The North Korean Autocracy in Comparative Perspective

Song, Wonjun; Wright, Joseph

doi:10.1017/jea.2018.8

Cited by 17 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This is problematic in some research applications that employ time-invariant typologies as explanatory variables because the historical information used to place a regime in a particular category may not occur until after the outcome of interest has been observed. For example, Kim Il Sung invaded South Korea in June 1950, initiating an inter-state conflict; however he purged a rival military officer, Mu Chong, in December 1950 after the conflict had begun (Song and Wright, 2018, 14). This purge, as well as subsequent personalization of the Korean Worker's party in the 1950s, occurs after an outcome of interest, namely, conflict initiation.…”

Section: Varieties Of Autocratic Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

The latent characteristics that structure autocratic rule

Wright

2019

PSRM

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Research on autocratic regimes in comparative politics and international relations often uses categorical typologies of autocratic regimes to distinguish among different forms of autocracy. This paper introduces historical data on dozens of features of dictatorships to estimate latent dimensions of autocratic rule. We identify three time-varying dimensions of autocracy that correspond to ideal types proposed in the literature: party dominance, military rule, and personalism. We show that dimensions of autocratic rule are orthogonal to commonly-used measures of democracy–autocracy, and compare these dimensions to existing typologies of autocracies, showing that time-varying information on personalism is unique. We discuss a measurement model of personalism and illustrate the time-varying features of this measure in applied research on conflict initiation and regime collapse.

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Section: Varieties Of Autocratic Rulementioning

confidence: 99%

The latent characteristics that structure autocratic rule

Wright

2019

PSRM

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“…The main problem with such measures is that, while useful in comparative research, they capture very little cross-temporal variation over time even when dealing with large time spans (e.g. Song and Wright, 2018). The patterns of variation captured by these measures are mostly cross-national.…”

Section: The Dynamics Of Vladimir Putin’s Political Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

The place of Russia’s political regime (2003–2023) on a conceptual map of the world’s autocracies

Golosov

2023

Social Science Information

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This study places Russia’s political regime into a comparative perspective by developing a conceptual framework that classifies authoritarian regimes along two dimensions, those of regime-specific institutionalization and electoral institutionalization. The resulting conceptual map places Russia’s political regime of 2003–2023 into the category of regimes that, while including an electoral component, score relatively low on the dimension of regime-specific institutionalization. At the same time, the conceptual map allows for tracing the regime’s evolution along the two dimensions. The analysis reveals that over time, the regime has undergone a staged transformation from electoral authoritarianism with relatively strong, albeit mostly informal, constraints on the exercise of executive power to a full-fledged personalist dictatorship. This process was finalized after the 2020 constitutional amendments, and became manifest in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2022.

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“…Some are preceded by democracy or arise in countries with a long history of coups; others were constructed from the ruins of colonial empires or imposed by foreign military powers. These differences both structure opportunities for coup attempts (Iqbal & Zorn, 2006) and lay the groundwork for personalization (Geddes et al, 2018; Song & Wright, 2018). We thus model regime-case fixed effects that account for both country-specific historical factors, such as the history of democracy, culture, infrastructural power, and colonial legacy as well as regime-specific factors such as how the regime came to power (e.g., in a coup or a rebellion) and its “type” (e.g., electoral vs. non-electoral regimes).…”

Section: Testing the Technologies Of Violent Leader Replacementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reshaping the Threat Environment: Personalism, Coups, and Assassinations

Chin

Escribà‐Folch

Song

et al. 2022

Comparative Political Studies

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Dictators shape regime structures to counter the threats they face. Personalization entails the progressive accumulation of power in the hands of the dictator to minimize internal threats from organized elites in the military and party. However, elites have incentives to resist the personalization to avoid being marginalized by personalist strongmen. We argue that as personalism increases, rival elites, less able to coordinate coup attempts, turn to strategies that do not require substantial elite coordination: assassinations. At low levels of personalism, elites coordinate insider coups to oust the ruler, reshuffling leadership and still retaining power. At middle levels of personalism, elites organize regime change coups as reshuffling coups become more difficult. At high levels of personalism, even regime change coups become difficult to mount, and increasingly marginalized and desperate rivals turn to assassinations. We test these expectations with new data on personalism, assassination, and coup attempts, covering all autocracies over the 1946–2010 period.

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The North Korean Autocracy in Comparative Perspective

Cited by 17 publications

References 31 publications

The latent characteristics that structure autocratic rule

The latent characteristics that structure autocratic rule

The place of Russia’s political regime (2003–2023) on a conceptual map of the world’s autocracies

Reshaping the Threat Environment: Personalism, Coups, and Assassinations

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