Adaptive Authoritarianism via Central Directives and Policy Experiments

Many autocracies rely solely on repression, patronage, and manipulated elections to rule. Other autocracies are distinguished by their adaptive qualities. As a top-down political system, autocracies with single-party states simultaneously issue commands from the top and selectively conduct policy experiments. How are the two actions linked? When do central authorities encourage experimentation, and when do they insist on strict enforcement of policies? This project examines how a single-party autocratic government issues a mixture of ambiguous and clear directives to guide policy experimentation, as well as the conditions under which different types of commands are issued. This project compiles an original dataset on both the central directives issued and the policy experiments conducted by a single-party government from 1978 to 2020. This research program will serve three key objectives. First, the project will produce the first and most comprehensive dataset to date on both commands and experiments in the single-party autocratic bureaucracy. This will shed empirical light on how adaptive governance works and has evolved in the adaptive authoritarian state, and whether or not the regime is likely to remain adaptable and resilient. Second, for comparative political scientists, the project will bring attention to and illuminate the neglected theme of adaptation in the study of authoritarianism. Third, the project will help advance the emerging field of adaptive governance in political economy and international development by demonstrating a testable theory of adaptive governance that goes beyond description and motivates new data collection. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.