The mechanisms of the collapse of authoritarianism

It is difficult to predict the start time of the crisis of the authoritarian regime. Sometimes it does not come for a long time, but when it begins, it unfolds rapidly, faster than anyone could have imagined. The leaders of authoritarian regimes often do not understand why this is happening. The last Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, amazed at the development of events in 1978, asked the American ambassador to Iran George Sullivan: “I am worried that what is happening is beyond the capabilities of the KGB. So, this is the work of British secret services or CIA. Why did the CIA decide to work against me? "

The mechanisms of collapse of the authoritarian regime are diverse. Often they are associated with the personal fate of the dictator. The stability of such a political structure depends on the life or state of health of the autocrat, around which the political elite has united. With the death of the ruler, the stage of strife in the ruling elite often begins. Thus, the departure of Chan Kayshi (1975) opened the way for democracy in Taiwan, the murder of President of South Korea Park Jeon Hi in October 1979 accelerated the process of democratization of the country.

Sometimes a crisis deployment mechanism is associated with military defeat. A striking example of this is the development of events in Argentina after the war for the Malvinsky (Falkland) islands.
Information globalization is an important factor in undermining the stability of authoritarian regimes. In the world of the beginning of the XX century. The overwhelming part of the population does not imagine what is happening outside their village, how other social structures are arranged. XX century. He made the world integrated. Knowing how the political systems of developed countries are arranged is publicly available. To explain to the people, especially their young, educated part, that their peers in other countries have the right to freedom and participate in solving the country's problems, but they do not, that the bosses, on the side of which are power, is a task that has no solution.

One of the reasons for the crises leading to the collapse of authoritarian regimes is interethnic conflicts. That is why such regimes are less stable in ethnically and religiously heterogeneous states.

There are other options. Neither military defeat, nor the death of Autocrat, nor an acute ethnic conflict were preceded in Iran. It occurred against the backdrop of a favorable conjuncture of the oil market and the growth of welfare. But still, most often the collapse of the authoritarian regime is preceded by an economic crisis.

The world of modern economic growth is dynamic, difficult to predict. Reliable forecasting of prices for raw materials or courses of world currencies outside the possibilities of economic science. Life makes us adapt to external challenges. They are difficult to foresee, they cannot be prepared for them. History of the XX century. Full of examples of crises, which neither the national authorities nor the international community expected. This is the reality that has to be considered. The 1994 crisis in Mexico neither the qualified leadership of the International Monetary Fund, nor the American treasury were expected. The financial crisis of 1997-1998 was unexpected for specialists. In Southeast Asia, then spread to the post-Soviet space and Latin America.

In the late 1990s, a book prepared at a high professional level was published, dedicated to the problems that oil producing countries in the foye of falling oil prices in the 1980s faced. Indonesia in it was seen as an example of successful adaptation to the changed conditions of world development. Before the book managed to be published, the Indonesian regime as a result of events in Southeast Asia collapsed.

Faced with the economic crisis, the government has to reduce budget expenses, increase taxes, devalue national currency, limit imports, reduce subsidies. All these are heavy, unpopular measures. To conduct them, the regime must be sure that society will accept them or that it is able to use force in order to stop possible riots.

The weakness of authoritarian regimes faced with a similar crisis is that they do not have the first or second resource. It is difficult to explain to a regime as illegitimate and corrupt, to explain the need to take a set of economic measures, the essence of which is to “tighten the belts”. Corruption, which, with the growth of well -being, was perceived as an unpleasant phenomenon, but inevitable, against the background of a crisis, becomes a challenge to the reasonable and fair structure of society.

The collapse of the authoritarian regime is preceded by a period of instability - the time when this regime loses the remnants of legitimacy. In a retrospect, it began to determine it. Say, in Iran, it dates back to 1970-1978, when the Shah regime enhances the control of secret services for the daily life of citizens, repressions against opposition leaders. In 1970, not a single bomb was blown up in Iran for political reasons. In 1972, the number of politically motivated explosions reached 13. In 1974, student riots, unrest related to food supply in Tehran were held. Since the mid-1970s, the attractiveness of the ideas of radical fundamentalism has been growing.

In 1977-1978 A series of mass demonstrations, accompanied by the use of violence, becomes a characteristic feature of the country's life.
If an autocrat retains control over law enforcement agencies, he can suppress public discontent with ways familiar to the authoritarian regime, showing that he is able to shed as much blood as necessary to maintain power. But in a crisis situation, the belief of the illegitimacy and instability of the regime often applies to soldiers, sergeants, junior officers. When the dictator especially needs loyal power structures, they stop working.

Problems of instability of authoritarian regimes do not end with their crash. In the absence of a legal political process, a parliament that affects the life of society and therefore responsible, the simplest slogans turn out to be the centers of attraction of the opposition. Their essence is standard: “Death to a corrupt anti -people regime”; “Justice and redistribution” (take everything and share); “No - the regime of national treason” (radical nationalism). The combination of such slogans is a strong means of struggle against the regime. It is characteristic, for example, for F. Castro, headed by F. Castro on July 26 in the Cuba of the 1950s. Attempts to realize these slogans are not the best guarantee of building a stable democracy.

The authoritarian regime with all its illegitimacy is functioning power. There is a police on the streets that maintains order; If the country is relatively developed, then the children go to school, you can get medical care in the hospital. For those who have not survived the collapse of authoritarian regimes, it is difficult to understand that their end means the collapse of institutions that provide at least some law and order. The decisions of the American authorities in Iraq in the summer of 2003 on the debate, the dissolution of the police and the army of the Saddam regime, adopted without evaluating their consequences to ensure order on the streets, the reliability of energy supply, the safety of property of state institutions, is a clear certificate.

The fact that the ability of the authorities to monopolize the use of violence is the most important element of a stable state structure is known, at least since the publications of the classical work of M. Weber. At the collapse of the authoritarian regime, the ability of new authorities to use violence to ensure order is limited, sometimes undermined. Even when the existing power structures do not disband, they lose their taste to continue their own activities. It is not clear to them how stable the new government is, whether the old will return, whether they will be punished for cooperation with the replaced rulers. In this situation, a natural strategy is to do nothing.

Political regimes that are replacing authoritarian have no historical legitimation, traditions that ensure the sustainability of power. This is a fundamental problem associated with the collapse of authoritarian political systems: nothing guarantees that it will follow the formation of stable democratic institutions.

Experience shows that external factors play a significant role in solving this problem. In Eastern Europe, after the cessation of Soviet control, the influence of the European Union, the prospect of membership in this organization, uniting the community of highly developed countries, was an important factor in stabilization of democracy. In Latin America, after the end of the Cold War, when the pragmatic principle of “maybe he and the son of a son, but this is our son of a son,” went out of fashion, the influence of the United States contributed to ensuring the stability of democratic institutions. But these factors do not act in all regions of the world.

Spain is a developed European country with a long -standing parliamentary tradition, the political elite of which carried out a peaceful transformation of the authoritarian regime into democracy. In the 1980s, she became a member of the European community. Nevertheless, for almost 10 years after the departure of Caudillo Franco, the country's leadership was forced to solve difficult problems of ensuring the control of civilian authorities over the army. The country has repeatedly found itself on the verge of a military coup. This is an example of how complicated the transition from authoritarianism to democracy even in favorable conditions.

In the political science, dedicated to the supplied transition, the axioma is believed that in order to ensure a successful transformation, it is necessary to divide political and economic transformations, not mix them. It is necessary to convince society that attempts to combine a radical change in the political system and economic structure are insoluble task. The problem of socialist was transformation in the fact that, unlike other authoritarian regimes in the socialist system, the political system was inextricably linked with the organization of daily economic life. Political instability is superimposed that the socialist system of economic management cannot work outside the totalitarian political power. It falls apart when the state control of all aspects of society weakens weakens.

Source: Gaidar E.T. The death of the empire. Lessons for modern Russia. 2006 /

Photo: Russia. Saint Petersburg. 2006. Director of the Institute of Economics of the Transition period Yegor Gaidar. Photo by TASS/Interpress/Evgeny Asmolov