Power Sharing and Authoritarian Stability: How Rebel Regimes Solve the Guardianship Dilemma

Abstract

Regimes founded in rebellion are, typically, extremely durable. We propose that this stability is founded upon peaceful power sharing between the rebel regime leader and military elites. Amid long and intense fighting, rebel leaders must delegate control to top military commanders because doing so helps them to win battles. After seizing power, power-sharing deals between former combatants are highly credible due to their history of interactions, which mitigates the guardianship dilemma. Elsewhere, a persistent internal security dilemma often undermines power-sharing deals. Using originally collected data on African regimes from 1960 to 2017, we establish that rebel regimes break down seldomly compared with other authoritarian regimes and they experience fewer coups. Regarding the mechanism, rebel regimes more frequently share power with military elites by appointing a Minister of Defense. These Ministers are typically high-ranking members of the rebellion, which reflects the regime’s replacement of the state military with their own.

Large-N Qualitative Analysis (LNQA): Causal Generalization in Case Study and Multimethod Research

“…Rather than considering examples of LNQA, we turn to two strong quantitative designs that could have profited from a consideration of cases. Maat’s (2020) study of mass indiscriminate violence, including genocide, and Meng and Paine’s (2022) consideration of the consequences of rebel groups’ seizure of power underlines points made with respect to the Mansfield and Snyder–Narang and Nelson discussion. Both illustrate how statistical findings can hinge on a very small number of cases and how consideration of those cases can be crucial to our confidence in the experimental, quasi-experimental, or observational findings.…”

“…While Maat provides the opportunity for a Y generalization, Meng and Paine (2022) provide an example of a rare treatment or X generalization in a statistical design. Their study also suggests the high value-added from complementary case analysis.…”

“…They note a very strong regularity: that 78% of postindependence rebel regimes in Africa are still in power today. Moreover, “in 19 of the 21 cases, rebel regimes either completely transformed and displaced the existing state military or occupied top positions in an integrated military” (Meng and Paine 2022, 1). The limited number of X = 1 cases would make multimethod LNQA a strong complement to the statistical analysis, showing precisely how the conditions they outline contributed to the outcome.…”

Revolutionary Violence and Counterrevolution

“…New regimes rely on these loyal cadres in their initial years to put down bottom-up threats, which, according to Levitsky and Way (2013), is one important reason that revolutionary regimes tend to be so strong and durable (also, Lachapelle et al 2020). Similarly, Meng and Paine (2022) argue that the process of waging violent rebellion generates loyalty and experience between rebel leaders and their military officers, which, after coming to power, helps these leaders solve the “guardianship dilemma”—that is, granting officers the power and authority to put down bottom-up threats (like counterrevolutions) without risking an internal coup.…”

How the Party Commands the Gun: The Foreign–Domestic Threat Dilemma in China

“…The dataset-to my knowledge the most extensive officerlevel dataset of an autocratic military to date-provides a rare glimpse inside a secretive organization which has received relatively little scholarly attention in the literature on comparative politics, but which has repeatedly played a decisive role in Chinese politics. 1 The focus on the prominent but little-studied case of the PLA illuminates civil-military dynamics in an important category of states: revolutionary one-party regimes (Lachapelle et al 2020;Meng and Paine 2022).…”