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Democratization

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Personal rule, neopatrimonialism, and regimetypologies: integrating Dahlian and Weberianapproaches to regime studies

Farid Guliyev

To cite this article: Farid Guliyev (2011) Personal rule, neopatrimonialism, and regime

typologies: integrating Dahlian and Weberian approaches to regime studies, Democratization,18:3, 575-601, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2011.563115

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2011.563115

Published online: 25 May 2011.

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Personal rule, neopatrimonialism, and regime typologies:

integrating Dahlian and Weberian approaches to regime studies

Farid Guliyev∗

School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany

( Received April 2010; final version received September 2010)

The concepts of personal rule, neopatrimonialism, sultanism and relatedconceptual labels have been widely used in political research, yet remaininadequately conceptualized. To make it a useful analytical category for comparative research, this article clarifies the concept of personal rule,derives its minimal definition and shows its proper genus, state authoritystructure. A new typological framework is advanced as an improvedconceptual scheme that is able to capture variation on two salient dimensionsof contemporary regimes in the developing and postcommunist worlds, theextent of political competition and the type of state authority structure.

Keywords: personal rule; neopatrimonialism; political regimes; stateauthority structure

Introduction

Political personalism, defined as ‘the practice of basing authority primarily on the

person of the ruler [office-holder] rather than the formal office he or she holds’,1 is a

ubiquitous phenomenon despite the almost universal acceptance of formal insti-

tutional legality and public administration, which derives its organizational form

and legitimacy from the principles of Weber’s rational-legal authority.

Whatever form it may take on – clientelism, patronage, corruption, cronyism,rent-seeking or favouritism – personalism in politics always involves confusion by

a public official between his public and private roles. In some of the newer states of

the developing and postcommunist worlds political institutions are typically weak,

and the distinction between the public and private domains is not always observed

in practice, which in the extreme case may result in the ‘privatization of the public

sector’.2 In sum, personalism manifests itself in different forms and therefore

requires approach from different levels of analysis. It can be analysed at the

level of practices (for example, petty corruption), informal coordination

structures (for example, clientelism) or even segments of society (for example,

ISSN 1351-0347 print/ISSN 1743-890X online

# 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2011.563115

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∗Email: [email protected]

Democratization

Vol. 18, No. 3, June 2011, 575–601

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‘anthropological’ clientelism). In this study I focus specifically on personalism at

the level of political regimes, for which ‘personal rule’ is the most generic term.

The study of personal rule has a long tradition in area studies and comparative

research. However, as with some other political science concepts, the eschewing of

relevant scholarly standards by researchers has resulted in a conceptual disorder.3

The present-day rubric of ‘personal rule’ includes a broad range of labels including

‘personal rule regime’, ‘neopatrimonial regime’, ‘prebendalism’, and ‘predatory

rule’.4 These terms are used as an adjective to describe a special subtype of non-

democratic regimes, ‘(sultanistic) neopatrimonial dictatorship’, and ‘personalist

dictatorship’/‘personalist authoritarian regime’.5 They also denote a regime typeon its own: next to ‘neopatrimonial regime’ and ‘personal rule regime’, scholars

use the concepts of ‘(neo)sultanistic regime’, ‘kleptocracy’ as well as such inven-

tive conceptual combinations as ‘patrimonial communism’, ‘(neo)patrimonial

democracy’, ‘patronal presidentialism’, ‘electoral patronal system’, and ‘electoralsultanism’.6 The relationships between these concepts, on the one hand, and

between the concept of personal rule and the democracy/nondemocracy distinc-tion, on the other hand, remain rather ambiguous.

To make it clear, these concepts refer to the ‘same general phenomena under

related theoretical labels’,7 and ‘the theoretical differences [between them] are

trivial and mostly semantic’. 8 The influential concept of personalist authoritarian

regime is defined by reference to the theoretical material on neopatrimonial and

sultanistic regimes.9 Yet, there is still no consensus about the acceptable

meaning of personal rule, not to mention its operationalization. A wide variety of terms, definitions and conceptualizations that exist led some scholars to suggest

that the concept ((neo)patrimonialism, in this case) is so vague and elusive that it

has become a ‘catch-all concept’.10 Some proposed to abandon it altogether.11

In spite of terminological disarray, the concept of personal rule has been part of

important empirical studies concerning subjects ranging from regime change and

revolution to economic development and governance,12 and, as a conceptual

tool, does not seem to have exhausted its heuristic potential in the comparative

study of contemporary political regimes. Rather than being a ‘dying species’,

different forms of personal domination have survived to this day while somenewer ones emerged and matured since the ‘end of the Cold War. Thus said, it is

therefore worthwhile clarifying the concept of personal rule so as to make it a

useful analytical category for comparative research. The clarification of this

concept is also important in light of growing recognition in the comparative politics

literature that the way researchers define and use the concepts may be responsible

for the results they obtain.13

Methodologically, following the approach to concept analysis advocated by

(neo)Sartorian scholars, this article proposes a minimal definitional standard to

guide use of the concept in future research.

14

The analysis is based on a sampleof representative definitions drawn from the English-language literature on per-

sonal rule. A two-dimensional framework for studying regimes put forth in this

article is expected to enable comparatively-oriented researchers to explore

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regimes simultaneously on both the electoral competition dimension and the state

authority dimension, avoiding thus loss of information about important features of

regimes under study.

The article is organized as follows. The next two sections review the concept of

personal rule in the related literature and discuss definitional approaches to the issue.

The third section elucidates the meaning of personal rule and identifies its proper

genus, state authority structure. The fourth section is an elaboration of the concept

of state authority structure. The fifth section advances a two-dimensional scheme

and illustrates how it can be usefully applied to explore contemporary regimes.

Finally, the concluding section considers some implications of these findings for

the study of political regimes in the developing and postcommunist worlds.

Personal rule in history and modern scholarshipModern concepts of personal rule are adaptations of Weber’s concept of patrimo-

nialism.15 In Weber’s tripartite typology of Herrschaft , patrimonialism is a type of

traditionalist domination which develops from patriarchal structure through an

extension of the chief’s family household. From patriarchalism it retains the

source of legitimization derived from sacred tradition. The patrimonial ruler’s

exercise of authority is constrained by tradition but is at the same time arbitrary.

In contrast to patriarchal authority, patrimonial authority is maintained with the

help of an administrative staff which, however, preserves in many respects the

mechanics of the patriarchal household administration. Notably, the patrimonialstaff is used for the personal interests of the ruler whom it also owes personal

allegiance. An extremely discretionary variant of patrimonialism is called

sultanism. To put it succinctly, the essence of patrimonial domination is in

‘government as the ruler’s private domain’.16

The revival of interest in Weber’s concept of patrimonialism is associated with

Guenther Roth whose work has served as the reference point for almost all sub-

sequent conceptual adaptations.17 Weber’s authority type constructs have two com-

ponents, beliefs in legitimacy and modes of administration. As a traditionalist type

of domination, patrimonialism rests, at least partly, on the belief in the sanctity of tradition. However, the logic of ‘conflicting imperatives’ is inherent in Weber’s

ideal type concepts of authority.18 In the case of traditional authority, tension is

between the sacredness of constraining norms of tradition and the ruler’s will to

attain absolute domination. Roth argues that beliefs in traditional legitimacy

eroded in most places of the world but certain related ‘actual operating modes

and administrative arrangements’ survived.19 In view of this change, two types of

patrimonialism can be distinguished: traditionalist and de-traditionalized (personal

rulership). The concept of personal rulership/ personalist patrimonialism, there-

fore, is a ‘diminished subtype’ construct as it negates the traditional basis, one of the central attributes of the root concept.20 The original meaning of the concept

of personal rule emphasizes its root (a type of patrimonialism) and its attributes

(based on personal loyalties and the provision of material incentives and rewards).21

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Roth also shows the applicability of the concept at different levels of analysis:

practices, governance, and government form/regime. While in highly industrial-ized countries personal rulership is an ‘ineradicable component’ of large public

bureaucracies’ administrative practices, exemplified by such phenomena as per-

sonal apparatus and machine politics, in some of the new states of the developing

world, it fills in an inadequately developed institutional matrix. In fact, in such con-

ditions it becomes a ‘merely private government’ for those who are powerful

enough to run it.22 Weakly institutionalized states engender personal governance,

and regimes based on a personal governance structure are the outcome.

Finally, Roth clearly demarcates personal rule from the oft-used distinction

between democracy and totalitarianism. The former belongs to the ‘typology of

beliefs and organizational practices’ that can be found along the continuum

between pluralist democracy and totalitarianism. Since totalitarianism and estab-

lished democracy are institutionalized regimes, they are immune to the formationof ‘private governments’.23

Related to Roth’s concept of personal rulership is the concept of personal rule

developed by African researchers, most notably, Robert Jackson and Carl

Rosberg.24 ‘Political systems of personal rule’ are ‘institutionless polities’ based

on personal relations, coercion and clientelism.25 The authors note that personal

rule is not incompatible with bureaucratization. Thus, making of organizations at

the lower levels of state (bureaucratization) need not be regarded in terms of cre-

ation of effective institutions. For institutions are the rules that effectively bind

the behaviour of political actors. The bureaucratization at the level of administra-tive apparatus together with the accompanying personalization at the level of

decision-making results in the emergence of ‘personal-bureaucratic systems’ in

which the strengthened organizational capacity of the bureaucratic apparatus is

used as ‘an instrument of the ruler’s will to dominate’.26

Like personal rule, the concept of neopatrimonialism was advanced primarily

by African specialists.27 Its basic premise is that patrimonialism is not incompati-

ble with modern state. Not that personal rule is noninstitutionalized, as was argued

before by Jackson and Rosberg; it actually is. Neopatrimonialism is a set of

informal institutions which are regularized, accepted and practiced. O’Donnelldescribes this kind of informal institutionalization as ‘another institutionaliza-

tion’.28 Formal rules, elections and public bureaucracies exist and matter but in

the reality of neopatrimonial regime informal rules and norms take precedence

over formal institutions.

Figure 1 gives an idea of what conceptual modifications were used to re-

conceptualize Weber’s original patrimonialism. As a conceptual construct, neopa-

trimonialism is a mixture of the traditional and legal elements of domination.29

Personal arbitrariness and the conformity with customs are the essential character-

istics of traditional domination from which neopatrimonial rule retains arbitrari-ness but not traditionalism. 30 Under neopatrimonialism, government continues

to be treated by the ruler as largely a private domain, just like under traditional

patrimonialism, but customary restrictions now become irrelevant. Moreover,

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the ruler’s personal powers are now enhanced by his maintaining of modernadministrative and military apparatuses.31

Another prominent concept of personal rule is ‘sultanistic regimes’.32 Inthemost

recent Linzian typology of nondemocratic regimes, sultanism appears as an extre-

mely arbitrary type of semi-traditional regimes.33 A typical neosultanistic regime

is characterized by the fusion of the private and the public, familial power and dynas-

ticism. No distinction is made between a state career and personal service to the

strongman who rules using ‘rewards and fear’ to enact compliance and loyalty.

The concept of personal rule is also used in classical typologies of dictatorial

regimes. Most prominently, ‘personal dictatorship’ appears in Huntington’s typol-ogy alongside one-party systems and military regimes.34 Personal dictatorship is

defined by the author as a regime in which ‘the individual leader is the source of

authority and that power depends on access to, closeness to, dependence on, and

support from the leader’.35 A subset of personal dictatorships, named ‘sultanistic’,

are characterized by ‘patronage, nepotism, cronyism, and corruption’.36 (Table 1

presents a selection of paradigmatic examples of personal rule in modern history.)

Following Huntington’s typology, Geddes creates an elaborate coding of

authoritarian regimes which includes single-party, military, personalist regimes

and their amalgams.37 Synthesizing contributions from the early work on personal

rule, Geddes defines ‘personalist regime’ as a type of authoritarian regime in which

power emanates from the individual ruler who employs an informal patronage

network to distribute material benefits and provides access to office to his

Figure 1. A schematic representation of some re-conceptualizations of patrimonialdomination.

Notes: 1Weber, Economy and Society, 212–41; 2Roth, ‘Personal Rulership’; Remmer, ‘Neo- patrimonialism’; Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa; 3Chehabiand Linz, ‘A Theory of Sultanism’, 3–48; 4Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics,63–8; Lewis, ‘From Predendalism to Predation’, 80.

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collaborators and supporters in exchange for loyalty. The ruler also controls the bureaucratic apparatus and military and prevents their development into strong

power bases that might challenge his rule. In the other two types of authoritarianism,

either the military or the party retains autonomy and has influence on policy-making

and personnel decisions.

Personal rule: ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ definitions

There is variation in the extent of inclusiveness of the commonly-used definitions

of personal rule. For the purpose of creating a ‘minimal’ definitional standard, it is

necessary first to identify an approach which would include neither too much nor

too little in its conception of personal rule. It will be helpful, therefore, to group

existing definitions according to the inclusiveness or ‘thickness’ of their concepts.

Thick concepts are multi-faceted; thin concepts have one or a few characteristics.38

Based on this distinction, three broad lines of thinking about personal rule can be

identified, from thinnest to thickest: ruler-level, statist, and ‘institutionless polity’.

The ruler-level approach

The ruler-level approach focuses on the type of ruler /ruling coalition and itsrelationship with regime institutions. According to this view, personal rule

Table 1. Some paradigmatic cases of personal rule.

Country Ruler Years in power

Central African Rep Bokassa 1966 – 1979

Chile Pinochet 1973 – 1989Cuba Batista 1933– 1944, 1952 – 1959Dem Rep of Congo Mobutu Sese Seko 1965 – 1997Dominican Rep Trujillo 1930 – 1961Equatorial Guinea Macias Nguema 1968 – 1979Haiti Duvalier family 1957 – 1986Indonesia Sukarno 1949 – 1966Iran Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi 1941 – 1979Iraq Saddam Hussein 1979 – 2003Liberia Taylor 1997 – 2003Malawi Banda 1966 – 1994

Mexico Dı́az 1876 – 1880, 1884 – 1911 Nicaragua Somoza family 1936 – 1979 Nigeria Babangida/Abacha/Abubakar 1985 – 1999Panama Noriega 1983 – 1989Paraguay Stroessner 1954 – 1989Philippines Marcos 1965 – 1986Romania Ceauşescu 1965 – 1989Uganda Idi Amin 1971 – 1979

Source: Author’s compilation.

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connotes institutionally unbounded leadership in a nondemocratic regime. This

perspective is best exemplified by Huntington’s concept of personal dictatorship.

Peceny and collaborators argue that ‘the most crucial factor differentiating [author-

itarian] regimes from one another is whether the government is dominated by the

military as an institution, a hegemonic political party, or a single individual’.39

Another example is Brooker’s typology.40 In his framework, Brooker divides

authoritarian regimes into personal versus organizational forms. As the next step,

he subdivides personalized forms into ruling monarchies, ‘leaders of military or

party who are also personal dictators’, and populist presidential monarchies.41 In

Brooker’s account, personal rule is the outcome of the reversal of the principal-

agent relationship between the leader and the organization that put him in power.

Similarly, focusing on the internal dynamics of the ruling coalitions in institu-

tionally weak polities, Acemoglu and his collaborators discuss how a coalition of

military or civilian leaders can be transformed into a personal dictatorship if oneof the junta members manages to dominate all aspects of decision-making by

eliminating and excluding other members of the former junta.42

Pushed to the extreme, this approach detects personal dictators in every type of

authoritarian regimes. This logic excludes personal rule from regime typologies.43

Gandhi and Przeworski classify dictatorships based on the identity of the effective

heads of state, and the resulting typology of monarchical, military and civilian

regimes excludes personal rule.44 The three types, the authors argue, are at least

supported by ‘the first institutional trench’ which surrounds dictators including

consultative councils (monarchies), juntas (military), and political bureaus (single party).45 Nevertheless, the thesis that dictatorial rulers are necessarily institutionally

constrained is not borne out by either empirical research or theory.

The statist approach

Second is the ‘statist’ approach which focuses on the properties of the ‘power infra-

structure’, especially the relationship between a ruler and the state apparatus.46 The

statists’ concept of personal rule takes into account the characteristics of the ruler

and the state apparatus as well as the way the personal ruler actually rules. As its proponents incorporate the power infrastructure (both state apparatus and patron-

client network) into their definition, they explicitly draw on Weber’s sociology of

domination. Some scholars working in this tradition have focused on the distinc-

tion between pre-bureaucratic patrimonialist and professional-autonomous forms

of administration, the latter also known as ‘Weberian’ bureaucracy.47

The statist approach seeks to account for how the institutionally unchecked

ruler actually exercises power in a state. As Roth made it clear, Weber’s sociology

of Herrschaft was concerned not only with the question of beliefs in legitimate

authority but also with ‘the actual operating modes and administrative arrange-ments by which rulers “govern”, not just “rule”’.48 Trying to find ‘how systems

really work’, Weber, ‘always dealt with Herrschaft in terms of both legitimacy

and the typical staff arrangements of the various kinds of rulers’.49

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The ‘institutionless polity’ approach

Finally, the third approach incorporates many more aspects of politics in what its

adherents call ‘systems of personal rule’. Personal rule is defined as a ‘distinctive

type of institutionless polity’ in which all political relations are based on personalinteractions, and in which formal political institutions, such as the constitution, the

legislature, the courts, and the laws play very little role as constraints on politicians’

behavior.50 In this view, formal institutions are regarded as ‘largely irrelevant’.51

To describe the similar set of conditions, other scholars used the concept ‘weak

state’ in which personal rule is a feature pertaining to informal politics in weak

states more generally.52

Discussion

The differences between these definitions are significant. Personal rule defined

through the type of ruler is reductionist allowing some to consider personal rule

a non-type for presumably lacking its ‘own’ institution and drop it out from typol-

ogies.53 The definition of personal rule as ‘institutionless’ politics is too ‘thick’. It

writes features of ‘weak stateness’ into its framework of personal rule and thus con-

flates personal rule with weak state, which in turn is an even thicker concept. The

statist approach is a corrective. It embraces the idea of unbounded ruler but also

shows how a single person can actually enact his domination. As the middle

ground definition, it points to three dimensions that will be sufficient for deriving

a set of ‘minimal’ attributes in the following section. These are leadership/decision-making, public administration and the institutional structure of power.

Deriving minimal attributes

Following Gerring’s minimal strategy of definition – which allows to ‘identify the

bare essentials of a concept’– an analysis of about 40 different definitions of

personal rule helps determine three minimal (and therefore necessary) attributes of

personal rule.54 As Table 2 shows, these attributes are decision-making by a single

person/small clique, neopatrimonial administration and patron-client network.

Power monism

Power monism is, in the words of Weber, ‘a domination over the masses by the Single

One’.55 In systems of personal rule, political power is concentrated in the hands of one

person ratherthan some collectively-run institution. Oftentimes the leader organizes a

clique to support his rule: ‘[d]uring and after a seizure of power, personalist cliques are

often formed from the network of friends, relatives, and allies that surrounds every

political leader’.

56

But since any clique’s survival depends on access to the ruler,cliques do not usually act as a check on the ruler’s powers.

Furthermore, power monism entails but is not limited to the high concentration

of power in the executive. Since the executive can be a collective body, power

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monism means specifically that all the decision-making authority resides within an

individual, not a collective executive (such as a political party or ‘military as an

institution’). Personalized decision-making is, however, not sufficient for a

macro-concept of personal rule. Strictly speaking, it stands for a personal ruler

in the narrow sense.

Neopatrimonial administration Neopatrimonial administration refers to the condition of subordination of the state

coercive and administrative apparatuses to the individual executive on the basis of

the ‘loyalty and rewards’ principle. It is a distinct type of administration as it

combines certain characteristics of both types of Weber’s original scheme. The

ideal-type bureaucracy is a professional organization characterized by ‘formal

employment, salary, pension, promotion, specialized training and functional

division of labor, well-defined areas of jurisdiction, documentary procedures, hier-

archical sub- and super-ordination’.57 ‘Weberian’ bureaucracy also preserves a

degree of autonomy and acts as a ‘corporately coherent entity’.58

Purely patrimonial administration, by contrast, serves as a merely personal

instrument of the ruler.59 A patrimonial administrator’s loyalty to his office is

based not on ‘his impersonal commitment . . .to impersonal tasks which define its

extent and its content, it is rather a servant’s loyalty based on a strictly personal

relationship to the ruler’.60 A patrimonial administration is maintained by the

ruler’s granting of benefices (for example, allowances in kind or fees) and fiefs

to his staff. The ruler recruits his staff according to particularistic, rather than

merit-based, criteria (for example, family membership, inheritance rules, personal

loyalty) to serve mainly the private ends of his leadership.

61

The existence of ‘patrimonial administration’ in modern times would be an ana-

chronism, for most contemporary states are governed with a public administration

which is, at least formally, built on the principles of Weberian legal-rational

Table 2. Attributes of personal rule.

Dimensions ‘Core’ attributes Specifying characteristics

Ruler /decision-making Single person/smallclique(power monism)

Non-institutional decision-making

Weak horizontal constraintsDiscretionary

Public administration Neopatrimonial(hybrid form)

Personal loyaltyMaterial rewardsRadial decision-makingFormally bureaucratic organizationLegal procedures

Institutional structure Patron-client network

Political clientelismInformal PatronageUse of public resources for privateends Particularistic

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bureaucracy.62 While patrimonial administrations differ in their professionalism

and infrastructural capacity – some are simply dysfunctional – conceptually,

however, it is not correct to equate inefficiency and dysfunctionality with

patrimonial administration which, in Weber’s account, is simply a certain kind of

administration.

Some scholars pointed out that Weber allowed for a bureaucratic rationaliz-

ation of patrimonial rulership that did not undermine its essentially patrimonial

character.63 Indeed, Weber referred to certain historical mixes of rational and tra-

ditional forms of domination as to ‘patrimonial-bureaucratic states’. But to avoid

any confusion with those historical forms, the term neopatrimonial administration

can be used to refer to an organizationally hybrid arrangement whereby patrimonial

features are built into the formally structured bureaucratic organization.64 Bratton

and van de Walle describe such constellation in terms of the incorporation of

patrimonial logic into bureaucratic institutions.65 In fact, patrimonial principlesand bureaucratic procedures can reinforce each other.

At a more disaggregate level, a useful distinction can be made between bureau-

cracy’s high-level managers and low-level ‘implementers’. The ruler of a neopatri-

monial staff maintains personal control of the state apparatus through the

appointment of loyal retainees, which stands for the patronage system.66 This is

typically accomplished by providing allies with jobs at the top and high (manage-

rial) levels of public administration. They, in turn, become ‘clients’ of the ruler and

are personally loyal to him. Whereas the traditional patrimonial apparatus in

Weber’s scheme is a personal administrative staff, a modern neopatrimonialadministration is based on personal (non-ideological) loyalty/dependence andsome form of merit-based personnel recruitment at lower levels of bureaucracy.

The typical patrimonial characteristics that can be found in any contemporary

neopatrimonial administration are personal obedience to the ruler by loyalist

office-retainees, material rewards and radial decision-making by direct orders.

Describing Pinochet’s rule in Chile as a neopatrimonial, rather than bureaucratic-

authoritarian, regime Remmer especially highlighted radial decision-making and

personal control.67 Most important, neopatrimonial administration retains

patrimonialism’s private-regardingness: ‘Organizational ends [of patrimonialorganizations] are predominantly the private, subjective ones of their respective

heads, not public, “objective” ones’.68

Patron-client network

Related to neopatrimonial management is the patron-client network . As neopatri-

monial administration presupposes a loyalist network in place, the informal insti-

tutional channel of patron-client ties is embedded in it. By appointing retainees to

the top administrative-bureaucratic positions, the ruler creates an informalnetwork whereby he stands as the chief patron. The retainees of high level constitute

the ruler’s immediate circle of ‘lieutenants and clients’.69 By the same functional

logic, the top-level clients use their status and access to state resources to benefit

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themselves and distribute the spoils of the office to their cronies, relatives and

friends. This stands for political clientelism, namely a system ‘based on an exchange

of political support for material benefits between patrons and clients. . .[involving] a

hierarchical structure where multiple clients are connected to each patron’.70

The patron-client network thus created provides the institutional infrastructure

of power which penetrates the state and society.71 The reach of the patronage

network varies and can be highly consequential for the fate of the regime.72

Surprisingly, however, this attribute of personal rule is neglected in a recent

debate on authoritarian regime types. For instance, Slater criticizes Geddes’ typol-

ogy of authoritarian regimes for being based solely on the procedures for decision-

making and the composition of ruling coalitions.73 Drawing on Mann’s framework,

Slater proposes a two-dimensional typology with variation along both despotic

power (personalized vs. collective) and infrastructural power (party or military).74

The personal type is excluded for allegedly lacking its own institution to enact decisions. However, by concentrating narrowly on regime institutions, the author

overlooks the possibility of the patronage network acting as a functional equivalent.

To summarize, the three features describe what we may call ‘state authority

structure’, that is the patterns of how state authority is organized and how state

power is used.75 Therefore, personal rule can be defined as a type of state authority

structure in which the ruler is an individual leader whose decision-making power

is institutionally unconstrained, who presides over a neopatrimonial public admin-

istration and who uses the patron-client network as the principal institutional

mechanism for wielding political power . Personal rule, however, is not the onlytype of authority structure, and the next section elaborates on other types that

are possible.

On state authority structure

The concept of state authority structure, as it is understood here, encompasses the

extent of institutionalization of government decision-making and the strategies of

administration that the ruler can choose to rely on in his relation with the civil

society. The extent of institutionalization of government decision-making, thefirst component of state authority structure, includes all formal institutional

factors that can operate as constraints on the ruler in his power to make policies.

This includes such things as, for example, a strong political party, government

by military-as-institution, an autonomous legislature, and constitutionalism. The

extent of institutionalization can also be conceived of in terms of the distinction

between personal and legal/institutional rule.76 Based on the discussion in the pre-vious section, a public administration, the second component, can be patrimonial,

neopatrimonial and bureaucratic.

These two components produce the 2X3 matrix. As Table 3 shows, the cellscombining an institutionalized ruler and a patrimonial administration, and a

non-institutional ruler and a legal-rational bureaucracy are incompatible and can

be logically compressed.77 Consequently, we are left with four types of authority

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structure, institutional patronage, legal bureaucratic, patrimonial , and personal

rule.

The combination of an institutional ruler and a neopatrimonial administration

produces the type of authority structure that can be called institutional patronage,

typically in the form of party patronage though military patronage is also a

possibility.78

A non-institutionalized ruler does not match with a genuine (‘Weberian’)

bureaucracy as it does not tolerate rules capable of binding the ruler, and

because legal-rational bureaucracy, by definition, contradicts a single-person

dictate. Truly personal rulers create formal institutions but such institutions typi-

cally turn out to be non-binding.79

The personal authority structure may be further classified into common, decen-

tralized, and highly centralized. The common type includes all the features of personal rule but may develop in two possible directions: toward a more dispersed

clientelism or toward greater centralization. These trends are known in the litera-

ture as prebendalism and neosultanism, respectively.

Lewis defines prebendalism as a ‘decentralized [neo]patrimonial rule’.80 On

the opposite side, neosultanistic subtype of personalist authority structure is ‘a

highly centralized variant of personal governance under which the ruler has

maximum discretion’.81 Chehabi and Linz mention that the difference between

neopatrimonialism and neosultanism lies not only in the degree of arbitrariness

but also in the size of the regime’s clientele.82

As this feature is difficult tomeasure directly, the narrowness of the patronage network (or ‘the circle of

clients’) can serve as an additional qualitative indicator to distinguish between

subtypes of personal authority structures.

An integrative framework

Defining regime

Political regime is a multi-dimensional concept, and one useful approach is to seeregime as a ‘bounded whole’ or a system which shares sets of properties dis-

tinguishing it from other systems.83 Conventionally, the concept of political

regime has been defined by analogy with the formal and informal rules of a political

Table 3. Types of state authority structure.

Type of ruler

Institutional Non-institutional

Public administration Patrimonial Patrimonial Neopatrimonial Institutional patronage Personal rule

Bureaucratic Legal bureaucratic

Note: The cells shaded gray can be logically compressed.

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game determining ‘who has access to political power, and how those who are in

power deal with those who are not’.84 Another scholar defines political regime

as ‘that set of institutions coordinating and controlling the civil administration,

the police, and the military within a state. . ..A regime claims to control a

state’.85 Therefore, if regime refers to a set of rules that regulate access to the

political game and how the game is played, the play itself involves state power.

A regime then is the pattern of rules which regulate access to, distribution and

exercise of state power.

Some scholars have suggested that the concepts of regime and state, and regime

and administration can be analytically distinguished.86 Regimes are more perma-

nent than governments but normally less permanent than states.87 The state is a

more permanent centralized ‘structure of domination and coordination’ encom-

passing an infrastructural apparatus of administrative and coercive organizations

created to extract, manage and distribute resources within the borders of acountry.88

Regimes and states, however, can be closely intertwined in developing

countries.89 It is acknowledged that the ‘distinction between state and regime

can become quite blurred in the real world’,90 and under personal rule, in particular,

regime and state are fused or ‘thoroughly entangled with one another, both closely

identified with the ruler’.91

The framework: Dahlian and Weberian dimensions of political regimeThe framework laid out in this article builds on the conceptual distinctions between

state apparatus/public administration and regime, and between state authority

structure and the conventional democracy/authoritarianism distinction. Regime

and state/ bureaucracy are distinct concepts. Yet, a meshing of these in thedeveloping world context makes their separation analytically counterproductive.

Instead, these dimensions can be seen as complementary and examined together

within the integrative regime framework. Using the partial regime strategy, the

proposed framework dimensionalizes the regime concept into a composite of

two ‘partial regimes’.92

Treating political regime as a composite of partial regimes (rather than as a

regime) helps to distinguish and highlight the link between two most salient

aspects of political regime. The first ‘partial regime’ of access to power (the

Dahlian dimension) stands for what is commonly understood by political regime

(type) – ‘procedures that regulate access to state power’. The second ‘partial

regime’ of state authority structure is that part of regime which describes who

rules how and ‘determines how and under what conditions and limitations the

power of the state is exercised’ (one can call it the Weberian dimension).93

In the proposed framework, ‘access to power’ or the electoral dimension is put forth as foundational. 94 Before turning to the question of authority structure, it

seems to be more appropriate (and necessary) to establish the ‘identity’ of

regime by asking to what extent a given regime tolerates political competition

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for the key governmental offices and whether the elected officials are accountable

to the population. This information can be used to classify regimes according to

Dahl’s criteria of political competition.95

Because many contemporary regimes in the developing and postcommunist

worlds are hybrid (that is, exhibit stable patterns of both democracy and authoritar-

ianism), a simple dichotomous approach to measuring regimes has become almost

obsolete.96 Building on a recently advanced typology, it is possible to identify five

regime categories according to Dahl’s criteria: closed authoritarianism, hegemonic

and competitive authoritarianism (these two are subtypes of electoral authoritarian

regimes), electoral democracy and liberal democracy.97 By matching state auth-

ority types (excluding patrimonial), a useful typology is obtained. The property

space for this 3X5 typology is shown in Table 4.

The relations between the two dimensions of political regime are continually

interactive.98 Organization and exercise of state power along the personal linesrestrict competition and distort institutional checks and balances, whereas competi-

tive elections, where allowed or held, help break up the vicious circle of political

power concentration and provide for greater political accountability.

Cells (14) and (15) in Table 4, standing for combinations of democracy and

personal rule, are shaded for the following considerations. There is little doubt

that personal domination is impossible in an established democracy for it rests

on constitutionalism and the rule of law. Therefore, cell (15) can be eliminated.

As competitive regimes progress in consolidating democracy, they are

expected to move away from personal rule.99

But, unfortunately, the adoption of electoral competition does not ensure that the consolidation of democratic insti-

tutions will ensue. In the table, cell (14) combining a personal authority structure

with a minimalist democracy is shaded to indicate that this combination is possible

depending on how one defines democracy.

Table 4. The property space for the typology of political regimes formed from the partialregimes of ‘access to power’ and ‘state authority structure’.

State authority structure

Legal-rationalBureaucratic

Institutional patronage

Personalrule

Access to Power

Closed authoritarian (1) (6) (11)Hegemonic authoritarian (2) (7) (12)Competitive authoritarian (3) (8) (13)Electoral democracy (4) (9) (14)∗

Liberal democracy (5) (10) (15)

∗∗

Notes: ∗This cell is a combination that is theoretically possible but empirically unlikely (but seeHartlyn, ‘Crisis-ridden Elections’; Webber, ‘Consolidated Patrimonial Democracy?’); ∗∗This cell can

be logically compressed.

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The standard procedural definition of democracy focused on contested elections

and popular participation may not be good at detecting the personalist structuring

and use (and abuse) of state power.100 An elected executive, especially in presiden-

tial systems, can gradually transform a poorly institutionalized democracy into a

sultanistic dictatorship.101 In a minimalist democracy, voters have a means to

punish incumbents. After all, they can vote the incumbent ruler out if he attempts

to personalize the system. However, in this view, voters can oust such ruler only

the next time they vote. Moreover, even a reasonably competitive election may

not guarantee that the personal ruler does not get re-elected. At the more fundamen-

tal level, under conditions of weak institutional restraints, the personal authority

structure can entrench itself in the competitive mechanism by ensuring rotation

of members of the same clique in government.102

An illustrative application

As a way of illustrating its heuristic potential, I present an application of the pro-

posed conceptual scheme. Since this study’s primary interest is in personal rule, I

exclude other types of state authority structure from this illustrative analysis

assuming variation along this dimension will not be called into question. There

is so far no good measure of ‘hybrid’ regimes; nor is there a systematic measure-

ment of authority structures. Perhaps, like any cross-national coding, the measures

used here are not perfect. Nevertheless, relying on existing data, I was able to

identify about 19 unambiguous cases of regimes with personal authority structurewhich existed in 2004, the latest date for which data were available (see Table 5).

Consulting additional literature evinced patterns characteristic of personal rule

continuing to this day in almost all of these regimes.103

Table 5 is interesting in several ways. First, it is noteworthy that most of the

regimes with personal rule structure are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and

post-Soviet Eurasia.104 Secondly, there is a difference in the levels of competition

in these regimes. The third column presents categorizations of these regimes

based on Roessler and Howard’s coding. Together with the Polity score (in the

next column) it aptly illustrates the point: there are two salient dimensions of political regime and personal rule can co-exist with different levels of competition,

from a positive Polity score of 5 in Putin’s Russia to a -2 in Yemen and Chad to a -9

in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. With the universal acceptance of the institutions

and values of democracy, personal rule is not a closed autocracy phenomenon as

has been commonly assumed.

Conclusion

In a 1999 review of Sultanistic Regimes Crawford Young noted, ‘In a world whereregimes must at least maintain the trappings of democracy to be accepted by the

international community, the kind of extravagantly personal rule characterized as

sultanism is perhaps less likely to emerge.’105 True, but why see personal rule in

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Table 5. Contemporary cases of personal rule.

Country Region1Regime category by competition2

Polityscore3 Personal authority structure4

Azerbaijan Eurasia Hegemonic (1993) 2

7 Aliyev family (1993–)Belarus Eurasia Hegemonic (2002) 27 Lukashenko (1994–)Kazakhstan Eurasia Hegemonic (1999) 26 Nazarbayev (1990–)Kyrgyzstan Eurasia Hegemonic (1995) 23 Akayev (1990– 2005)Russia Eurasia Electoral (2000) 5 Putin (2000– 2008)Tajikistan Eurasia Hegemonic (1999) 23 Rahmon (1992–)Turkmenistan Eurasia Closed (1991) 29 Niyazov / Berdimuhammedov

(1990–)Uzbekistan Eurasia Hegemonic (1991) 29 Karimov (1990–)Yemen Middle

East Hegemonic (1999) 22 Saleh (1978-1990, North

Yemen; 1990-, Rep of

Yemen)Libya Middle

East Closed (1987) 27 Gaddafi (1969–)

Burkina Faso Africa Hegemonic (1991) 0 Compaore (1987–)Cameroon Africa Hegemonic (1997) 24 Biya (1982–)Chad Africa Competitive (1996) 22 Deby (1990–)Rep of Congo Africa Hegemonic (2002) 24 Sassou Nguesso (1979-1992,

1997–)Dem Rep of

CongoAfrica Competitive (2006) 5 Kabila family (1997–)

Equatorial

Guinea5

Africa Hegemonic (1996) 25 Obiang (1979–)

Guinea Africa Hegemonic (2003) 21 Conte (1984-2008)Togo Africa Competitive (1998) 24 Eyadema family (1967–)Uganda Africa Competitive (2001) 22 Museveni (1986–)

Notes: 1 Middle East ¼ Mid East, North Africa ¼ N Africa, Post-Soviet Eurasia ¼ PS Eurasia, SubSaharan Africa ¼ SS Africa; 2 Categories represent the most recent values available fromBrownlee’s dataset, ‘Portents of Pluralism’. Closed Authoritarian ¼ Closed; HegemonicAuthoritarian ¼ Hegemonic; Competitive Authoritarian ¼ Competitive; 3 The scores are five-year averages, 2004–2008, (except Kyrgyzstan, 2000–2004) calculated from the combined Polity score.The Polity scale ranges from -10 (complete autocracy) to +10 (complete democracy); the standardthresholds are the following: regimes scoring from -10 to -7 are ‘coherent’ autocracies, those from

-6 to +6 are ‘incoherent’ polities (or ‘anocracies’), and those from +7 to +10 are ‘coherent’democracies (Sources: Polity IV, http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm; Marshall andJaggers, Polity IV Project ; Jaggers and Gurr, ‘Tracking Democracy’s Third Wave’, 473–4); 4 The

primary sources for these assessments are Geddes’ coding of authoritarian regimes, ‘What Do WeKnow’; Brownlee, ‘Portents of Pluralism’; and BBC Country Profiles (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ country_profiles/default.stm). Regimes were considered as having personal authority structure if they were coded as ‘personal’ in Geddes’ and Brownlee’s data. Personal (with single party or military) and triple hybrids were excluded. For newer cases of personal rule in post-Soviet Eurasia,additional sources consulted include: on post-Soviet regimes in general, Hale, ‘Regime Cycles’;Fisun, ‘Postsovietskie Neopatrimonialnie Rezhimi’. On Central Asia and Azerbaijan: Bohr,‘Independent Turkmenistan’; Guliyev, ‘Post-Soviet Azerbaijan’; Ilkhamov, ‘Neopatrimonialism,Interest Groups and Patronage Networks’; Isaacs, ‘Informal Politics’; Ishiyama, ‘Neopatrimonialism

and the Prospects for Democratization’. On Russia and Belarus: Lynch, ‘How Russia is Not Ruled’(Ch.4); Hale, ‘Eurasian Polities’; Eke and Kuzio, ‘Sultanism in Eastern Europe’; 5 Because of itssmall population size, Equatorial Guinea is not included in Geddes’ dataset; yet it is a clear-cut caseof personal rule, see, for example, McSherry, ‘The Political Economy of Oil’.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stmhttp://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htmhttp://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htmhttp://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htmhttp://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/default.stm


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such an exaggerated way and not recognize it as a viable institutional arrangement

of authority and as a strategy of maintaining power? Before it was toppled by US

troops in 2003, Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq for more than 20 years had

been governed as a system of personal rule and, according to an Iraq specialist,

‘[t]he best way to picture the power structure in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is to

imagine a series of widening circles [webs of patronage], with the figure of the pre-

sident at their centre’.106 Furthermore, as the present analysis has shown personal

domination can coexist with the formal institutions of electoral competition.

Personal rule can also be facilitated by the instrumental use of the formal law, as

Akech has recently argued.107

With a clarified and less demanding definition at hand, personal rule can be a

useful analytical concept as it captures well how politics is conducted in some devel-

oping nations. Although constructing better measures of personal rule remains a

challenge, if we are to understand the working of politics in the developing and postcommunist worlds, this need not dissuade us from studying this important

aspect of political life there.

As the analysis in this article has shown, the concept of personal rule

describes properly the state authority structure. This understanding helps to

distinguish and integrate two separate but closely inter-linked partial regimes of

‘access to power’ and state authority structure. The new framework takes into

account the analytical division between the two but strives for their integration

in a complementary and interactive manner. The conceptual scheme will enable

scholars to map regimes along the full spectrum of liberal democracy andclosed autocracy, on the one hand, and along the range of state authority struc-

tures, on the other.

The new framework opens avenues for wider application of some of the

concepts which have traditionally been the prerogative of area studies and

within-region comparisons (for example, Sub-Saharan Africa). As comparative

research has moved toward designing better tools to measure political competition,

the next challenge is to develop better measures of state authority structures,

particularly its personal type and its variants. This article has pointed to three

‘core’ and some specifying attributes of personal rule which can serve as the basis for constructing appropriate measures.

In light of the current scholarly interest in the issues of regime stability in less

than democratic regimes, the proposed conceptual scheme can be especially fruitful.

While recent studies have focused on authoritarian institutions and the role and

consequences of nominally democratic institutions (such as elections, parties and

legislatures),108 extra-electoral factors as well as state authority structure integral

to the concept of political regime have received less attention, especially in cross-

regional research.109 As scholarly interest shifted toward the study of why some

rulers care to ‘dress their windows’ if institutions in nondemocratic contexts arenothing but the ‘window-dressing’,110 the strength of formal institutions has been

taken for granted and the role of actual modes and structures of governance, includ-

ing that of informal institutions, has been unduly neglected.111 In this regard, it is

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worthwhile revisiting some of the older theoretical concepts which, with some

exceptions, have been largely underutilized in recent ‘generalist’ comparative

research.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Matthijs Bogaards, Guenther Roth, Nozima Akhrarkhodjaeva,and the anonymous reviewers and editors of this Journal for valuable suggestions andencouragement. He also thanks Barbara Geddes, Jason Brownlee and Marc Howard for pro-viding their data on political regimes, and the OSI Global Supplementary Grant Program for additional financial support for his PhD study.

Notes

1. Zagorski, Comparative Politics, 58.2. Médard, ‘Underdeveloped State in Africa’, 177. As Médard notes, particularistic

practices can transform ‘the whole functioning of the political system’ such that ‘adifference in quantity generates a difference in quality’, ibid., 185.

3. For this reason, multiple conceptual problems emerged in the study of Third Waveregimes; see Collier and Levitsky, ‘Democracy with Adjectives’.

4. These five labels are taken from, respectively, (1) Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa; Jackson and Rosberg, ‘Personal Rule: Theory and Practice’;and Sandbrook, Politics of Africa’s Economic Stagnation; (2) Albrecht, ‘Political

Opposition’, Ch. 1; (3) Médard, ‘Underdeveloped State in Africa’; Remmer, MilitaryRule; Remmer, ‘Neopatrimonialism: Politics of Military Rule in Chile’; Snyder,‘Explaining Transitions from Neopatrimonial Dictatorships’; Bratton and van deWalle, ‘Neopatrimonial Regimes’; and Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic

Experiments in Africa; (4) Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics; (5) Lewis,‘From Predendalism to Predation’.

5. See, respectively, (1) Goodwin and Skocpol, ‘Explaining Revolutions’; andGoodwin, No Other Way Out ; (2) Huntington, Third Wave; Huntington, ‘HowCountries Democratize’; and Geddes, ‘What Do We Know About Democratization’.

6. In the order given, these seven terms are from (1) Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition; Thompson, Anti-Marcos Struggle; Chehabi and Linz, ‘A

Theory of Sultanism’; Snyder, ‘Paths out of Sultanistic Regimes’; Kamrava, ‘Non-Democratic States’; Linz, Authoritarian and Totalitarian Regimes; and Zagorski,Comparative Politics, Ch. 11; (2) Andreski, African Predicament ; and Acemoglu,Robinson, and Verdier, ‘Kleptocracy and Divide-and-Rule’; (3) Kitschelt et al.,

Post-Communist Party Systems; (4) Hartlyn, ‘Crisis-ridden Elections’; and Webber,‘Consolidated Patrimonial Democracy?’; (5) Hale, ‘Regime Cycles’; (6) Hale,‘Eurasian Polities as Hybrid Regimes’; (7) Thompson and Kuntz, ‘After Defeat’.

7. Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 63.8. This is the conclusion from Jean-François Médard’s analysis, as cited in Bratton and

van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 90; see also van de Walle, ‘ThePath from Neopatrimonialism’, 1.

9. Geddes, ‘What Do We Know’, 132– 4; Ulfelder, ‘Contentious Collective Action’,315.

10. Theobald, ‘Research Note: Patrimonialism’, 555; see also Erdmann and Engel,‘Neopatrimonialism Reconsidered’.

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11. Hadenius and Teorell, ‘Pathways from Authoritarianism’; Pitcher, Moran, andJohnston, ‘Rethinking Patrimonialism’; Magaloni, ‘Credible Power-Sharing’.

12. ‘Personalist regimes’ were shown to be the second, after single-party, most stabletype of authoritarianism: Geddes, ‘What Do We Know’. Some historical cases

were remarkably durable: Snyder, ‘Paths out of Sultanistic Regimes’, 62– 7;Remmer, Military Rule; Remmer, ‘Neopatrimonialism’. This invalidated earlier beliefs in the inherent instability of personal rule: for example, Huntington, Political Order , 1 – 24. In regimes of personal rule, democratic transition and immediatedemocratization are typically difficult to achieve: Snyder, ‘Explaining Transitions’;Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments; Linz and Stepan, Problems of

Democratic Transition. In contrast to more corporate and bureaucratized forms of authoritarianism, neopatrimonial dictatorships have been found to be more suscep-tible to revolutionary overthrow: Goodwin and Skocpol, ‘Explaining Revolutions’;Goodwin, No Other Way Out . Political opening here is normally driven by

popular protest: Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments. But even

after they collapse, neopatrimonial regimes are most likely to be replaced by other types of nondemocratic rule: Huntington, ‘How Countries Democratize’; Linz andStepan, Problems of Democratic Transition. Alongside the effects on regimechange, personal rule is associated with a set of negative economic outcomes,high levels of corruption, and poor governance: Jackson and Rosberg, Personal

Rule; Sandbrook, Politics of Africa’s Economic Stagnation; Chehabi and Linz, ‘ATheory of Sultanism’, 21– 3; van de Walle, African Economies; Chang andGolden, ‘Sources of Corruption in Authoritarian Regimes’.

13. Munck and Snyder, ‘Mapping Political Regimes’.14. Collier and Gerring, Concepts and Method in Social Science.15. Weber, Economy and Society, Vol. I, Ch. III: 226–41; Vol. II, Ch. XXII, 1006–10;

see also Bendix, Max Weber , Ch. XI, 329 – 84; Murvar, ‘Some Reflections onWeber’s Typology’.16. Bendix, Max Weber , 334.17. Roth, ‘Personal Rulership’.18. Gould, ‘Conflicting Imperatives’.19. Roth, ‘Personal Rulership’, 195.20. Collier and Levitsky, ‘Democracy with Adjectives’.21. Roth, ‘Personal Rulership’, 196.22. Ibid.23. Ibid., 197.24. Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule; Jackson and Rosberg, ‘Personal Rule: Theory

and Practice’.25. Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule, 8.26. Ibid., 5.27. For example, Médard, ‘Underdeveloped State’; Bratton and van de Walle, Demo-

cratic Experiments.28. O’Donnell, ‘Another Institutionalization’.29. Erdmann and Engel, ‘Neopatrimonialism Reconsidered’.30. Bendix, Max Weber , 295, 340.31. Remmer, ‘Neopatrimonialism’, 165.32. Chehabi and Linz, ‘A Theory of Sultanism’.33. Linz, Authoritarian and Totalitarian Regimes, 143–57.34. Huntington, Third Wave; Huntington, ‘How Countries Democratize’.35. Huntington, ‘How Countries Democratize’, 581.36. Ibid.37. Geddes, ‘What Do We Know’.

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38. Coppedge, ‘Defining and Measuring Democracy’.39. Peceny, Beer, and Sanchez-Terry, ‘Dictatorial Peace?’, 17.40. Huntington, ‘How Countries Democratize’; Brooker, Non-Democratic Regimes;

Brooker, ‘Authoritarian Regimes’.

41. Brooker, ‘Authoritarian Regimes’, 142.42. Acemoglu, Egorov, and Sonin, ‘Do Juntas Lead to Personal Rule?’.43. Hadenius and Teorell, ‘Pathways from Authoritarianism’; Magaloni, ‘Credible

Power-Sharing’.44. Gandhi and Przeworski, ‘Cooperation, Cooptation, and Rebellion’; Gandhi and

Przeworski, ‘Authoritarian Institutions’.45. Gandhi and Przeworski, ‘Cooperation, Cooptation, and Rebellion’, 16– 17.46. Munck and Snyder, ‘Mapping Political Regimes’, 22.47. See, for example, Evans and Rauch, ‘Bureaucracy and Growth’.48. Roth, ‘Personal Rulership’, 195.49. Ibid.

50. Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule, 8.51. Posner and Young, ‘Institutionalization of Political Power in Africa’, 126.52. For example, Forrest, ‘Asynchronic Comparisons’.53. For example, Slater, ‘Iron Cage in an Iron Fist’; Lai and Slater, ‘Institutions of the

Offensive’; Gandhi and Przeworski, ‘Cooperation, Cooptation, and Rebellion’.54. Gerring and Barresi, ‘Putting Ordinary Language to Work’; Gerring, Social Science

Methodology; the full sampling of definitions on which this analysis is based isavailable from the author.

55. Weber cited in Murvar, ‘Some Reflections on Weber’s Typology’, 379.56. Geddes, ‘What Do We Know’, 130.57. Weber, Economy and Society, 1393.

58. Evans, ‘Predatory, Developmental, and Other Apparatuses’, 567.59. Weber, Economy and Society, 231– 2.60. Ibid., 1030– 1.61. Ibid., 1031– 8; Delany, ‘Development and Decline’.62. Erdmann and Engel, ‘Neopatrimonialism Reconsidered’.63. Hutchcroft, ‘Oligarchs and Cronies’, 416, 438; Callaghy, State-Society Struggle,

73–5.64. Clapham, Third World Politics, 48–9.65. Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments, 62.66. Riggs, ‘Fragility of the Third World’s Regimes’, 229.67. Remmer, ‘Neopatrimonialism’, 165.68. Delany, ‘Development and Decline’, 466.69. Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule, 41.70. Kurer, ‘Political Foundations of Economic Development Policies’, 653.71. Snyder and Mahoney, ‘Missing Variable’; Munck and Snyder, ‘Mapping Political

Regimes’.72. Snyder, ‘Explaining Transitions’.73. Slater, ‘Iron Cage in an Iron Fist’; Lai and Slater, ‘Institutions of the Offensive’;

Geddes, ‘What Do We Know’.74. Slater, ‘Iron Cage in an Iron Fist’; Mann, ‘Autonomous Power of the State’.75. Kohli, State-Directed Development , 9.76. Lange, ‘Rule of Law’, 52 – 4.77. On logical compression and other typological techniques, see Elman, ‘Explanatory

Typologies’.78. The literature on patronage parties and the state is abundant; on Western countries,

see Shefter, Political Parties and the State; Piattoni, Clientelism, Interests, and

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Democratic Representation; for the developing world, see for example, Smith, ‘Lifeof the Party’.

79. This useful distinction between binding and non-binding institutions is from Wright,‘Do Authoritarian Institutions Constrain?’.

80. Lewis, ‘From Predendalism to Predation’, 80; also see Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria, 63–8.81. Roth, ‘Personal Rulership’, 203.82. Chehabi and Linz, ‘A Theory of Sultanism’, 9 – 10.83. Collier and Adcock, ‘Democracy and Dichotomies’.84. Remmer, ‘Exclusionary Democracy’, 65; Fishman, ‘Rethinking State and Regime’,

428.85. Rose, ‘Dynamic Tendencies’, 602– 3.86. Fishman, ‘Rethinking State and Regime’; Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan; Goodwin,

No Other Way Out ; Mazzuca, ‘Reconceptualizing Democratization’.87. Fishman, ‘Rethinking State and Regime’, 428; Goodwin, No Other Way Out , 11– 13.

88. Fishman, ‘Rethinking State and Regime’, 428; Mann, ‘Autonomous Power’.89. Lawson, ‘Conceptual Issues’, 187.90. Goodwin, No Other Way Out , 13.91. Chehabi and Linz, ‘A Theory of Sultanism’, 10; quote is from Fishman, ‘Rethinking

State and Regime’, 428.92. Schmitter, ‘Consolidation of Democracy’, 426– 30.93. Snyder, ‘Beyond Electoral Authoritarianism’; Schedler, ‘Logic of Electoral

Authoritarianism’, 6; quote is from Lawson, ‘Conceptual Issues’, 187.94. Bratton and van de Walle’s approach reverses the logic suggested in this study. The

authors differentiate between neopatrimonial regimes based on Dahl’s criteria of Polyarchy although their definition of neopatrimonialism places a strong emphasis

on informal institutions. In a similar criticism, Snyder and Mahoney (‘TheMissing Variable’, 112) point out, ‘The dimensions of participation and competitionthat anchor Bratton and van de Walle’s regime typology. . .do not discriminate amongcases of neopatrimonialism in terms of their varied patronage institutions.’

95. Dahl, Polyarchy.96. For discussion, see Bogaards, ‘How to Classify Hybrid Regimes?’.97. Howard and Roessler, ‘Liberalizing Electoral Outcomes’.98. Schedler makes a similar point in ‘Logic of Electoral Authoritarianism’, 6.99. van de Walle, ‘Path from Neopatrimonialism’.

100. For example, Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development .101. See Thompson’s study of the Philippines in Anti-Marcos Struggle.102. On how an unconsolidated democracy can degenerate into a neopatrimonial or

delegative democracy, see Hartlyn, ‘Crisis-ridden Elections’; O’Donnell, ‘DelegativeDemocracy’. On how electorally competitive regimes coexist with neopatrimonialismin some African countries, see Lindberg, ‘It’s Our Time to Chop’. Bratton and van deWalle also observe that in Africa ‘big-man democracy is emerging, in which the formaltrappings of democracy coexist with neopatrimonial political practice’, Democratic

Experiments, 233.103. All sources appear in the notes section under the table.104. In both regions states suffer from a set of similar syndromes of the crisis of stateness;

see an excellent collection of essays comparing postcolonial Africa and post-Soviet Eurasia in Beissinger and Young, Beyond State Crisis?

105. Young, ‘Resurrecting Sultanism’.106. Tripp, ‘How Saddam Rules Iraq’.107. Akech, ‘Constraining Government Power in Africa’; see also Diamond, ‘Progress

and Retreat in Africa’.

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108. On the former see, for example, Brownlee, Authoritarianism in an Age of Democra-tization; Magaloni and Kricheli, ‘Political Order and One-Party Rule’; on the latter,see, for example, Schedler, Electoral Authoritarianism; Gandhi and Przeworski,‘Cooperation, Cooptation, and Rebellion’; Gandhi and Przeworski, ‘Authoritarian

Institutions’; Gandhi, Political Institutions under Dictatorship.109. Snyder makes a similar point in ‘Beyond Electoral Authoritarianism’.110. Gandhi and Przeworski, ‘Authoritarian Institutions’, 1292.111. As Helmke and Levitsky (‘Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics’, 725– 26)

pointed out, ‘Such a narrow focus [on formal institutions] can be problematic, for it risks missing much of what drives political behavior and can hinder efforts to explainimportant political phenomena’.

Notes on contributor

Farid Guliyev is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science and a research associate at theTEAMS Research Center, both at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. He is currentlyworking on his PhD thesis on the relationship between oil wealth and personal rule in thedeveloping and postcommunist worlds.

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