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This chapter evaluates the way in which three types of rules—operational, relational and constitutive—have functioned in three corporate military regimes, Argentina (1976–83), Brazil (1964–85), and Chile (1973–88). These regimes are compared one with another and with the communist single-party states. The chapter shows how the different rules operated in these different regimes, drawing out the different patterns of operation and thereby showing the variations that can occur within the one regime type. The chapter also raises the question of the relationship between observance of rules and regime survival.

This chapter examines how rules have operated in two electoral authoritarian dominant party regimes, Malaysia under Mahathir (1981–2003) and Mexico under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (1929–2000). The nature of the party, one designed to participate in a competitive electoral process (even if unfair because it is tilted in favour of the ruling party), is an important factor in shaping the rules and how they worked. The fact that one is a parliamentary and the other a presidential system also provides scope to see how institutions affect rules and their performance.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the effect institutions have on the adoption and operation of rules. It therefore explains differences in the way the rules have worked in the different regimes by aspects of the different institutional structures. The military regime with its centralized command ethos, the electoral authoritarian regime with a party designed to compete in a competitive electoral process, the personalization of power in the personal dictatorship and the family in the dynastic monarchy, all had significant impacts on the way the rules functioned in those regimes. The findings of this chapter throw doubt on the common claim that institutions are not very important in authoritarian regimes.

Authoritarian regimes are usually seen as being run by arbitrary and often violent dictators. However, this is a misreading of most dictatorial regimes. Based on a wide comparative analysis of communist single-party, military, electoral authoritarian, personal dictatorial and dynastic monarchical regimes, this book argues that such leaderships actually function on the basis of a set of accepted rules. These rules are outlined, their operation in different regime types described, and their differential application across those regimes explained. This provides a new understanding of how these different types of regime function and recasts our understanding of the way leadership in authoritarian regimes works.

This chapter tackles the assumption that the main currency of rule in an authoritarian oligarchy is the power of the leader. It analyses power disposition inside the oligarchy through an analysis of the various strategies (and in the case of rank-and-file oligarchs, the tactics) used by the dictator to control the rank-and-file oligarchs, and of the latter to survive in the oligarchy. The chapter shows that all of the strategies and tactics actually rely upon the rules for their efficacy, so that the situation is not that power politics prevails and rules are absent, but that whatever sort of relationship exists between leader and oligarchs, it is underpinned by the rules. They are fundamental to the survival of the oligarchy and the regime.

Constitutive rules govern how the oligarchy is constituted, principally how people are promoted into it, and how succession to the top job is handled. The chapter looks at the 10 constitutive rules and how they functioned in the Soviet Union and China over the life of both regimes. The processes governing entry to the oligarchy and succession to the top leadership post are different in some ways but overlap in others, and these are explained. A key commonality is that both are generally decided inside the oligarchy, with the broader elite playing little role. The chapter notes the greater sense of institutionalization that has characterized the Chinese succession since the closing decades of the last century.

Operational rules govern the interactions among individual oligarchs, including the dictator. This chapter examines how the eight such rules operated in the Soviet Union and China over the lives of both regimes. The presence at different times of both dominant and predominant leaders provides an opportunity to see how rules functioned under these different leadership types. The key activity focused upon in these rules is how decisions are made and the role of the leader and the rank-and-file oligarchs in this. Also important is the nature of the consensus that underpins the operation of these rules.

Relational rules structure the relationship between the oligarchs and the elite, and the oligarchs and the institutions of the regime. The chapter analyses how the 11 relational rules functioned in the Soviet Union and China over the life of the respective regimes. It explains how the oligarchs sought to insulate themselves from below and, in looking at the role of political institutions, tackles the idea that institutions serve little more than a symbolic function in authoritarian regimes. A major focus is also the power of the individual leader, its nature and bases and how this related to those institutions.

This chapter outlines the established view of the way leadership in an authoritarian regime operates, emphasizing its arbitrary and violent dimensions. It criticizes this literature in terms of both its assumptions and its empirical accuracy. The chapter then discusses the key concepts used in the following analysis. It identifies five regime types: single party, electoral authoritarian, military, monarchy and personal dictatorship. It then discusses the nature of authoritarian leadership, conceived in terms of an oligarchy, including the bases upon which personal power can rest. The chapter discusses the nature of rules, introducing the three types of rules identified as central to the conduct of oligarch politics: operational, relational and constitutive rules. An explanation of the structure and a chapter summary of the book follows. An appendix to this chapter lists the twenty-nine rules identified as structuring leadership politics in authoritarian regimes.

This chapter summarizes the main conclusions, showing how the established picture of the situation within dictatorial leaderships is misleading and explaining how and why rules are a more satisfactory explainer of this than a focus on power. The chapter then returns to the question of the relationship between rules and regime longevity, using the cases of the two regimes studied in the book that ended unexpectedly, the Soviet Union and Argentina, to suggest that there is a relationship between observance of those rules with their constraining and enabling functions, and regime survival.

This chapter analyses the way the rules work in two different types of authoritarian system, the personal dictatorship and the dynastic monarchy. These regime types are represented by Belarus under Lukashenka and Russia under Putin, and by the Gulf monarchies. The key characteristic of the personal regime is the dominant leader, and of the dynastic monarchy the ruling family. These institutions (dictator and family) profoundly affect the way the rules function. There is a strong imperative in both regime types to emphasize the insulation of the oligarchy from the elite, although this is achieved in different ways.

Stalinism, particularly the period of Stalin’s rule in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), must be one of the most investigated topics in the field of Soviet studies. Most of those stud...

One of the key characteristics of Stalinism was the relationship between its formal and informal aspects. This is reflected clearly in the way in which, over time, the formal institutions o...

Symbols are central features of organized human life, helping to define perception, shaping the way we view the world and understand what goes on within it. But, despite this key role in shaping un...

The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union in 1991created a dilemma for the post-communist authorities of what they were to do about Soviet symbolic discourse. This was central to the ta...

Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 and the imposition of Western sanctions on Russia in 2014 prompted many observers to argue that the Russian regime was in crisis and its fall was imminent. The problem is that such analyses have focused purely on the situation in Russia itself, listing the challenges and declaring that they would bring about the regime’s fall. However, by simply enumerating the challenges the regime faces, such analyses have no means of evaluating how serious those challenges actually are, and therefore how dangerous they are for continued regime survival. Certainly, the difficulty in measuring both crisis intensity and regime resilience renders this a difficult judgement to make. Another way of approaching this question is to look at the comparative literature on regime change and see what it tells us about the dynamics of regime challenge and survival. This paper looks at three triggers of regime change identified in the comparative literature – economic crisis, elections, and the decline of the presidency – to evaluate the danger facing the current Russian regime.

This paper focuses on the way Vladimir Putin has sought to build a power base within Russian politics. This base has rested on two foundations: institutional consolidation and elite management. With regard to the institutional basis, he has relied on the constitutional position of the presidency reinforced by the power vertical, the party of power, and the presidential apparatus. He has sought to manage the elite by means of his personal administrative style within a patrimonial context, the shaping of his popular image, and the reworking of the ideological and policy spheres. The paper concludes that although the resultant power base has been solid until now, there are tensions within it that may make it unsustainable in the long run.

The notion of electoral authoritarianism emerged in the post-cold war world to refer to authoritarian systems that used seemingly democratic electoral means to stabilize non-democratic systems. This was achieved through the production of massive electoral majorities for the ruling party. However an element of uncertainty remains with such elections in that the ruling party may be either defeated or suffer a significant electoral rebuff. Such events are usually seen in terms of the loss of voter support for the party, but as the Russian case shows, this may be better seen as evidence of a basic malfunction of the electoral authoritarian mechanism itself.

India has had long-standing interests in the Central Asian region. Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a Eurasian Union and the recent announcement of the creation of a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) raises some important questions for this. What impact will the EEU have on Indian ambitions? We argue that all three Indian initiatives to ‘connect’ to Central Asia—the International North South Corridor, the IPI, and TAPI—now either have Russian support or involvement and do not pose a threat to Russia’s interest in maintaining its status as ‘first among equals’ in Central Asia. Further, if the proposed EEU gains traction it will enhance Russian influence over the states of Central Asia, which could in turn enhance Indian interests by facilitating greater access to trade and energy resources, blunting future Chinese expansion and providing a barrier to any expansion of Pakistani influence in the region.

The central theme of this chapter is how the predominant leader model of collective leadership was transformed into a dominant leader model of collective leadership. It focuses less on the personality of the oligarchs than on the development of the institutional structures and the rules which emerged to govern the conduct of oligarch politics. It charts this through four sub-periods: 1930–34 when Stalin was a predominant leader, 1935–41 when he was a dominant leader and was involved closely in political life, 1941–45 war-time period when his dominance remained exercised through the collective and 1945–53 when he was dominant but distant and the principal arena of oligarch politics, the Politburo, did not function as a collective body. The dominant leader model of collective leadership was very different from the predominant leader model.

The overthrow of Khrushchev led to a reassertion of collective principles, but even so over time Brezhnev was able to work himself into a position of predominance. The difference between him and his predecessors is that he exercised his predominance in ways that strengthened the collective rather than challenging it. Institutionally this saw the regularization of party processes, including the Politburo, and a generally consensual mode of decision-making. The downside is that it contributed to a sense of stasis in the country, of opportunities missed and pressures for change bottled up. But it did provide a genuinely collective mode of running the country, even given the predominance of Brezhnev.

Outlines the argument common in the literature that politics at the apex of authoritarian systems like the Soviet is an almost constant state of struggle for power between an individual leader and his colleagues. This is a misleading view, as an understanding of Soviet elite politics will demonstrate. The history of the study of Soviet leadership has tended to be conducted principally through the medium of biography, but although this may tell us a lot about the individual leader, it is deficient in explaining the structures and processes of leadership. This requires an investigation of the norms that underpinned that leadership and structured the way it operated. The chapter concludes by explaining the institutional structure of Soviet leadership politics, and defines the essential terms of the analysis.

The predominant leader model of collective leadership could not be consolidated during this period because none of the oligarchs was of sufficient standing for the others to accept his primacy. A sub-set within the oligarchy—principally Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin and Stalin—struggled to achieve primacy. The resultant factional conflict generated significant rules structuring the conduct of leadership politics and thereby the contours of collective leadership. The result of the factional conflict was the emergence of Stalin as the predominant leader right at the end of the period, and the chapter explains how this came about.

This chapter charts the emergence of the Soviet leadership system, and defines it as one in which a predominant leader (Lenin) acted within a loosely institutionalized structure to establish and maintain his predominance. The situation was one of significant elite fluidity, a close relationship between party oligarchs and the broader elite, and oligarchs who were personally proud, prickly and quick to take offence. Within this context, Lenin was able to assert his predominance, principally through a combination of personal charisma and organizational manipulation. As a result, the model of a predominant leader within a collective leadership was established.

Abandonment of the dominant leader model on Stalin’s death did not lead to a restoration of pure collectivism, but a reversion to the predominant leader model. However, this model remained contested within the oligarchy; the high points of this were the anti-party group affair in 1957 and the overthrow of the predominant Khrushchev in 1964. Unlike Stalin in his predominant leader phase whose position rested, inter alia, on the support of clients, Khrushchev’s predominance relied upon the support of allies and was always more precarious. However, he does not seem to have understood this, and his colleagues overthrew him in the name of collective leadership.