Ruling coalitions, policy responses, and authoritarian regime durability: The cases of Morocco and Uganda

In the post-Cold War era, the prevailing thought was that all countries were in the process of democratization. Authoritarianism was explained away by this teleological assumption, as it was assumed that authoritarian regimes were merely proceeding along the path to democracy more slowly than other countries. Since 2001, the combination of long-lasting authoritarian regimes and the number of nascent democracies that have reverted back to authoritarianism has challenged this assumption of democratization. This new reality has caused scholars to focus on determining why authoritarian regimes have endured.;This dissertation seeks to provide answers to the following questions: Why do some authoritarian regimes persist whereas others fail? What makes a regime more susceptible to pressures from both within and outside of the regime? This research adds to the debate regarding the impact of crises on authoritarian regime durability by looking at the role that ruling coalition centralization plays. Basing my argument in the nexus of the rational choice, structuralism, and state-society paradigms, I argue that the key difference between regimes that withstand crisis and those that do not is the degree to which the dictator's ruling coalition is centralized. Decentralized coalitions lead to elite competition as institutions outside of the executive office become politicized. Due to this competition among elites the response to the crisis is mismanaged, thereby greatly increasing the possibility of regime change. Centralized coalitions depoliticize institutions outside of the executive branch and help prevent elite-level competition. The lack of elite competition enables centralized regimes to more effectively manage crises, which in turn lessens the impact of potentially destabilizing crises.;In order to answer these questions I take a mixed methods approach, combining empirical analysis of 234 authoritarian regimes from 1960 to 1999 with a comparative case study of Morocco and Uganda. In doing so I analyze the role that cooptation and coercion play in stabilizing authoritarian regimes, arguing that dictators manipulate institutions in order to monitor other elites and distribute patronage. Effectively doing this allows them to centralize the ruling coalition, which in turn allows them to better respond to potentially destabilizing mass protest events.