Tom Pepinsky

Category: Research

  • Democracy is not Government by Democrats, and Authoritarianism is not Government by Authoritarians

    In a post from October 2015, “Democratic Disappointments, Authoritarian Reformists, and Political Equilibria,” I mused about a seemingly ironic feature of contemporary Malaysian politics. The former dictator Mahathir Mohamad, a staunch defender of ruling party hegemony who happily jailed opponents to his regime, has emerged as one of the key critics of Najib Tun Razak. I suggested that the focus on Mahathir’s potential “change of heart” is entirely misplaced. Such a focus, I argued,

    …reflects a common belief that the views of individual elites are central to understanding the essence of a country’s politics. There are lots of people who demand reform and openness in Malaysia, but when Mahathir does, this clearly changes the game. This belief in turn draws on a common view that the problem of political reform is getting the right people with the right beliefs in office. That is why it is so disappointing when someone like Aung San Suu Kyi fails to live up to her reputation once in office, and why it is so important for so many to ask whether Mahathir has “really” had a change of heart.

    In an interview with ThinkProgress yesterday, I made a related point about President Trump and his administration. Many observers worry that President Trump is at heart an authoritarian, or that he has surrounded himself by authoritarians. The effort then goes to trying to divine the internal mental states or private beliefs and desires of key administration figures. In that interview, I pushed against this tendency, urging a focus instead on administration actions and decisions.

    Why? Because the better way to think about political regimes—the general term for democracies and dictatorships—is to think about them as systems. Systems may have features that are independent of the features of the units that comprise them. Political regimes are comprised of individuals arranged into parties, bureaucracies, factions, movements, organizations, and other social aggregates that interact with one another and with the individuals that comprise them. “Democracy” then is a feature of a system—the regime—rather than a feature of the individuals who comprise it. This view draws on political science research since O’Donnell and Schmitter [PDF] which has focused less on mass or elite attitudes and more on the choices and strategies of actors and groups.

    Viewed this way, democracy is not government by democrats, rather it is nothing more than

    the outcome of struggles among individuals and factions, none of whom may actually value democracy but who may nevertheless find themselves overseeing a democratic regime because no one faction can defeat all others (one such account, by Przeworski, is here [PDF]).

    It follows that an authoritarian regime is also not a government or rule by authoritarians. For some this may be reassuring, but it is not necessarily so. As I commented to ThinkProgress,

    You can become authoritarian without trying. If you corrode systems of parliamentary order to get things done you might undermine institutions that sustain them.

    Just as democracies can be governed by authoritarians, so too can true-believing democrats lay the groundwork for authoritarianism.

    This, to me, is where those concerned with American democracy in these times ought to focus. Not on what elites believe, but what they do to the norms and institutions that sustain our current political regime. And then focus as well on how those democracy-sustaining norms and institutions might be strengthened, regardless of the actions of any administration or any elites.

  • International Relations Theory and the Trump Administration

    Yesterday afternoon, a student asked me in office hours what International Relations Theory has to say about the new Trump administration. There has been some discussion of realism and Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, and some musings about the Trump administration’s implications for different IR paradigms. There is also, obviously, a lot of serious debate about issues of American foreign policy and national interests. Engaged IR scholars such as Elizabeth Saunders, Jeff Colgan, Dan Drezner, and Jessica Weiss (among many others) have contributed significantly to these discussions.

    In the interest of adding just a bit of levity to current events, though, here is the answer that I wanted to give her. Try not to be too offended.

    Offensive realism – Let’s go ahead and invade Latvia first. Heads up, Latvians.

    Defensive realism – Let’s go ahead and fortify Latvia first. Heads up, Latvians.

    Classical realism – Plataea sounds kinda like Latvia.

    Neoclassical realism – We really need a good way to distinguish empirically between underbalancing and nonbalancing right about now.

    Structural realism – If President Trump is not constrained by the international system, then his actions lie outside of the ambit of a Proper Scientific Theory of International Relations.

    Liberal IR – Take preferences seriously yes but also take institutions seriously too. Like the Electoral College.

    Open Economy Politics – Stolper-Samuelson. Michigan. *mic drop*

    Constructivism – See, structure does not determine interests.

    Feminist IR – We’ve been warning you about this for some time now.

    Queer IR – In a post-fact world, foreign policy statements are neither sincere nor strategic.

    Practice theory – Most of what the incoming President does all day is Tweet. We must understand this habitus as constitutive of American foreign policy.

    Bureaucratic politics – Um Gottes Willen we hope that we are relevant.

    Neoliberal Institutionalism – We’ll second that.

    The English School – You know, we’re living in a society.

    Environmental IR – We are pretty much f*cked.

    Postmodern IR – Da Da Da.

    World systems theory – Make America the Core Again!

    Dependency theory – Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

    Postcolonial IR – In othering Putin, you have created him.

    Formal Theories of IR – Um, are we forbidden from employing the common priors assumption now?

    Democratic Peace Theory – Remain calm. All is well!

    Power Transition Theory – China (HT Scott A.W. Brown)

    Post-paradigmatic IR – Let’s ask a comparativist.