Share it or lose it? - European Consortium for Political ... it or lose it? ... LevitskyandWay2010;MagaloniandKricheli2010;Brownlee200 7;Geddes, ... Cederman,&Gleditsch,&and&Buhaug&2013;

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Share it or lose it? Ethnic Inclusion and Authoritarian Stability.

Keywords Authoritarian Stability, Regime Survival, Authoritarian Resilience, Ethnic Discrimina-‐tion, Exclusion, Cooptation, Inclusion, Regime Breakdown

Abstract In this paper, we examine the impact of ethno-‐political power struggles on au-‐thoritarian stability. Competition for state power between ethnic groups has so far been an understudied factor within the literature on authoritarian regime survival. Although attempts to account for cooptation have recently gained prominence, most remain somewhat structuralist and merely focus on institu-‐tions such as authoritarian parties, parliaments and elections as tools of coopta-‐tion. Such institutional proxies lack a crucial account for group-‐level dynamics and build on the assumption that more cooptation mechanisms provide more stability. Focusing on ethno-‐political power struggles between included and ex-‐cluded groups allows us to move one step closer to the actual locus of agency and to adopt a more dynamic perspective than has been the case in the previous lit-‐erature. This paper will proceed in four steps. First, in relation to the existing literature we will illustrate how this research contributes to improve our understanding the effects of inclusion and exclusion on authoritarian stability. In the conceptual second part of the paper we will clarify our concepts before deriving our hypoth-‐esis. Third, we will turn to the empirical part that contains methodological re-‐marks and the results of our large-‐n time-‐series cross-‐section analysis. Finally we turn to our conclusions, before concluding some implications for further re-‐search.

Authors Ilyas Saliba is a PhD candidate at the Berlin Graduate School of Social Science (BGSS) at Humboldt University Berlin. He is a research fellow at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) in the research unit on Democracy and Democratization.

Yannick Pengl is a PhD candidate at the Center for International and Comparative Studies at ETH Zürich. He is a Research Associate to the International Conflict Re-‐search Group (ICR)


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Introduction

In this paper, we examine the impact of ethno-‐political power struggles on au-‐

thoritarian stability. Competition for state power between ethnic groups has so

far been an understudied factor within the literature on authoritarian regime

survival. Although an important debate within conflict research (Bormann,

Cederman, and Vogt 2013; Cederman, Gleditsch, and Buhaug 2013; Cederman,

Gleditsch, and Hug 2013; Cederman, Wimmer, and Min 2010; Wucherpfennig et

al. 2011), the issue of the inclusion and exclusion of ethnic groups has not yet

found its way into the study of authoritarianism.

Implicitly, some of the more recent works focusing on the cooptation of elites

and the role of formal institutions in authoritarian contexts touch upon the mat-‐

ter (Boix and Svolik 2013; Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, and Morrow 2003;

Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2010; Escribà-‐Folch and Wright 2012; Gandhi

and Przeworski 2007; Gandhi and Przeworski 2006; Gehlbach and Keefer 2012;

Levitsky and Way 2013; Magaloni 2008; Malesky and Schuler 2010; Morrow et

al. 2008; Smith 2005; Svolik 2009; Svolik 2012; Wright 2008; Lust-‐Okar 2004;

Levitsky and Way 2010; Magaloni and Kricheli 2010; Brownlee 2007; Geddes,

Wright, and Frantz 2012; Magaloni 2008). However, most of these attempts re-‐

main somewhat structuralist and merely focus on institutions such as parties,

parliaments and elections as tools of cooptation in authoritarian regimes.

Such institutional proxies lack a coherent group concept and build on the as-‐

sumption that more cooptation mechanisms provide more stability without tak-‐

ing the role of discriminated or marginalized groups into account. Most of these

works rely upon various kinds of behaviouralist models that specify idealized

actor categories. Nonetheless we think there still is scope for improved concepts

and operationalization. The authors usually make claims about how institutional

settings in authoritarian regimes influence the regime stability through allowing

more groups to gain a peace of the cake. However the dimension of group level

entities remains underspecified in most studies. Identifying relevant groups and

their representation in political regimes enables novel ways of operationaliza-‐

tion of cooptation mechanisms with respect to previously identified relevant ac-‐

tor groups in quantitative analyses.

We regard ethnic groups as an actor type particularly relevant to the question of


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authoritarian stability. Focusing on ethno-‐political power struggles between in-‐

cluded and excluded groups allows us to move one step closer to the actual locus

of agency and to adopt a more dynamic perspective than has been the case in the

previous literature.

The aim of this paper is to address a gap in the authoritarianism literature by

borrowing concepts from seminal works on ethnic conflicts within the field of

political violence research. By highlighting inclusionary and exclusionary devel-‐

opments within authoritarian regimes and the direct or indirect effects of such

moves on regime stability. Therefore this paper contributes to a debate on the

impact of the up-‐ or downgrading of certain social groups on authoritarian re-‐

gime survival. Our approach helps to increase the understanding of the dynamics

of exclusionary or inclusionary dynamics on regime stability in autocratic con-‐

texts. It provides a novel and we believe more suitable way of modeling the role

of crucial groups in authoritarian regimes. Thus our guiding research question

reads as follows:

RQ: Does inclusion or exclusion of politically relevant ethnic groups in / from the executive influence authoritarian regime survival?

Following Blattman and Miguel in their approach to take a more social and psy-‐

chological intake on grievances (Blattman & Miguel 2010: 18f.) we aim to track

down if and how exclusion and discrimination on ethnic grounds has an impact

on regime stability. Relying on a body of literature that has identified ethnical

marginalization, discrimination, and exclusion as one of the main drivers of polit-‐

ical violence we aim to bring the political violence literature into the field of

comparative authoritarianism.

Literature and Theory

After outlining our objectives and research question, we will briefly refer to the

contemporary literature in the following section of this paper. First, we will ad-‐

dress recent research on cooptation in comparative authoritarianism. Doing so

we emphasize the lack of agent sensibility in the current literature that predom-‐

inantly focuses on institutional set-‐ups to explain regime survival (Pepinsky

2014, 1). Second, we turn to research on ethnic conflict in order to single out


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how their approach to conceptualize inclusion and exclusion on a societal level

can inform the study of authoritarian regime survival.

After this overview we present a number of hypothesis and associated causal

mechanisms deducted in order to overcome the operationalization gap in the in-‐

stitutionalist focused literature on authoritarian survival. We argue that intro-‐

ducing concepts from the ethnic conflict literature and taking another level of

analysis into account can wield new insights on impacts of inclusion and exclu-‐

sion on regime stability. Such an approach is expected to complement previous

analyses focusing on structuralist institutional characteristics as it offers a more

actor sensitive, group level operationalization.

A) Comparative Authoritarianism

Given that autocrats are driven by the interest in their own endurance in power

repression, legitimacy and cooptation are the three dimensions in which auto-‐

crats can apply measures to enhance their ability to stay in office (Wintrobe

1998; Gerschewski 2013; Merkel and Gerschewski 2012). Recent research on

authoritarian regimes has focussed on the role of institutions in non-‐democratic

contexts. More specifically, the ability of ruling elites instrumentalizing formal

institutions to include potential challengers in order to assure their allegiance to

the regime. Such practices have been intensely studied in the context of political

parties and parliaments that serve as repositories for incorporating political ac-‐

tors and groups into the ruling elite (Bueno de Mesquita, Smith, and Morrow

2003; Magaloni 2008; Jennifer Gandhi and Przeworski 2006; Lust-‐Okar 2004;

Magaloni and Kricheli 2010; Jennifer Gandhi 2008; Brownlee 2007; Boix and

Svolik 2013). In sum, cooptation is part of the toolbox that stands to their dis-‐

posal to ensure the continuation of their reign. However cooptation practices in

authoritarian regimes have been researched primarily in legislative institutions

(Magaloni and Kricheli 2010, 127). This “institutionalist turn” as Pepinsky (2014,

1) recently put it has gained a lot of attention within the field of comparative au-‐

thoritarianism. Nonetheless Pepinsky points out several shortcomings in the ex-‐

isting literature. First, he questions if institutions can be treated as exogenous

causes of certain political outcomes such as regime breakdown or survival in

general. This critique addresses partly an inherent endogeneity problem build in

the research on cooptation and regime stability, as effects of institutions in au-‐


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thoritarian regimes cannot be treated separately from strategies of regime

maintenance or outcomes of survival and breakdown. In this study we aim to

partially account for this critique. As Pepinsky points out disentangling coopta-‐

tion strategies from the institutions they are coopted by is not an easy undertak-‐

ing. Our focus on the executive and the representation on the group level might

offer a more direct hint towards tracing concrete causal pathways of inclusion or

exclusion of certain relevant political groups and their distinguishable impact

upon regime stability or instability. Nevertheless we concede that this critique

can only be addressed by a comprehensive multi-‐method study, which includes

qualitative case studies that account for alternate explanations causal pathways.

Second, Pepinsky raises the question if the narrow functionalist understanding

of complex legislative institutions and political parties underlying most argu-‐

ments of current research can be upheld. To some extend such instrumentalized

understanding of parliaments and political parties in authoritarian regimes is

oversimplified as it does not account for unintended consequences and path de-‐

pendencies that might develop their own effects. Furthermore particularly par-‐

liaments largely are outcomes of power structures although they are prone to be

subject of manipulation they can rarely solely be explained as outcomes of a pre-‐

determined regime strategy. In line with this criticism we aim to develop a more

actor-‐centric approach to the study of cooptation. Looking into dynamics of the

executive instead of parties or parliaments is fruitful not only because this di-‐

mension is oftentimes overlooked but also because the cabinet as the head of the

executive tends to be much closer to the center of any ruling elite in authoritari-‐

an regime than legislative institutions. Moreover cabinets tend to be much more

directly appointed by authoritarian leaders than legislatures. The control by au-‐

thoritarian leaders over the cabinet and its members is expected to be higher

than the influence on the outcomes of parliamentary elections. Focussing on the

cabinet thus partly circumvents the having a vague, more indirect link between

the leaders preferences and the inclusion and exclusion of certain actors into the

power sharing arrangement. In sum, singling out politically relevant ethnic

groups and their specific role in a regime measured as level of inclusion or exclu-‐

sion in the cabinet makes tracing a link between regime action and its stability


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via inclusion or exclusion into the cabinet much more straight forward compared

to shifts in parliaments or parties.

Including challengers in institutions of the executive may just as much offer an

autocrat the possibility to coopt relevant political actors or groups. As Arriola

(2009) has shown for African cases an executive inclusion strategy might allow

for more control over the included groups or individuals than an inclusion into

legislative institutions or parties. In the following paragraphs we will introduce

the literature on ethnic conflict in order to justify our focus on ethnic groups as a

level of analysis for operationalizing and estimating strategies of cooptation.

B) Ethnic Conflict

As mentioned before authoritarian stability depends on cooptation, repression,

and legitimacy (Merkel and Gerschewski 2012; Gerschewski 2013). In multieth-‐

nic countries, ethno-‐political inclusion is a relevant dimension of cooptation.

This dimension has so far been overlooked in the quantitative literature on au-‐

thoritarian stability. We expect that ethnically inclusive authoritarian regimes

are more stable than their more exclusive counterparts.

Scholarly work on ethnic conflicts has highlighted the importance of ethnic divi-‐

sions for the risk of conflict onset (Bormann, Cederman, and Vogt 2013;

Cederman, Gleditsch, and Buhaug 2013; Cederman, Gleditsch, and Hug 2013;

Cederman, Wimmer, and Min 2010; Wucherpfennig et al. 2011). To have an im-‐

pact upon regime survival any ethnic cleavage needs to have political relevance

as an underlying condition. If ethnic affiliation does not matter for the (political)

identity of any given actor or group of actors then the expected effects of inclu-‐

sionary or exclusionary dynamics upon regime survival are expected to be near

irrelevant. If however such ethnic cleavages are politicized they bare near explo-‐

sive potential if not contained by the ruling elite (Olzak 1983). This might be ac-‐

complished by mechanisms of cooptation through inclusion into the ruling elite.

Theories of ethnic mobilization provide an approach to explaining why power

struggles among political elites are often fought along ethnic lines. On the most

general level, ethnic mobilization arguments claim that ethnic groups have a

comparative advantage vis-‐à-‐vis other social groups when it comes to organizing

collective action. Most frequently related to the literatures on social movements

and contentious politics (Tilly and Tarrow 2006), and the organization of rebel-‐


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lion (Weinstein 2006; E. J. Wood 2003). The relevance of an ethnic dimension on

mobilization and rebellion has been proven irrespective of its respective regime

type context. We expect that in authoritarian regimes ethnic lines matter even

more because such regimes tend to be more exclusive than democratic ones per

se.

The importance of ethnic groups as a reference framework for identity and

hence political representation and legitimacy in authoritarian contexts and be-‐

yond is expected to be just as crucial when it comes to regime stability. All in all

we stress, that ethnic exclusion or inclusion from the executive in authoritarian

contexts has a crucial impact on regime survival.

Hypotheses & Causal Mechanisms

The review of the literature suggests applying arguments and concepts from the

ethnic violence literature to the study of authoritarian regimes and their stabil-‐

ity. In the following section we will propose two sets of hypotheses and the ex-‐

pected mechanisms through which they unfold their effect (Coleman 1994).

Those are subsequently tested with a quantitative statistical model.

Despite other dimensions of regime stability such as repression and legitimacy

playing a crucial role in explaining regime survival or breakdown. First, we ex-‐

pect more inclusive regimes to be more stable than less inclusive ones due to

more successful cooptation of relevant ethnic groups.

H1: inclusion of relevant ethnic groups in cabinet is expected to be indicate effec-‐tive cooptation and thus should make a regime more stable.

lower regime breakdown probablity

less mobilization along ethnic

lines

relevant ethnic groups are represented

inclusion of relevant ethnic

groups

Figure 1 – effect of inclusion on regime stability


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H2: Contrary, exclusion of relevant groups is expected to resemble ineffective coop-‐tation and we would hence expect such regimes to be less stable.

Adopting a more dynamic perspective, we expect changes in ethno-‐political

power status to be particularly important for regime stability. The downgrading

or exclusion of afore included group is expected to have destabilizing effects.

Conversely, we expect the dynamics of inclusion to have positive effects on the

survival of an authoritarian regime. Fully aware that cooptation mechanisms can

only account for partly explaining regime survival we still expect an independent

effect of elite cooptation via group inclusion on regime stability or vice versa for

exclusion.

In the following we will provide an empirical assessment through a TCSC logistic

regression including controls for temporal dependence accounting for static lev-‐

els of inclusion and exclusion.

Methodology, Operationalization & Concepts

Drawing on previous studies we base our analysis on the assumption that au-‐

thoritarian stability is based on multiple pillars: Cooptation, repression, and le-‐

gitimacy (Gerschewski 2013). We then focus on cooptation in multiethnic socie-‐

ties. Our main argument is that in such heterogeneous countries ethno-‐political

inclusion is a relevant dimension of cooptation. This dimension has so far been

overlooked in the quantitative literature on cooptation and authoritarian stabil-‐

higher regime breakdown probablity

grievances mobilize along ethnic lines

groups demand political

representation

exclusion of relevant

ethnic groups

Figure 2 – effect of exclusion on regime stability


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ity. We will now go on to test whether ethnically inclusive authoritarian regimes

are more stable than their more exclusive counterparts.

In order to test our theoretical argument outlined above, we run simple time-‐

series cross-‐section logistic regression models including controls for temporal

dependence as recommended by Carter and Signorino (2010). While more ad-‐

vanced survival analysis methods could be performed, the simple method chosen

here should yield equivalent results in the absence of strong assumptions about

the time dependencies of the baseline hazard of regime breakdown as well as the

temporal effect of the various predictors (Beck, Katz, and Tucker 1998).

Our sample consists of all multiethnic countries (i.e. inhabited by more than one

politically relevant ethnic group) under authoritarian rule. Only in multiethnic

states, ethnic inclusion can reasonably be expected to affect regime stability. In

defining which countries count as autocratic, we rely on Cheibub, Gandhi and

Vreeland (2010) and Alvarez, Cheibub, Limongi & Przeworski (2000), respec-‐

tively. Due to data limitations in some of our control variables, our analysis is re-‐

stricted to the period from 1981 to 2009.

Our dependent variable is an authoritarian regime breakdown. We have dummy

coded one for years in which authoritarian regime collapses and zero otherwise.

Years in which more than one regime collapsed are also coded as one. This

means that we lose some information, but if anything, ignoring very short-‐lived

regimes should produce somewhat more conservative estimates of the effects of

our main independent variables (cf. Escribà-‐Folch and Wright 2010, 347 for a

similar strategy).

Our choice of authoritarian regimes instead of leader survival or authoritarian

spells as unit of analysis is the theoretically most appropriate one and is well in

line with recent work by Svolik (2012) and (Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2012;

Geddes, Wright, and Frantz 2013). Cooptation institutions and strategies should

have an effect on the longevity of a particular regime, not necessarily on the time

in office of one particular dictator. Quite obviously, ethnic inclusion or exclusion

does not affect the odds of a dictator dying in a given year. Neither is it likely to

prevent a certain rotation scheme, e.g. in a military governing council, from op-‐

erating. A focus on authoritarian spells would be equally misleading, since they

end –by definition– in a democratic transition or the collapse of statehood. These


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are, of course, only some, and certainly not the most frequent forms, of authori-‐

tarian breakdown. Thus, we look at authoritarian regimes, which are defined as

“a set of formal and/or informal rules for choosing leaders and policies” (Geddes,

Wright, and Frantz 2013, 1). As soon as these rules are replaced by another set of

rules, an authoritarian regime breakdown is coded. In our robustness checks, we

additionally rely on data from Svolik (2012), who uses a slightly different coding

scheme and, in total, codes less regime changes than Barbara Geddes and her co-‐

authors.1

Our main explanatory variable is Ethnic Power-‐sharing (PS). To test whether our

theoretical expectation that ethnic inclusiveness fosters stability holds, we need

to operationalize ethnic inclusion. We do so in three different ways. First, we

construct an ethnic power-‐sharing dummy coded one for all country years in

which more than one ethnic group has access to executive power. This is a very

simple operationalization, but in multiethnic states it captures quite well wheth-‐

er at least some degree of ethnic inclusion is present. Assuming that rational au-‐

thoritarian elites chose their ethnic coalition partners with an eye on regime sta-‐

bility, we expect a negative coefficient on this variable (Trebbi, Rainer, and

Francois 2013). The data comes from the ETH Zurich’s EPR data set (Cederman,

Wimmer, and Min 2010).

Our second operationalization moves beyond a mere dichotomous coding and

instead seeks to measure the degree of ethnic inclusiveness in a given country

year. It is constructed as the logarithm of the share of politically relevant groups

that are included. We expect that the more of the relevant groups are included,

the less likely ethnically motivated challenges to the regime become. We take the

logarithm of this ration because we expect decreasing marginal utility of inclu-‐

sion (i.e. including the sixth group brings less additional stability than moving

from ethnic monopoly rule to power-‐sharing with just two partners).

Our third operationalization of ethnic inclusiveness interacts the power-‐sharing

dummy described above with the share of the ethnically relevant population

represented in the government (PS*legippop). This is another way of testing our

theoretical rational that the more representative a power-‐sharing coalition is of

1 Our data for the dependent variable thus comes from Geddes, Wright, Frantz (2013) dataset.


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the ethnically relevant population in the respective country, the more stable of a

regime we should observe.

When it comes to control variables we have tried to accommodate for alternative

cooptation explanations as well as explanations of regime resilience that lie with-‐

in other pillars of authoritarian stability.

Alternative mechanisms of cooptation via formal legislative institutions are con-‐

trolled for by including dummies for the presence of a legislature, a single-‐party

or a multi-‐party system. As mentioned before, the presence of legislative body is

expected to serve as a source of institutionalized cooptation of relevant elites

(Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2010; Jennifer Gandhi 2008; Cheibub, Gandhi,

and Vreeland 2010). Further, successful cooptation heavily depends on the re-‐

sources available to any given authoritarian regime. Any investigation of regime

stability thus has to take the availability of resources for cooptation into account

(Pace 2009; Beck 2009). We do so through controlling for the respective re-‐

source rents per capita or the influx of aid funds that may be used to buy off re-‐

gime opponents.23

Concerning repression as widely accepted in the authoritarianism literature we

have included controls soft repression and hard repression (Davenport and

Inman 2012; Davenport 2007). Soft repression is controlled for using an index

ranging from 0 to 14 indicating to which extent the regime respects the following

rights: “Foreign Movement, Domestic Movement, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of

Assembly & Association, Workers’ Rights, Electoral Self-‐Determination, and

Freedom of Religion” (Cingranelli and Richards 2010, 417).4 Accordingly hard

repression is operationalized according to the CIRI Physical Integrity Index rang-‐

ing from 0 to 8 indicating to what extent the regime resorts to “Torture, Extraju-‐

dicial Killing, Political Imprisonment, and Disappearance.” (Cingranelli and Rich-‐

ards 1999, 417)5 Alternatively we tested our model relying upon the Political

2 Availability of resources for cooptation (oil_gas_valuePOP_2000; ODA_log) 3 Data sources: oil & gas data from Ross (2012), aid data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators.

4 Soft Repression (new_empinx) 5 Hard Repression (physint; StateDept)


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Terror Scale (PTS) from Gibney and colleagues (Wood and Gibney 2010) which

did not alter our results.6

Lastly we have tried to control our results for effects stemming from the legiti-‐

macy of the regimes. As the operationalization and measurement of legitimacy in

authoritarian regimes remains problematic we have decided for two proxies of-‐

tentimes relied upon in the literature. Again these represent two dimensions of

regime legitimacy concept as adopted from Easton (Easton 1965, 268;

Gerschewski 2013, 20). Output legitimacy (Scharpf 1998) related to specific

support by the citizens is controlled for by integrating the lagged level of GDP

growth (Merkel et al. 2013). The input dimension of legitimacy or diffused sup-‐

port (Scharpf 1998; Easton 1965) that are defined in less materialist terms are

even more difficult to operationalize. One possibility put forward by (Chenoweth

and Stephan 2012) is to control for the absence of large-‐scale anti-‐regime pro-‐

tests.

Besides the controls for alternate explanations and their effects upon regime

stability we have included a standard set of control variables such as: Population

size (logpop), Recent election (election)7, and the Politically relevant measure of

ethnic diversity (log_no_groups) from EPR, which includes only the politically rel-‐

evant ethnic groups and not all present ones in any country at a given time. Fur-‐

thermore we have conducted an alternative specification in a robustness check

with the ELF index (Alesina et al. 2003) to control for a bias in our ethnic group

measure.

6 Ranging from 1 to 5 (highest level of state terror) 7 From the NELDA data set (Hyde and Marinov 2012)


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Results and Conclusions

The coefficients in table 1 (model 1-‐4) on the PS operationalizations of ethnic in-‐

clusiveness are negatively signed and thus are in line with our theoretical expec-‐

tations across a number of different model specifications.8 All models under the

PS specification and remain significant at the 95% confidence level across all

models (see table 1).

Table 1: Logit Analyses of Authoritarian Regime Breakdown, 1981-‐2009

Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1 8 GWF Dependent Variable (main specification)

(1) (2) (3) (4) VARIABLES Ethnic Powersharing -0.823** -0.862** -0.816** -0.816** (0.373) (0.380) (0.377) (0.390) Legislature -0.972** (0.392) Single Party -0.296 (0.471) Multi-party 0.697 (0.498) Hard Repression -0.088 -0.090 -0.077 -0.045 (0.074) (0.070) (0.078) (0.083) Soft Repression 0.133** 0.157*** 0.123** 0.102* (0.053) (0.055) (0.057) (0.059) GDP per Capita 0.023 0.048 -0.004 -0.041 (0.215) (0.223) (0.220) (0.237) GDP Growth Rate -0.037*** -0.040*** -0.037*** -0.037*** (0.010) (0.011) (0.011) (0.011) Oil Rents -0.002 -0.002 -0.002 -0.002 (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) Aid per Capita 0.0380 0.112 0.022 -0.007 (0.204) (0.201) (0.200) (0.207) Population Size 0.204 0.234 0.186 0.164 (0.178) (0.176) (0.176) (0.177) Number of Ethnic Groups 0.247 0.287 0.230 0.194 (0.342) (0.333) (0.343) (0.342) Election in t-1 -0.268 -0.204 -0.265 -0.285 (0.384) (0.388) (0.385) (0.384) Time 0.095 0.138** 0.103 0.102 (0.068) (0.067) (0.068) (0.068) Time2 -0.312 -0.427* -0.343 -0.348 (0.234) (0.239) (0.237) (0.233) Time3 0.027 0.035* 0.029 0.030 (0.020) (0.020) (0.020) (0.020) Constant -6.149** -6.648** -5.678** -5.588* (2.821) (2.977) (2.893) (2.912) Observations 1,146 1,146 1,146 1,146


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Furthermore the egip_rel_log variant as illustrated in table 2 models 1-‐3 is also

negatively signed and in line and in line with our theoretical expectations across

different model specifications (table 2 model 1-‐3). The confidence level of these

models remains at the 95% or 90% confidence interval depending on the specifi-‐

cation.

Table 2: Logit Analysis of Authoritarian Breakdown, 1981-‐2009

(1) (2) (3) (4) VARIABLES Share of groups included -2.077** -1.819* -1.801* (1.039) (1.013) (1.070) Ethnic Powersharing 0.528 (0.889) Share of rlvt. pop. included 0.317 (0.636) PS x included pop. -1.889* (1.121) Legislature -0.941** -1.012*** (0.394) (0.387) Single Party -0.286 (0.473) Multi Party 0.680 (0.500) Hard Repression -0.070 -0.057 -0.027 -0.085 (0.071) (0.079) (0.085) (0.071) Soft Repression 0.141*** 0.108* 0.087 0.161*** (0.053) (0.056) (0.057) (0.057) GDP per Capita 0.082 0.041 0.008 0.055 (0.226) (0.225) (0.241) (0.230) GDP Growth Rate -0.041*** -0.039*** -0.039*** -0.040*** (0.012) (0.012) (0.012) (0.011) Oil Rents per Capita -0.002 -0.002 -0.002 -0.002 (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) (0.001) Aid per Capita 0.102 0.012 -0.016 0.146 (0.213) (0.212) (0.218) (0.205) Population Size 0.251 0.207 0.186 0.222 (0.178) (0.178) (0.178) (0.181) Number of Ethnic Groups -0.247 -0.262 -0.292 0.306 (0.345) (0.346) (0.350) (0.369) Election in t-1 -0.172 -0.229 -0.247 -0.229 (0.389) (0.385) (0.384) (0.390) Time 0.141** 0.106 0.106 0.152** (0.067) (0.067) (0.067) (0.067) Time2 -0.435* -0.354 -0.360 -0.479** (0.239) (0.235) (0.231) (0.238) Time3 0.036* 0.030 0.031 0.039* (0.020) (0.020) (0.020) (0.020) Constant -5.748* -5.049* -4.989 -6.983** (3.114) (3.057) (3.086) (3.119) Observations 1,145 1,145 1,145 1,146 Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1


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Additionally the interpretation of the interaction term as illustrated in table 2

model 4 suggests that Power-‐sharing significantly reduces risk of regime break-‐

down if coalition partners represent large parts of the country’s politically rele-‐

vant population. Graph 1 below depicts this effect of ethnic power sharing which

lowers the relative risk of regime failure up to nearly 70%.

Graph 1: Average marginal effects of ethnic power sharing

Finally, we conducted a number of robustness checks on our results that are de-‐

picted in table 3. Taking the dataset from Svolik on regime failures as the de-‐

pendent variable our results in the PS measure loses significance, whereas the

Egip_rel_log models remain robustly and negatively associated with regime

breakdown. Using the PTS instead of CIRI measure, as a control for hard repres-‐

sion does not alter the direction or the significance of our results, they remain

robust. Including the protest variable control (Chenoweth and Stephan 2012) as

a proxy for diffused legitimacy the coefficients on the PS models, and the

egip_rel_log models as well as the interaction term specification remain present,

however somewhat smaller and less significant.


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Table 3: Robustness Checks with Regime data from Svolik (2012)

(1) (2) (3) (4) VARIABLES Ethnic Powersharing -0.498 (0.560) Share of Groups included -2.587* -2.662* -2.483* (1.538) (1.551) (1.463) Legislature -0.416 (0.635) Single Party 0.702 (0.655) Multi-Party 0.079 (0.687) Hard Repression -0.151 -0.108 -0.142 -0.105 (0.096) (0.095) (0.110) (0.122) Soft Repression 0.077 0.096 0.115 0.082 (0.081) (0.090) (0.088) (0.091) GDP per Capita -0.352 -0.229 -0.186 -0.260 (0.343) (0.320) (0.331) (0.323) GDP Growth Rate -0.012 -0.017 -0.016* -0.016* (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) (0.010) Oil Rents per Capita -0.001 -0.001 -0.001 -0.001 (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) Aid per Capita 0.473 0.530 0.567 0.483 (0.304) (0.368) (0.346) (0.342) Population Size 0.238 0.292 0.323 0.268 (0.235) (0.242) (0.241) (0.235) Number of Ethnic Groups -0.238 -0.712 -0.683 -0.680 (0.550) (0.455) (0.483) (0.477) Election in t-1 -0.678 -0.622 -0.684 -0.655 (0.627) (0.618) (0.648) (0.623) Time -0.211 -0.107 -0.138 -0.131 (0.238) (0.242) (0.248) (0.248) Time2 2.112 1.465 1.559 1.555 (1.941) (1.964) (2.009) (1.993) Time3 -0.608 -0.485 -0.492 -0.493 (0.445) (0.441) (0.457) (0.446) Constant -3.815 -4.313 -5.338 -3.996 (4.152) (4.101) (4.148) (3.946) Observations 1,311 1,308 1,308 1,308

Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

All in all the evidence of our study suggests that in ethnically diverse countries,

ethnically inclusive authoritarian regimes are less prone to breakdown than

their exclusive counterparts.

Despite the strong effects of ethnic power sharing and the inclusion of politically

relevant ethnic groups across all models we have found some caveats interpret-‐

ing our data remain important. We have not yet come up with a theoretical ex-‐

planation for how our results are not always robust against the use of other

specifications of the dependent variable and/or all control variables.


17

The potential endogeneity problems stemming from the fact that the degree of

inclusiveness may be strategically chosen by the regime as a maintenance strate-‐

gy in order to remain in power and thus is over represented in only in inherently

more stable regimes is a major problem to all research on cooptation (Pepinsky

2014). This remains an issue that by quantitative methods alone cannot be ad-‐

dressed sufficiently.

On the other hand just as the danger of overestimating the effect of inclusiveness

on regime stability there is also an alternative bias to our results based on the

assumption that inclusion only appears when a regime already is threatened.

Thus an expected pattern would be too little, too late inclusion in the face of

crumbling regime stability. For our results this then would mean that we actually

underestimate the true causal effect of inclusiveness on regime stability. Building

on our results and the aforementioned caveats we will turn to some implications

for further research that might serve as a guide for our own future efforts and

those of others estimating effects of ethnic heterogeneity and inclusiveness on

regime survival.

Implications

Our analysis set out to answer the question if the inclusion or exclusion of politi-‐

cally relevant ethnic groups in / from the executive influence authoritarian re-‐

gime survival. Our results confirm a strong effect of ethnic inclusion in the execu-‐

tive on authoritarian survival across a number of models and specifications. This

effect to a large extend also persists if we include an array of controls for other

typically mentioned explanations of regime stability. In sum, our results hint to-‐

wards an independent and relevant effect of ethnic inclusion arrangements in

the executive on authoritarian survival.

Nevertheless the data only indicates a correlation between the two phenomena.

Which means that in order to prove our initial hypotheses, as formulated in

mechanisms, qualitative case study research is inevitable. Such qualitative case

study oriented research also seems necessary in order to tackle the most immi-‐

nent endogeneity problems as mentioned before. In-‐depth case studies at best

enable a look beyond the big picture as depicted in this study and thus allow for


18

tracing the mechanism that we expect underlies the correlations observed in this

study.

Furthermore a combination with already conducted scholarly works on coopta-‐

tion via formal legislative institutions might offer a more comprehensive under-‐

standing of cooptation mechanisms on different levels and dimensions of author-‐

itarian regimes as a whole and their impact upon regime stability.

Personally, we aim at integrating a dynamic interaction term into our analysis in

order to further disentangle the effects of actual up or downgrading of certain

ethnic groups and the effects on regime survival similarly as to works by other

researchers in the field of ethnic conflicts (Cederman, Wimmer, and Min 2010;

Cederman, Gleditsch, and Buhaug 2013). Moreover this study will be extended

by an illustrative case study from the MENA region, which “[…] has not only been

the worlds most undemocratic but also the most ethnically exclusive and dis-‐

criminatory” (Bormann, Cederman, and Vogt 2013, 2).9

9 For a definition of politically included and excluded groups please refer to Cederman, Wimmer and Min 2010: 100f.


19

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