Bastions Against the Fourth Wave: Toward a Theory of Authoritarian Organizations

Abstract

I theorize that a sub-set of states build and maintain authoritarian organizations (AOs) that exist to protect and reinforce authoritarian practices and values. First, I offer a logic for understanding AOs and their contributions to their member states. Second, I develop a framework that hypothesizes a range of benefits that an AO might offer its member states, identifying both material benefits (that contribute to repression and co-optation behaviors) and ideational benefits (that legitimize autocratic behavior) that an AO might provide. Finally, I assess three contemporary AOs: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Qualitative evidence shows that AOs most successfully contribute to the ideational side of the dictator’s toolkit, particularly by co-opting civil society into a structure set and maintained by authoritarians, and legitimizing authoritarian rule via distorting authoritarian practices, bandwagoning mutual rhetorical support at the international level, and challenging democracy as a norm of governance, chipping away at the Third and Fourth Waves of democratization. My research challenges the dominant understanding of IOs as generally democratizing actors, by identifying a subset of IOs that deliberately perform against this expectation. This research agenda also furthers our understanding the dictator’s toolkit by adding an international component to explanations of how non-democratic governments survive and counter democratizing pressures at home and abroad.