Active resistance to democratic diffusion

Abstract

Recent research on the international diffusion of democracy has focused on demonstrating how diffusion can change regime outcomes. Although there is still debate within the field of democratization over how important democratic diffusion is relative to domestic factors, autocratic leaders believe that democratic diffusion can be a threat to their rule. It is clear that some countries, such as North Korea, prevent diffusion by severely restricting interactions with foreigners and forbidding access to external sources of information. The more intriguing question is how the states that have economic, diplomatic, and social linkages with democratic states prevent democratic diffusion. In other words, what methods do globally-engaged, autocratic governments use to limit exposure to and reduce receptivity to democratic diffusion? In addition to using coercion and economic patronage, autocratic states utilize two nonmaterial mechanisms to prevent democratic diffusion: 1) restricting exposure to democratic ideas and 2) developing alternative narratives about democracy to reduce local receptivity to democratic diffusion. Sophisticated autocratic leaders can limit receptivity to democratic diffusion if they convince citizens that those ideas are “foreign,” will cause “chaos,” or if they believe they already have their own form of democracy. I explore these methods of establishing firewalls to prevent diffusion by examining the cases of China and Kazakhstan, two countries where a high level of economic linkage coincides with a successful continuation of autocratic rule, despite the global spread of democratic norms. China has developed extensive methods to restrict access to foreign ideas about democracy while Kazakhstan has mainly focused on developing an alternative narrative about democracy. This article contributes to the literature on authoritarian persistence and democratic diffusion by investigating the internal methods autocratic leaders adopt to ensure that democratic diffusion does not threaten their rule.

Regional sanctions and the struggle for democracy: Introduction to the special issue

“…Thereby, the special issue nuances expectations that decisions to impose sanctions or not during democratic crises are necessarily tied to purposes of democracy protection. Recognising the complexity of rationales underpinning regional approaches to sanctions, our volume speaks to scholarship on how ROs may obstruct democratisation, or even promote forms of autocratisation, among their member states (Ambrosio, 2008; Tolstrup, 2015; Vanderhill, 2017).…”

International Aid and Democracy Promotion

“…While this approach is closer to the issue at hand, it does not account for the likely reactions of autocrats. Autocrats facing threats to their regime are likely to gatekeep (Tolstrup 2013) with the goal of actively resisting democracy diffusion (Vanderhill 2017). This is where my theory contributes by zeroing in on the incentive structure of autocrats.…”

Dual agent of transition: how Turkey perpetuates and challenges neo-patrimonial patterns in its post-Soviet neighbourhood

“…Two prominent strands of research drive this debate. The first explores the impact of increasing international and regional competition between democratic and authoritarian regimes (Ambrosio 2009;Kneuer and Demmelhuber 2016;Lankina, Libman, and Obydenkova 2016;Vanderhill 2017;Gilbert and Mohseni 2018). The second studies the degree of authoritarian diffusion triggered by emerging non-democratic powers including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran (Bank 2017;Bader 2015;Goodliffe and Hawkins 2017;Tansey, Koehler, and Schmotz 2017).…”

“…As Kneuer and Demmelhuber (2016) note, a sense of growing competition between democracies and authoritarian regimes fuelled by the emergence of economically and militarily powerful authoritarian actors such as Russia and China has shaped recent scholarly output on democratisation. Authors are shifting their research interest to resistance to democratic change as promoted by, among others, the European Union (EU) (Gilbert and Mohseni 2018;Lankina, Libman, and Obydenkova 2016;Vanderhill 2017) and to the question of if and how authoritarian actors enhance the resilience of regimes that are predominantly or partly structured by authoritarian features (Ambrosio 2010;Kneuer and Demmelhuber 2016;Bader 2015;Goodliffe and Hawkins 2017). This strand of research highlights that there is little evidence for autocracy promotion strategies.…”