Like a Root Out of Dry Ground: Small Business Support for Non-Systemic Opposition under Electoral Authoritarianism
Open AccessSince the “end of the transition paradigm” in the study of democratization and regimes, scholars have grappled with the meaning of opposition under authoritarian dynamics that have proven perplexingly stable. More recent research recognizes opposition around elections as profoundly meaningful in signaling regime weakness, even in the absence of opportunity for breakthroughs. Though incumbents manipulate control of institutions to rig elections, opposition forces can impose costs on the regime’s future sustainability by exposing its need to adopt strategies of repression and cooptation to cover vulnerabilities. But what accounts for non-systemic opposition success even under restrictive conditions? Whether possible outcomes of authoritarian elections are limited to pre-determined incumbent victory or include democratic breakthrough, non-systemic opposition parties must develop bases of support for money and votes. I focus on structural factors affecting the process of building this support. Specifically, I argue that concentration of small businesses on the subnational level accounts for variation in electoral support for non-systemic opposition parties. I emphasize three barriers to building support in an electoral authoritarian context that small businesses are especially capable of helping non-systemic party organizations overcome: 1) resources, 2) risk, and 3) regime monitoring. To test my theory, I utilize not only a contemporary case, but also historical cases of non-systemic opposition, leveraging the stark legibility of small business in predominantly agricultural economies in the form of agricultural smallholdings. I test my theory with a mixed-methods approach: qualitative comparison of peasant opposition in post-Ottoman Bulgaria and Rumania, a statistical analysis of smallholding’s effect on support for the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union on the sub-national level, and a statistical analysis of small business concentration on non-systemic opposition party support in the 2016 State Duma Elections in Russia.
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Augustine_gwu_0075A_16637.pdf | 2024-01-11 | Open Access |
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