacity and equality in access to health and education sectors in dictatorships. The findings indicate that autocratic regimes with higher levels of state capacity show lower levels of social inequality. Overall, this paper contributes to determining the causes of inequality in autocracies and sheds light on the importance of state capacity in determining social outcomes under authoritarian rule.

Since the fall of Celestial Empire in 1913 to the new Communist Regime in 1949 China went through a long period of troubles. Western foreign occupation, civil war, war against Japan's occupation contributed to dismantling traditional institutions. As a result the old imperial state disappeared and a new state came out during the Revolution from two institution: the Chinese Communist Party and the People Liberation Army. The two were largely overlapping. So, it is not surprising that the bureaucratic administration of the state is now hard to distinguish from the Party. That's why still today most Chinese people do not really see the Party as a private institution as we do in western countries. When Mao Zedong sparked the Cultural Revolution, a kind of civil war, against the "conservatives" of his own party, his leadership took the shape of a dictatorship and the Party was an arena of for persecutions and revenges. The memory of this turmoil is particularly painful in country that has always considered social order as its main value. After Mao's death China had a main leader, Deng Xiaoping, that was not secretary of the Party (he was the chief of the Military Commission), who ruled the country without accumulating top political offices. He interpreted the Party's concern for the advent of a new dictatorship. The oligarchy also worried about the fate of other communist parties around the world. It was looking for a new source of legimimation and it bet on economic growth. The leadership promoted the Great Transformation from the planned and self-managed economy of the Mao's rule to the Socialist Market Economy of the Deng Time. Social order began to change radically: new opportunities and new inequalities spread. The Party had to manage this transformation in a continental-size country, with a multilevel government where new private and public actors entered the economic arena every day. Leadership had to find a way to include new interest and new points of views into the single party. Since 2015 Xi Jinping started a new centralization of power. What the Chinese Communist Party calls a democracy is, from our point of view, an authoritarian regime. But ideology is not orthodox like it used to be in the past. Pragmatism is the main driver. Socialism is considered under construction until 2049. A new nationalism is growing. Confucius is more quoted than Mao as a master of this new harmonious society. In this paper we are going to have a look at how the China Communist Party's leadership interpreted the way of a new legitimation to keep the monopoly of power together with the amount of openness and innovation that is needed by a fast growing market economy.

This application of the Narrative Policy Framework in Russia aims to extend our knowledge about transportability of this framework to nondemocratic contexts and to add new data about the role of NGOs in policy processes. The study examines the narrative strategies (angel-devil shift, scope of conflict, and causal mechanisms), which were used by government and NGO coalitions in public discussion about landscapes fires policies in Russia over the period 2019-2020. Previous NPF studies in the Russian context address a situation when the government promotes reforms, and nongovernmental actors take an opposing position. On the contrary, in this case NGOs promote reforms, while the government rather tries to save the status quo. 110 narratives from three main governmental actors and two international NGOs were analyzed by manual coding. Analysis fully confirmed the previous findings about the inclination of authoritarian government to use strong angel shift - they represent themselves as heroes, who solved problems, and avoid mentioning other actors. The narrative strategies of NGOs were more diverse and did not show a clear angel shift nor a clear devil shift strategy. It means that NGOs both represent themselves as heroes and the government as villains. It is inconsistent with previous findings and could be explained by the fact that NGOs try to promote reforms, so while criticizing the government, they still propose solutions and talk about themselves as the heroes who take actions to improve the situation. The results for the scope of the conflict strategies are more complicated. The findings show that the government does not use narratives to expand or contain the conflict. On the contrary NGOs tend to expand the conflict while discussing the existing policies and to contain conflict when discussing proposed policies. Exploring causal mechanisms has shown that when speaking about the causes of fire itself (ignition) narrators use the same causal mechanism strategy because they both blame the citizens. Discussing the causes of large scale fires the coalitions use different narrative strategies. Government behaves like a winning coalition - it seeks to either not talk about the causes or attribute them to accidental mechanisms, such as weather. While NGOs show a narrative strategy typical for a losing coalition and directly blame the government. Generally the research confirms the previous findings regarding the tendency of authoritarian government to use positive narrative strategies and to avoid mentioning any other actors. The government could use such strategies in order to show itself as an effective and only policy maker thus increasing legitimacy. At the same time, the study adds new data about using narrative strategies by NGOs which promote some reforms. They need at the same time provide policy solution by using positive narrative strategies and criticize government in order to attract attention to the problem and mobilize public support. Additionally they usually try to collaborate with authoritarian government so the level of conflict is not high. Together, this could lead to the fact that NGOs use more diverse narrative strategies and they are generally more positive than strategies of opposing coalitions explored previously. This findings adds new data about the peculiarities of the use of policy narratives in the Russian authoritarian context and the role of NGOs on policy processes.

Following a period of democratic success in former post-Communist countries, political developments in the region have started to stagnate and even experienced regression. This new wave of autocratization differs from past practices. Democratic institutions and practices are slowly eroded, ruining the already fragile state of democratic progress. Governments expand their political power and significantly overshadow the legislative or the judiciary oversight by adopting illiberal laws to expand their powers. Although countries from the Central and Eastern Europe receive substantial attention, with prime examples of democratic dismantling in Hungary and Poland, the countries from the Western Balkans are not immune to this process. After a brief period of democratization in the early and mid 2000s, when democracy could barely take roots, progressive governments in the region have started to apply more and more illiberal practices that slowly eroded the minor progress achieved in the preceding period. What is surprising that these autocratization episodes came during period of increased integration to the European Union. This is in stark contrast to the countries from Central and Eastern Europe that rapidly democratized in the 1990s and early 2000s during the same integration stages. Considering that it is a process, rather than a one-time event, new approaches to the study of these phenomena aim to identify autocratization episodes. As authoritarianism continues to be on the rise our paper aims to explain why some countries have democratically regressed, despite the advancement of the integration process? What are the modes of autocratization in the region? What is the new form of authoritarianism that has emerged? Borrowing from both, theories of democratization and autocratization, we identify five conditions (government effectiveness, democracy aid, EU conditionality, illiberal practices, and opposition strength) that can cause our outcome of interest, autocratization. We will employ qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) in order to capture the complex nature of the problem. We use data from the World Bank, V-Dem and combining it with own dataset on democracy aid and EU conditionality in order to identify which combination of factors offers explanation to autocratization in region. Furthermore, in order to capture the different episodes of autocratization, we split our seven Western Balkans countries into different periods based on the party in power. If a party is re-elected to serve an additional government turn it will be considered as the same episode. The article aims to provide cross-country analysis of autocratization episodes in the Western Balkans region, by integrating international and domestic factors. By focusing on government periods instead of country-year as a unit of analysis, we can also overcome some of the problems that the large-N analyses face, that is autocratization episodes that last for longer period. Key words: autocratization, conceptualization, Southeast Europe, regime change, qca

Scholars tend to interpret regime change as a pure event, geographically and temporally bounded. There are instances such as the breakdown of democracy due to a military coup that come close to fit this view. In other situations, however, regime change is a protracted and punctuated process that takes place over time. This is the case when broad movements from below force dictators out of power and unleash a political transition that remains open and uncertain. By starting from the outcome and looking back for explanation, scholars are likely to focus on a set of fixed factors – either present or not – that give account of the events. In so doing, they provide a snapshot that falls short of capturing the dynamics of how regime change happens. This article departs sharply from this perspective. It embraces Capoccia and Ziblatt's (2010) theoretical approach of reading history forward and presents an anti-static and fluid image of regime change in Tunisia (2010–14), Egypt (2011–13), and Algeria (2019–21). It aims to do so in two main ways. First, the article shows how in reaction to external and internal pressures, the class structure and institutional setting of the three countries changed over time, creating different incentives and constraints for social classes, political forces, and state actors. Together with the peculiar development of societies and their legacies, these unique amalgams contributed to shaping specific forms of opposition, which in turn determined the emergence of different mass movements in the three countries. Second, it explores how the broad cross-class and cross-ideological convergences that defeated the autocrats were not formed once and for all, but rather gradually took place in the course of the uprisings, attracting different actors at different times. Although similar in the last days of mass protests against the autocracy, these convergences were not identical, contributing to foster dissimilar transitions, during which unstable networks were constantly made and remade. Eventually, it was the internal social and political composition of the convergence that grasped power and the relative strength of its various components that determined the type of the new regime.

Is the current democratic slump connected to the predicaments of ethnic minority groups? Despite efforts by previous literatures, we still lack an assessment of the effect of ethnic inequalities on regime transformations away from democracy. The proposed paper represents a first step of a doctoral project, which will address this gap through a nested analysis, integrating quantitative and qualitative techniques to study the effect of economic, political and social inequalities between ethnic groups on autocratization episodes after the Cold War. Overall, I hypothesize that, increasing inequalities between ethnic groups, democracy will be at risk. After the end of the ‘democratic optimism’ of the 1990s and a new ‘pessimism’ in the 2010s, recently have experts on regime developments proposed new frameworks to scrutinize democratization ‘in reverse’. These efforts are increasing, but still at the beginning: autocratization and its causes are not properly addressed. The paper first contributes to redefine autocratization on the Sartorian ladder of abstraction, as an umbrella term for different phenomena (e.g., decline of democratic quality, democratic breakdown, and autocratic consolidation). The paper will also argue that many currently autocratizing countries (such as India, Turkey, Serbia, Benin, Niger, the US, Israel, or Brazil) resemble ethnically divided societies – where ethnic, national, regional, religious, linguistic identities are politically salient. This does not amount to saying that in these contexts autocratization is always connected to ethnicity, when the latter is politically relevant. Yet, the analysis shall claim that it can be crucial to study economic, political, and social inequalities – rather than simple cleavages – between ethnic groups, as possible structural determinants that can enable regime developments. In fact, we have many case-based evidence that some of contemporary processes of autocratization involve the predicament of ethnic minority groups. From the scandal of the removal of citizenship rights for Muslim minorities in Modi's India, the advancing polarization of the US electorate and party system around identity-based opposite camps, the increasing use of ethnic nationalism as legitimization strategies by many authoritarian leaders such as Erdogan, Putin or Orban, to the persistence of ethnic and secessionist conflict in countries such as Benin and Mali and the increasing of disparities between racialized groups in Brazil or the biased treatment of indigenous populations from Latin America to Israel/Palestine - to name just a few of the possible examples – we might hypothesize a that a persistent discrimination of ethnic groups or, more generally what we will call ethnic inequalities, would have a detrimental effect on democracy. However, with some notable exceptions, few research has been conducted systematically on these issues. In a few words, are ethnic inequality just compatible with democracy? Or otherwise, what will be the impact of their increase on the political regime? Are those countries just resembling some idiosyncratic phenomena or rather a cross-national pattern? And, therefore, could ethnic inequalities be considered among the causes of autocratization, or regime developments towards autocracy? And if so, with which causal mechanisms? After the theory part, clarifying the debate around the categories of autocratization and ethnic inequalities, the paper will consist of some preliminary tests of the hypothesis that, increasing ethnic inequalities in different spheres of the societies, a country will be more likely to autocratize. Accordingly, with polarization between or exclusion of ethnic groups, majoritarian institutions where the ‘ethnic’ winner can take it all through elections, and economic inequalities between ethnic majorities and minorities, would-be authoritarian entrepreneurs may find fertile soil for dismantling democracy, winning elections and then restricting liberal guarantees for the benefits of their ingroup associates. The paper will present some preliminary cross-case evidence, combining data from different sources on political regimes and ethnic cleavages. In particular, the analysis will be based on logistic models for analyzing different types of regime transitions towards autocracy (such as from liberal to electoral democracy, from electoral democracy to electoral autocracy, etc.) or other episodes of regime transformations, and OLS models to scrutinize the decay of democratic quality across regime-types. However, such a general research design, in particular focused on structural conditions (and with an observed variance mostly at the cross-national level), cannot account for the specific, or case-based causal mechanisms. Therefore, the paper concludes presenting the next steps of the doctoral research, in particular a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) on episodes of autocratization leading (or not) to a regime change and some short case-studies, selected on the results of the first comparative part(s).

Initially considered integral to the ongoing third wave of autocratization (1) , Southeast Europe (SEE), composed of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and the ex-Yugoslav countries (2) , has, arguably, become a vanguard of resistance against autocratization. Leaders who dominated politics in the region for decades and contributed to autocratization, such as Bulgaria’s Boyko Borissov (2009-2021), Montenegro’s Milo ?ukanovi? (1991-2020), and North Macedonia’s Nikola Gruevski (2006-2016), have seen their parties removed from the executive via electoral means. The electoral victories and formation of governments by the opposition in Bulgaria, Montenegro and North Macedonia constituted an important stress test for democracy in SEE. The three countries have all been considered captured states with undermined electoral competition. Borissov, ?ukanovi?, Gruevski and their respective parties, GERB, DPS and VMRO-DPMNE, are among the first wave of leaders in SEE who got re-elected for two or more consecutive terms after the end of the Cold War. In an environment marked by weak checks and balances (Bermeo 2016), deficiencies within the EU (post)enlargement process (Zhelyazkova et al. 2019), and also relative economic growth (Günay and Dzihic 2016), the three parties and their leaders managed to capture the administration and create informal clientelist networks, which reduced public contestation and, to an extent electoral competition (Bieber 2018; Dimitrova 2018; Elbasani and Šabi? 2018; Huszka 2018). Nonetheless, coalitions of domestic institutional, political and societal actors, and external actors, mounted effective resistance against autocratization, which culminated with governmental change via electoral means (Draško et al. 2020; Bieber and Laštro 2021; Löblová et al. 2021). Actors as varied as social movements, the president, technocratic governments, the Constitutional Court, the political opposition, the EU or even the Serbian Orthodox Church in the case of Montenegro, were all instrumental throughout these resistance episodes. However, whilst successful resistance against autocratization as manifested by electoral victory and government formation constitutes a steppingstone for re-democratization, newly elected governments have seen various obstacles which slow down and could even reverse the process. Examples include but are not excluded to the actions of the actions of the Macedonian state service which assisted Nikola Gruevski’s flee from justice to Hungary (1); the efforts of the Bulgarian Supreme Justice Council to shield the General Prosecutor from oversight (2); and the political instability within the Montenegrin cabinet which is to organize anticipatory elections in 2023 due to political instability (3). Taking into account the novelty of the topic, this paper asks the following question: “What are the factors influencing re-democratization in SEE following successful resistance against autocratization?”. Indeed, academic literature has paid considerable attention to resistance against autocratization in SEE. Strategies involving cooperation between internal actors, notably the opposition and civil society, and external actors, the EU and US, has been studied at great length by scholars studying resistance against autocratization in the late 90s and early 00s (Pop-Eleches 2007; Bunce and Wolchik 2010; Konitzer 2011; Spendzharova and Vachudova 2012). Moreover, contemporary resistance against autocratization, marked by the rise of social movements, parliamentary boycotts and external mediation, also receives increasing attention (Fonck 2018; Drasko et al. 2020; WFD 2019; Lastro and Bieber 2021). Yet there are few articles analysing factors influencing re-democratization after successful resistance against autocratization. To address this gap in the literature this paper intends to study the experience of the new ruling majorities in Bulgaria, Montenegro and North Macedonia and construct an analytical framework capturing the main factors influencing re-democratization in the region. The article’s main hypothesis is that re-democratization is influenced by four main factors: 1) party system closure (Enyedi and Bértoa 2018); 2) horizontal accountability (judicial and parliamentary control) (Richter and Wunsch 2020); 3) polarization within and between the ruling majorities in the region (Somer et al. 2021; 4) the effectiveness of EU conditionality (Zhelyazkova et al. 2019). To operationalise the framework, the paper is first going to discuss resistance against autocratization and re-democratization and forward its hypothesis. Afterward, the empirical part is going to introduce the case studies and proceed with their analysis before concluding. The contributions of this article are threefold. Firstly, it constitutes one of the first pieces on re-democratization in SEE, a process that has also gained momentum in other countries in the region, such as Kosovo, Slovenia, and Serbia, and thereby merits attention. Secondly, the paper forwards a methodology to analyse democratization and autocratization episodes simultaneously, which is of central importance for analysing resistance against autocratization. Thirdly, the paper is also of interest to practitioners involved in democratic assistance because it showcases residual weakness of newly elected governments coming to power after a period of autocratization, which could be addressed by assistance programs. (1) V-DEM’s 2022 report (Alizada et al., p.10-11) lists Croatia, Greece, Serbia and Slovenia as countries which have undergone substantial autocratization and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Montenegro as countries that have witnessed less pronounced autocratization between 2011 and 2021. In addition, V-DEM’s ERT Dataset (Maertz et al. 2021, annex “A” p.4-5) list Kosovo and North Macedonia as countries which had suffered but have subsequently reversed autocratization and re-democratized. (2) Comparative politics most often divides SEE along Cold War lines with analyses grouping the former Eastern Bloc countries (Bulgaria and Romania); the non-aligned countries (Albania and the ex-Yugoslav member states); and Greece in three separate camps. Nonetheless, the post-Cold War period has seen convergence among these states, be it in economic terms or closer affiliation to the EU and NATO, rendering the traditional clustering of the region less relevant. As seen by the data presented in the introduction, the same is true regarding the process of autocratization, whose impact has transcended Cold War divisions, justifying an analysis covering the region in its integrity. (3) https://www.dw.com/en/macedonian-ex-pm-escapes-jail-term-flees-to-hungary/a-46298504 (4) https://www.dnevnik.bg/analizi/2022/05/21/4348967_shte_otstrani_li_visshiiat_sudeben_suvet_ivan_geshev/ (5) https://www.vijesti.me/vijesti/politika/605296/peric-vlada-nije-manjinska-nego-koaliciona Bibliography: Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, 27(1), 5-19. Bieber, F. (2018). Patterns of competitive authoritarianism in the Western Balkans. East European Politics, 34(3), 337-354. Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. "Defeating dictators: Electoral change and stability in competitive authoritarian regimes." World politics 62, no. 1 (2010): 43-86. Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. Defeating authoritarian leaders in postcommunist countries. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Dimitrova, A. L. (2018). The uncertain road to sustainable democracy: elite coalitions, citizen protests and the prospects of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. East European Politics, 34(3), 257-275. Draško, G. P., Fiket, I., & Vasiljevi?, J. (2020). Big dreams and small steps: comparative perspectives on the social movement struggle for democracy in Serbia and North Macedonia. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 20(1), 199-219. Elbasani, A., & Šabi?, S. Š. (2018). Rule of law, corruption and democratic accountability in the course of EU enlargement. Journal of European Public Policy, 25(9), 1317-1335. Enyedi, Zsolt, and Fernando Casal Bértoa. "Institutionalization and de-institutionalization in post-communist party systems." East European Politics and Societies 32, no. 3 (2018): 422-450. Huszka, B. (2018). Human rights on the losing end of EU enlargement: The case of Serbia. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 56(2), 352-367. Laštro, Claudia, and Florian Bieber. "The Performance of Opposition Parties in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes: Three Case Studies from the Western Balkans." European Political Science (2021): 1-13. Löblová, Olga, Julia Rone, and Endre Borbáth. "Focus on Czechia, Hungary, and Bulgaria." Coronavirus Politics: The Comparative Politics and Policy of COVID-19 (2021). Konitzer, A. (2011). Speaking European: Conditionality, public attitudes and pro-European party rhetoric in the Western Balkans. Europe-Asia Studies, 63(10), 1853-1888. Richter, S., & Wunsch, N. (2020). Money, power, glory: the linkages between EU conditionality and state capture in the Western Balkans. Journal of European Public Policy, 27(1), 41-62. Somer, Murat, Jennifer L. McCoy, and Russell E. Luke. "Pernicious polarization, autocratization and opposition strategies." Democratization 28, no. 5 (2021): 929-948. Spendzharova, A. B., & Vachudova, M. A. (2012). Catching up? Consolidating liberal democracy in Bulgaria and Romania after EU accession. West European Politics, 35(1), 39-58. Zhelyazkova, A., Damjanovski, I., Nechev, Z., & Schimmelfennig, F. (2019). European Union conditionality in the Western Balkans: external incentives and Europeanisation. In The Europeanisation of the Western Balkans (pp. 15-37). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Westminster Foundation for Democracy. (2019). Parliamentary Boycotts in the Western Balkans. Retrieved from: https://www.wfd.org/2019/07/24/parliamentary-boycotts-in-the-western-balkans/

In the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings, the EU’s relations with the Southern neighbourhood were reframed in the light of a new élan of democracy promotion, epitomised in the communication on a partnership for democracy and shared prosperity (Commission 2011). The underlying logic of this approach was to leverage the building and consolidation of democracy and rule of law through EU ‘conditional’ support for Mediterranean partners in terms of ‘money, mobility and markets.’ Ten years later, processes of regime change are entrapped in immobility and u-turns with illiberal democracies representing the modal regime type in the EU Southern Neighbourhood. This paper explores the complexity of endogenous and exogenous processes of democracy support. It aims to critically analyse cooperation on mobility within this framework of democracy promotion, focusing on the case of Mobility Partnerships (MPs) in the Southern neighbourhood. MPs and the migration and mobility agreements that are being negotiated challenge the very idea of the EU as a ‘promoter of democracy’. When it comes to a trade-off between cooperation with authoritarian governments to ensure stability and democracy promotion, the EU tends to prioritise the former. The paper explores the stability-democracy dilemma, focusing on what Cassarino (2007) defined as ‘reversed conditionality’. Being cooperation on democracy and mobility a process of ‘strategic interaction’ (Van Hüllen 2015), it is reasonable to assume that EU’s neighbours are not passive receivers of democracy promotion, but they have ‘agency’ in negotiating policy tools and leverage their strategic role as guarantors of stability in the EU neighbourhood in order to obtain more ‘money, mobility and markets’. Looking at the content of MPs with some key Southern neighbours (Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan) or ongoing/suspended negotiation of MPs (Lebanon and Egypt) from this ‘reversed’ perspective allows us to draw some relevant considerations on the extent to which EU’s policy tools as the MPs are constrained into this stability-democracy dilemma and, thus, the extent to which the EU is (un)able to promote democracy in the Southern neighbourhood.

The recent events in Russia and Ukraine and the last decade’s evolution in post-soviet area politics revamped the debate about transition and democratization in the USRR successor countries. In particular, the authoritarian consolidation in Russia, the hybrid nature of some other countries, and the ambiguous evolution of Ukrainian politics after the Euromaidan suggest the need for a revision in the theoretical approach adopted in the late 1990s and early 2000s to explain political transition in the whole area. Among the dilemmas that emerged are those regarding the prevalence of hybrid regimes in the European and Caucasian parts of the former Soviet Union and the consolidation of authoritarianism in Russia and Belarus. Since the early 1990s, a debate arose between Transitologists and Sovietologists about the potential and the path toward democratization in the post-soviet area. Later, a more sophisticated approach emerged inspired by the concept of quality of democracy and the emphasis on hybrid regimes as an intermediate stage toward democracy. However, many critics arrived at the hybrid regime concept’s ambiguous nature, sometimes considered a trick to outflank the lack of more efficient classification criteria. Besides, the whole theoretical approach to democratization in the post-soviet area appeared excessively modelled on the Western experience and conceptual frameworks. Some updating was proposed for the quality of democracy approach to the post-soviet area and new mechanisms were identified to explain the political and institutional transformation in some post-soviet countries. The ideas of “permanent hybridization” and “alternative (to democracy) regimes” were proposed to study the former soviet countries as well as other countries that seem resilient to democratization. Additionally, the concept of “pluralism by default” was proposed to explain the non-transition to autocracy in countries where many elements suggested this transition as the natural outcome. This paper will propose a revised theory of political regime transformation in the post-soviet area. This new theory will combine the concept of hybrid regimes, alternative regimes and pluralism by default. Post-soviet countries will be considered outside the continuum from autocracy to democracy adopted in the traditional approaches. Instead, they will be classified as authoritarian countries in which the strength of political actors and the State (it means the government and the administration) are the main elements that shape the political regime. When there are prevailing actors and an efficient State, authoritarianism works, while the inability of any actor to predominate or the poor effectiveness of the State apparatus drives the country toward pluralism by default. The latter can become the door for moving from the alternative to the democratic line passing through hybrid regimes. An application of this theory will be proposed for the passage from Yeltsin’s Russia to Putin’s Russia. The two regimes will be suggested to have the same status as authoritarian regimes. So, it was not Putin to transform Russia into an authoritarian State. He transformed a not working authoritarianism into a working one. Instead, in Moldova, the weakness of potential authoritarian leaders and the inefficiency of the state apparatus favoured pluralism by default, notwithstanding the absence of crucial elements for Western-style democratization. The cases of Belarus, Ukraine and Georgia will be discussed too. Keywords: Post-Soviet Area, Russia, Democratization, Hybrid Regimes, Authoritarianism.

This research article has mainly two objectives. Firstly, from a methodologic point of view, it moves critically away from the interpretations which hinge on path dependency and critical junctures aiming rather at exploring theoretically the conditions of political stability in search of a “structural” explanation of it. Three approaches to the study of the political stability are identified: the political culture approach addressed to the investigation of the dominant beliefs and sources of legitimacy of a given regime; the socio-centered approach drew attention to the distribution of the social and economic resources; finally, the institutional approach focused on the institutional and organizational control of the social and political mobilization. Arguing that three approaches may be combined in a multi-dimensional interpretation, it is underlined that institutional and organizational control plays a key role in the stabilization of a political regime and in reducing the likelihood of a military intervention in politics. While highly institutionalized regimes, as democracies normally are, manage to stem social and political mobilization against the power incumbents, poorly institutionalized regime, as often in the case of authoritarianisms, can only precariously survive as long as some “regime factors” (a political party, a bureaucracy penetrated by the dominant elite, a loyal and efficient coercive apparatus) are effective in controlling mobilization and political conflict. Secondly, using the cases of coup d’état in Africa in the period 2000-2021, we intend to explore that theoretical interpretation. We argue that the coup is not merely a “technical fact” but that it is connected to the condition of weak institutionalization of the political regime. XXXX In this perspective, the coups d’état could be interpreted as “critical junctures” that have effective consequences only in conditions of low institutionalization of the regime or - in the case of authoritarianisms - in conditions of ineffectiveness of the “factors of the regime”. Our working hypothesis is that some indicators of the institutionalization of the political process (i.e. election regularity and relatively significant levels of government turnover) are clearly associated with the exceptional nature of the coup and in any case with its likely failure. Conversely, where the political process is poorly institutionalized, coups d’état are more frequent and successful. In these latter cases, some “factors of the regime” (a party, a closed bureaucracy, the military body and the apparatus of violence), in various combinations in concrete cases, fill the power vacuum and can succeed in stabilizing the political regime. Nonetheless, this stabilization is precarious and it is short-sighted to exchange the “strength” or “robustness” of the “factors of the regime” as indicators of consolidation or political stability of the regimes. In the medium-long term the use or threat of violence and the exploitation of privileged links between the power elites and some “clients” creates disaffection and anger in the excluded, placing the condition even of rebellion.

It is widely held that since the mid-1990s the promotion of human rights and democracy has become one of the constitutive elements of the external action of the European Union (EU). Much academic attention has been paid to ‘how’ and ‘why’ the EU does this and to what extent it achieves its objectives, notably with regards to democratic principles. Less scholarly interest has been attracted by the substance of human rights promotion (‘what’), disguised in the pervasive reference to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and its underlying principles of universality and indivisibility. Another commonly shared belief advanced in official as well as academic discourses is that the EU is a champion of human rights and democracy promotion, whereas developing countries generally contest them, usually in the name of cultural relativism. One of the most cited cases in this regard is the EU’s relationship with African states, most recently in the context of the Cotonou Agreement (2000-2022) signed with the broader group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. Aimed at resulting in a partnership of equals, EU-ACP relations have instead been characterised, according to a prevailing view, by major power asymmetries: the EU, more often than not, is seen as successfully imposing its preferences. Yet increasingly, the EU’s external action, and with it the international liberal order, has been subject to contestation from various fronts. Against this background, this article asks what types of human rights (and democratic principles) the EU seeks to advance in its external action and how it negotiates their promotion with African states – but to do so it embraces recent calls to decentre European foreign policies, looking at the negotiations for the successor to the Cotonou Agreement from Africa’s perspective. Importantly, these negotiations unveil how Africa is not a passive recipient of external agendas: in fact, it put forward ambitious provisions on socio-economic as well as solidarity rights which was resisted by the EU (most notably, cultural rights, right to development, rights-based approach to migration and investment policies). The EU, by contrast, concentrated on civil and political rights (most notably on sexual rights, abolition of death penalty, external interference, broadened space for civil society), and its approach was contested by African states. More generally, this article shows how, wherever it finds the promotion of certain values too costly, the EU is ready to give up for the sake of pursuing material interests, but this is not unexpected; the group of African states, and this may be somehow surprising, is keen to concede on material interests in the name of highly regarded values.

Much of the literature on democratic transitions has focused on the transition from authoritarianism to democracy, but few studies have examined how democracies that re-emerged compare to those that existed in the past. Examining the Chilean case, this study explores the degree to which the "new" democracy has recovered its former strength, posing a similar question for other Latin American countries. It considers the conceptualization of quality of democracy that underpins this controversy and explores the methodological challenges of intertemporal comparison, which may be relevant for other cases that have experienced periods of authoritarian rule and process of re-democratization. We find that, overall, democracy in the contemporary period is more robust. Yet, to an important extent, indices' different understandings of the concept of the quality of democracy are relevant in terms of the degree to which they emphasize procedural aspects versus democratic outcomes.

El Paper trata de trazar en su primera parte un perfil teórico del fenómeno del populismo. Fenómeno que, a pesar de su multiforme expresión, es considerado por la mayoría de los estudiosos como la amenaza más insidiosa a la democracia representativa derivada del constitucionalismo liberal. Esta actitud es la consecuencia de una visión colectivista de la sociedad como modelo alternativo a la sociedad abierta fundada en el individuo, sobre su libre participación en la comunidad política y en la igualdad ante la ley. El análisis teórico se referirá a la naturaleza de la idea de "pueblo" de "soberanía" y de "nación" indisolublemente ligadas a los procesos de victimización del "pueblo"; a sus tendencias al maniqueísmo y mesianismo, de los que el aspecto religioso es parte integrante. Del mismo modo, encontramos una concepción similar que se propone en el plano sociopolítico en el indigenismo sudamericano, predominantemente andino, en el que la idea de cultura, identidad y nación asumen la misma caracterización y valor sociopolítico. Los dos fenómenos aparentemente distintos y lejanos, comparten importantes elementos , como la aversión al neoliberalismo, que serán oportunamente analizados. En su segunda parte, el paper desarrollando las premisas teóricas anteriores, analiza las consecuencias del populismo para la democracia en dos países: Chile y Colombia. Casos muy diferentes por historia, tradición y sistema político, pero profundamente unidos por un neoliberalismo imperante, nos permitirá comprender cómo las tendencias populistas pueden extenderse a democracias aparentemente consolidadas y contribuir a la desestructuración del sistema. A través de un enfoque comparativo que dé cuenta del análisis de las principales formas ideológicas y organizativas, las diversas formaciones políticas hoy protagonistas de la nueva temporada populista en Chile y en Colombia, se analizarán según una tipología que tenga en cuenta la naturaleza y el contenido de su acción populista.

La rielezione del presidente Sergio Mattarella e la riconferma di Mario Draghi a capo del governo italiano hanno risolto, almeno per il momento, alcuni problemi del nostro sistema politico, ma ne hanno aperti altri sotto il profilo politico e istituzionale su cui occorre riflettere. La Francia ha rieletto presidente E. Macron in un clima di tensioni ed incertezze, con un sistema partitico più snello del nostro ma attraversato da molti clivages. Ed il sorgere di nuovi attori politici. Entrambe le realtà pongono quindi come centrale il problema delle leadership e delle sue evoluzioni. La leadership politica è da sempre al centro della riflessione politologica e si modifica a seconda dei vari contesti storici, culturali e istituzionali. Essa, infatti, ha caratteristiche molto diverse nei regimi autoritari rispetto a quelli democratici e all’interno di essi si manifesta e si struttura in una varietà di forme, stili e caratteristiche, utilizzando strumenti differenti. Nelle nostre democrazie si sono manifestati nel tempo vari tipi di leader, alcuni carismatici, nel senso puro weberiano, altri no, altri ancora capaci di utilizzare il potere raggiunto e quindi di esprimere un “carisma posizionale” che spesso si rivela temporaneo e legato a una situazione precisa. Io analizzo i casi di Macron e Draghi che rappresentano sicuramente due tipi di leader diversi, all’interno di realtà politiche e istituzionali diverse, ma con molte affinità per formazione e scelte politiche, che ne rendono importante il confronto. In particolare mi soffermo su alcuni punti chiave: il rapporto con la religione e il problema della laicità; le scelte durante la pandemia; il problema degli immigrati; il rapporto con l’Europa e la nuova visione di essa; la posizione e le scelte attuate sulla guerra in Ucraina. Entrambi hanno inoltre un rapporto inevitabile con il populismo ed i partiti che lo rappresentano: Macron nel confronto serrato con il RN di Marine Le Pen, divenuta sua antagonista principale nelle scorse presidenziali e col populismo “di sinistra di J. Luc Melenchon, usa la competenza del tecnocrate ed una postura spesso populista, sia pure di un populismo di governo; Draghi ha cercato e cerca di tenere a bada una coalizione governativa variegata, mossa da spinte e richieste diverse,in cui vi sono la destra estrema populista di M. Salvini ed il populismo di protesta dei 5Stelle, alternando fermezza e mediazione, usando gli strumenti e lo stile del politico oltre che quelli della tecnocrazia. L’analisi delle loro scelte e della loro comunicazione rende proficuo e significante il confronto. La mia ipotesi è che nelle nostre democrazie una miscela di tecnocrazia e populismo si annuncia come un possibile modo di attenuare e governare alcune delle contraddizioni che le attuali trasformazioni della società ci presentano. Nei due casi analizzati, ai quali si potrebbe aggiungere anche la Germania di Angela Merkel, si può notare una costante: la mescolanza di tecnocrazia e populismo, cioè capacità del tecnocrate che maneggia dossiers importanti, che guarda al futuro del paese, che progetta nuovi strumenti per la sicurezza europea, e volto umano, richiamo a valori condivisi e appello all’unità di un popolo, capacità di guida nelle difficoltà, fermezza ed empatia, elementi questi presenti, in vario modo nelle scelte dei due leaders analizzati. Occorre pertanto porsi degli interrogativi sull’evoluzione possibile di questo processo. Le ragioni del populismo e della tecnocrazia sembrano dunque avere trovato per necessità, un punto di convergenza in questo passaggio difficile delle nostre democrazie, nelle nostre società che hanno perduto i punti di riferimento politici e culturali tradizionali e ne cercano di nuovi in un momento di cambiamenti economici e politici epocali nell’ordine europeo e mondiale.

L'analisi proposta mira a indagare le possibili "degenerazioni" dei regimi democratici, con particolare riferimento a quelli che vengono chiamati regimi ibridi. Una scacchiera geopolitica che non può essere trascurata è quella dell'America Latina. Quando si parla di democrazia, una definizione comune nella letteratura politica include le seguenti caratteristiche: suffragio universale, maschile e femminile, elezioni libere e competitive, ricorrenti ed eque, multipartitismo e pluralismo delle fonti di informazione. Quando questi elementi mancano, ci troviamo di fronte a un regime autoritario, ma se ci sono elementi che si riferiscono sia a un regime democratico che a un regime che non può essere definito come tale, ci troviamo di fronte a un regime ibrido. Se il Cile e il Brasile sono formalmente definiti democratici, non possiamo non sottolineare che alcuni elementi antidemocratici sono presenti nei loro regimi, spesso elementi ereditati da precedenti dittature e che le democrazie consolidate non sono state in grado di frenare. Il punto comune tra questi due paesi è che hanno subito una feroce dittatura. Il Cile, con un pesante passato autoritario, è sconvolto dai disordini, dalle disuguaglianze che non sembrano poter essere colmate, dai governi incapaci di offrire, anche minimamente, un sostegno degno alla popolazione. Ma la cosa più preoccupante è il fascino per cui soffre una frangia di cileni, Maduro e il "suo" Venezuela. La democrazia cilena, pur mantenendo tutte le caratteristiche che la qualificano come tale, è una democrazia in pausa, in attesa. Mentre il Brasile, dopo una lunghissima dittatura militare, oggi finisce nelle mani di Bolsonaro, oggi accusato ad esempio di crimini contro l'umanità dal Tribunale penale internazionale dell'Aia. Non possiamo non sottolineare anche la sua inefficiente gestione della pandemia che ha portato il paese all'esaurimento. Il nostro obiettivo è dimostrare che molti paesi che sono passati da un regime autoritario o da una dittatura a una democrazia non sono riusciti a consolidare i valori democratici. Questo potrebbe portare, in molti paesi dell'America Latina, sono in particolare il Cile e il Brasile, verso regimi non proprio democratici.