Jessen & Richter (Eds.) (35 page)

guiding value system even in the face of societal opposition, because they

are convinced of its superiority for religious, scientific or other reasons, are those that have the smallest incentives to hold elections. In these regimes—for example, in National Socialist Germany or in Mao’s China—

one simply claims that there is no sound alternative to those in power.

Thus, there is no room for different political groups to compete for the

better concept. This makes elections irrelevant from the outset. At best,

acclamation for the central political leaders or for their party can be attrac-

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133

tive and is often expressed in the form of a leadership cult, of parades, or

of plebiscitary approval of the politics of the ruling elite. In such circum-

stances, elections and referenda can be superfluous even with respect to

their purely symbolic functions. However, if one nevertheless holds them,

then they will often take the form of closed authoritarian elections.

Weaker is the self-assurance of dictatorial elites in
uncompetitive authori-

tarian regimes
such as the GDR. These at least implicitly accept that it is advantageous not only to assert the superiority of their claims and principles, but also to prove that those who are being governed seemingly ap-

prove of the regime and its politics. It is exactly this symbolic purpose that

elections serve in such regimes: their results are meant to demonstrate that

the people support the regime out of their own free will, and that the po-

litical position of those in power is not based on violence, but on democ-

ratic legitimization. By the same token, however, it has already been

admitted that ideological self-empowerment is not a sufficient justification

for being in power. Therefore, as long as only self-empowerment exists for

the ruling elite, which is typical in dictatorships, the regime is already in the following trap: it simply has to manipulate the elections, making them

closed authoritarian elections, at least if it does not want to get itself into a pre-revolutionary situation.

The situation is somewhat different for
competitive authoritarian
regimes
such as Iran. There the political situation is such that there exist groups

who are opposed to the system
and
have so much support in the society

that banning or suppressing them could only be done at huge political cost.

In this case it is more reasonable for a dictatorial regime to come to an

agreement with opposition groups so that these are able to act and to ex-

press themselves to a certain extent, but nevertheless will not be able to

achieve positions of power of any consequence. Therefore, the regime

needs to have elections, and previous to them electoral campaigns, that can

be recognized as such even according to democratic principles. In this way,

holding elections links the opposition groups taking part in them to the

state, and manipulating these elections can contribute to the stability of the

system. Typically, this will lead to competitive authoritarian elections.

Practical wisdom suggests that one should not go so far in terms of ma-

nipulation that widespread falsification of election results might bring with

it a significant risk of being discovered. It is better to limit oneself to en-

suring that the opposition will be disadvantaged in the election campaign

by means of chicanery, and it is wise not to go so far as to motivate the

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opposition to consider a demonstrative withdrawal from the election proc-

ess. Of course it is open as to how many times this form of manipulation

can be used in elections subsequently, since on the part of both the oppo-

sition groups and the population there will be an increasing awareness, and

therefore unwillingness, to be involved with unfair elections, which only

have a symbolic function and merely serve the agenda of those in power.

The continuation of such processes leads to
terminal authoritarian regimes
.

An example would be the People’s Republic of Poland in its latter years. In

this type of regime, the powers opposed to the system become so strong

that the regime can no longer intimidate them at will. Thus, the dictator-

ship has forfeited its capability to organize the electoral process in such a

way that the opposition parties have no chance to win from the outset. If,

then, the ruling class does not wish to lose power, it can hardly avoid the

direct falsification of election results. However, if this becomes known,

then its reputation and power will come to a particularly swift end.

Of course, these relationships can also be understood in reverse order.

For example, if after the collapse of a regime, or at the end of a civil war, a

stable political order with a claim to a democratic basis is to be established,

then the absence of necessary cultural pre-conditions will in fact lead to a

weak authoritarian dictatorship arising. Although the regime will hold

competitive elections, it will attempt to secure its victory by manipulation

of the election results, as has happened in Afghanistan. And if this type of

regime does become more stable over the course of time, as is the case in

Zimbabwe, the electoral suppression of the political opposition can be

accomplished by means of arranging unfair elections as they are found in

competitive authoritarian elections. If, finally, the government at some

point finds itself firmly in the saddle, then the elections can be converted

into the type of uncompetitive acclamation events that were common for

those central and east European states that claimed to practice “real social-

ism”. Thus, the form of a dictatorship and its type of authoritarian election

procedure are closely connected to each other.

Structural Causes of Elections in Dictatorships

The last section showed
how
dictatorships engage in election campaigns,

elections and electoral manipulation, which in the end carries very high

E L E C T I O N S I N M O D E R N D I C T A T O R S H I P S

135

risks for them. Three structural and four functional causes explain
why

most current dictatorships cannot manage without elections.

Political Transaction Costs as a Challenge—Elections as a Structural

Response

Understandably it is easier to govern if one can show the people that the

intentions and achievements of the government are congruent with their

own political wishes. It became even more desirable to achieve this impres-

sion when the idea began to become widely accepted that all legitimate

power ought to be founded on the voluntary assent of those who are being

ruled. This started with the 18th century revolutions and for the most part

came to completion with the waves of democratization in the 20th century.

However, once democracy has come to be seen as a desirable, or indeed an

indispensable characteristic of a political system, and once the power of

charismatic and traditional authority no longer hold sway and democracy is

accepted as the central form of rationally based legitimacy, a regime can no

longer afford to eschew elections or plebiscites. Under such circumstances,

a dictatorship
has
to work at creating a façade of democracy.

The easiest measures for dictatorial regimes to use in this respect are

referenda and plebiscites initiated by the government or by the head of

state. These allow for purposeful mass mobilization of the population and

give the impression at least of national or political unity. In addition, they

can attempt to confer democratic legitimacy, or at least the appearance of

it, on a person or party
just in time
. “Plebiscitary Caesarism” is a good short-hand way of describing this way of putting some democratic trimmings on

a dictatorial regime (Loewenstein 2000, 59–62). The question that is

brought to the electorate in the plebiscite may be formulated in unobjec-

tive or biased terms and can be placed in a frame of meaning so that—

irrespective of what in fact is to be decided—a yes to political leaders will

be the result. The latter can also be worked towards by means of appropri-

ate manipulation. And because no office holder is elected in this plebisci-

tary process, but rather the current one is simply confirmed, there are

rarely political follow-up costs in the form of rivals growing in strength as a

result of the plebiscite. Therefore plebiscites and referenda are, all in all,

the
cheapest
form of integrating the outward appearance of democratic decision-making into a dictatorial regime.

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What in fact is riskier is to have
office holder selected
for a given term in a dictatorship—for example, the head of state. A safer approach is to have

the ruling dictator elected for life. Then, on the one hand, his or her as-

serted democratic legitimacy can be pointed to, and on the other hand the

consequences of the aforementioned re-election mechanism are avoided,

that is consequences, that would effect a real democracy. However, since

elections for life-terms
became so notorious that usually re-election needs to be sought, it became necessary to manipulate either the election process or its

results. This leads to ever new risks for legitimacy. These risks are greatest

when even a representative assembly is elected. Parliaments,5 irrespective