This chapter puts the two-logics theory under a thorough and systematic empirical test. It conducts a comprehensive macro-qualitative comparison of all autocratic regime episodes in East Asia since 1945. It argues that the stability of autocratic rule can be explained by logically reducing possible configurations to a small number of stability recipes. It singles out soft repression as the most crucial and polyvalent INUS condition for stabilizing autocratic rule and provides empirical support for the two logics of over-politicization and de-politicization. Particular emphasis is paid to contextualizing the empirical results. In methodical terms, it relies on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) that is particularly capable of detecting conjunctural causation, making it the best-suited method for the book’s configurational argument.

Chapter 7 provides the first empirical exploration and serves as a plausibility probe for the two-logics theory. It examines two typical, paradigmatic cases: North Korea for the over-politicization and Singapore for the de-politicization logic. These two lead cases are supplemented with empirical material from other East Asian countries, demonstrating the inner workings of the two contrasting logics. The case selection is designed to present the inner workings in utmost clarity and with least disturbing “noise.” Chapter 7 discusses in detail the ideational and performance legitimation efforts, the use of soft and hard repression, as well as the forms of co-optation in these paradigmatic cases and shows how these factors interact with each other.

Chapter 1 is dedicated to the explanandum of the book. In a first step, the chapter asks how to conceptualize autocratic rule and how to delineate it from rivalling concepts like authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but also sultanism, tyranny, despotism, and dictatorship. In a second step, the chapter clarifies different understandings of stability: persistence vs. continuity. In a third step, the chapter establishes the rationale behind the two logics of autocratic rule. Drawing on a Schmittian conception of the political, over-politicization is portrayed as the process of ideologically inflating a (political, social, religious, ethnic, etc.) difference, thereby defining an absolute foe (hostis), thus justifying the usage of hard repression and relying on formal ways of co-optation. In contrast, de-politicization is the reverse process of neutralizing contested issues, pulling conflictive issues out of the political arena by emphasizing performance legitimation, shying away from hard, but using soft repression and by being indifferent in its forms of co-optation.