Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-11T14:48:11.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2022

ANNE MENG Open the ORCID record for ANNE MENG [Opens in a new window]  and
JACK PAINE Open the ORCID record for JACK PAINE [Opens in a new window]
ANNE MENG*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, United States
JACK PAINE*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester, United States
*
Anne Meng, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics, University of Virginia, United States, [email protected].
Jack Paine, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, United States, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 116 , Issue 4 , November 2022 , pp. 1208 - 1225
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arriola, Leonardo R. 2009. “Patronage and Political Stability in Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 42 (10): 1339–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arriola, Leonardo R., DeVaro, Jed, and Meng, Anne. 2021. “Democratic Subversion: Elite Cooptation and Opposition Fragmentation.” American Political Science Review 115 (4): 1358–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berhe, Mulugeta Gebrehiwot. 2017. “The Ethiopian Post-Transition Security Sector Reform Experience: Building a National Army from a Revolutionary Democratic Army.” African Security Review 26 (2): 161–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boix, Carles, and Svolik, Milan. 2013. “The Foundations of Limited Authoritarian Government: Institutions, Commitment, and Power-Sharing in Dictatorships.” Journal of Politics 75 (2): 300–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency. 2006–2017. “Directory of Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments.” Washington DC: Library of Congress.Google Scholar
Christia, Fotini. 2012. Alliance Formation in Civil Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colgan, Jeff. 2012. “Measuring Revolution.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 29 (4): 444–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colgan, Jeff D., and Jessica, L. P. Weeks. 2015. “Revolution, Personalist Dictatorships, and International Conflict.” International Organization 69 (1): 163–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Basil. 1984. “Portuguese-Speaking Africa.” In Cambridge History of Africa Vol. 8, ed. Crowder, Michael, 755–810. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Bruin, Erica. 2020. How to Prevent Coups d’État. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Europa Publications. 1960–2005. The Europa World Year Book. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Francois, Patrick, Rainer, Ilia, and Trebbi, Francesco. 2015. “How Is Power Shared in Africa?” Econometrica 83 (2): 465–503.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gandhi, Jennifer. 2008. Political Institutions under Dictatorship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geddes, Barbara, Wright, Joseph, and Frantz, Erica. 2018. How Dictatorships Work: Power, Personalization, and Collapse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greitens, Sheena Chestnut. 2016. Dictators and Their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harkness, Kristin A. 2018. When Soldiers Rebel: Ethnic Armies and Political Instability in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hoddie, Matthew, and Hartzell, Caroline. 2003. “Civil War Settlements and the Implementation of Military Power-Sharing Arrangements.” Journal of Peace Research 40 (3): 303–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Reyko. 2016. The Wartime Origins of Democratization: Civil War, Rebel Governance, and Political Regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntington, Samuel. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Robert, and Rosberg, Carl. 1982. Personal Rule in Black Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Douglas H. 1998. “The Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the Problem of Factionalism.” In African Guerrillas, ed. Clapham, Christopher, 53–72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lachapelle, Jean, Levitsky, Steven, Way, Lucan A., and Casey, Adam. 2020. “Social Revolution and Authoritarian Durability.” World Politics 72 (4): 557–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levitsky, Steven, and Way, Lucan. 2013. “The Durability of Revolutionary Regimes.” Journal of Democracy 24 (3): 5–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Janet I. 2020. How Insurgency Begins: Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyons, Terrence. 2021. “The Origins of the EPRDF and the Prospects for the Prosperity Party.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 56 (5): 1051–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcum, John A. 1978. The Angolan Revolution Vol 2.: Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare (1962–1976). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Philip. 2021. “Insurgent Armies: Military Obedience and State Formation after Rebel Victory.” International Security 46 (3): 87–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGowan, Patrick J. 2003. “African Military Coups d’État, 1956–2001.” Journal of Modern African Studies 41 (3): 339–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meng, Anne. 2020. Constraining Dictatorship: From Personalized Rule to Institutionalized Regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meng, Anne, and Paine, Jack. 2022. “Replication Data for: Power Sharing and Authoritarian Stability: How Rebel Regimes Solve the Guardianship Dilemma.” Harvard Dataverse. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/8LQZW9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Michael K. 2020. “The Autocratic Ruling Parties Dataset.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 64 (4): 756–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Museveni, Yoweri Kaguta. 1997. Sowing the Mustard Seed: The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda. Nairobi, Kenya: Moran Publishers.Google Scholar
Paine, Jack. 2019. “Redistributive Political Transitions: Minority Rule and Liberation Wars in Colonial Africa.” Journal of Politics 81 (2): 505–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, Jack. 2021. “The Dictator’s Powersharing Dilemma.” American Journal of Political Science 65 (2): 510–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, Jack. 2022. “Reframing the Guardianship Dilemma: How the Military’s Dual Disloyalty Options Imperil Dictators.” American Political Science Review 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055422000089.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roessler, Philip. 2011. “The Enemy Within: Personal Rule, Coups, and Civil War in Africa.” World Politics 63 (2): 300–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roessler, Philip, and Verhoeven, Harry. 2016. Why Comrades Go to War: Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Seegers, Annette. 1986. “Revolutionary Armies of Africa: Mozambique and Zimbabwe.” In Military Power and Politics in Black Africa, ed. Simon Baynham, 129–65. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Singh, Naunihal. 2014. Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Smaldone, Joseph P. 1991. “National Security.” In Angola: A Country Study, ed. Collelo, Thomas, 203–56. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress.Google Scholar
Stewart, Megan A. 2021. Governing for Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sudduth, Jun Koga. 2017. “Strategic Logic of Elite Purges in Dictatorships.” Comparative Political Studies 50 (13): 1768–1801.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svolik, Milan. 2012. The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toft, Monica Duffy. 2009. Securing the Peace. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Jeremy M. 2006. Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Peter B. 2017. “Crises and Crisis Generations: The Long-Term Impact of International Crises on Military Political Participation.” Security Studies 26 (4): 575–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas, Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Min, Brian. 2009. “Ethnic Politics and Armed Conflict: A Configurational Analysis of a New Global Data Set.” American Sociological Review 74 (2): 316–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woldense, Josef. 2022. “What Happens When Coups Fail? The Problem of Identifying and Weakening the Enemy Within.” Comparative Political Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00104140211047402.Google Scholar
Young, John. 1998. “The Tigray People’s Liberation Front.” In African Guerrillas, ed. Christopher Clapham, 36–52. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Meng and Paine Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/8LQZW9
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Meng and Paine supplementary material

Meng and Paine supplementary material
Download Meng and Paine supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 274.9 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.